What’s Cooking and Meal Prep

I did a little mid week meal prepping last night.

Salad in a jar with cucumber, tomato, mushroom, dried cranberries, romaine lettuce, sunflower seeds and a tiny bit of sharp cheddar. The dressing is homemade vinaigrette.

Salad in a jar is all about layering the ingredients to help them stay fresh and keep them from getting soggy.

Salad dressing on the bottom, then layer ingredients that are more tolerant to the dressing like cucumber and cherry tomatoes, then layer the more tender ingredients as you go up the jar like the lettuce and cheese.

Salad in a jar will stay fresh in the fridge for a good five days which makes it a great choice for weekly meal prepping.

This was last nights dinner.

Our farm raised roasted pork loin with roasted carrots and salad with apples, walnuts and the homemade vinaigrette.

It was delicious.

What’s cooking for you? Are you doing any weekly meal planning and prepping?

Till next time,

Lori

Peeling A Fresh Egg

Have you ever tried to peel a fresh boiled egg?

I mean a egg that came straight from the chicken into your house, bypassing the grocery store where they may be a month or more old.

Well let me tell you that peeling a fresh egg can be quite challenging because the shell and membrane does not want to separate from the egg.

Quite often they tear apart or big chunks peel off with the shell and it is very frustrating.

Usually this is how they look.

Not a pretty sight, especially for your deviled eggs that you want to look beautiful and delicious.

Well let me save you from the frustration and tell you how to peel a farm fresh egg perfectly.

Instead of boiling your eggs in water, you need to steam them in a steamer for 20 minutes.

That’s it! That’s the secret to peeling a fresh egg.

I imagine that any type of steamer would work, but I use a stove top steamer.

Steam your eggs then rinse them in cold water and peel away just as you normally would and the shell will come right off the egg.

You’re welcome 🙂

Till next time,

Lori

What’s Cooking 4/19/16?

This week is going to be a use it up week for meals. I noticed this morning that I have 6 dozen eggs in the refrigerator. We need to eat some eggs y’all! I made a batch of deviled eggs this weekend that we really enjoyed with our hamburgers and I think hamburgers has become our new favorite meal. SO GOOD!

Clearly eggs need to also become our favorite meal.

Deviled eggs it shall be….

Several years back I got into grilled cheese sandwiches. I experimented with all different types of cheeses and breads. I think our favorite was a grilled gouda cheese with an awesome fig jam (that was given to us) spread on marble rye bread. I think typing that just made me hungry! Again, SO GOOD!

I’m going to start experimenting with deviled eggs (like I did with grilled cheese) instead of making the same recipe every time. I saw one recipe that included caviar. That is not in the budget, and honestly I’ve had caviar and wasn’t impressed really. What would be fun is for y’all to share your favorite deviled egg recipes with me to try.

What’s Cooking 4/19/16?

Breakfast: Kashi autumn wheat cereal
Lunch: tuna salad with whole grain Wasa crackers, deviled eggs
Dinner: sausage and potato hash with either fried eggs or I’ll make it into a strata with a salad on the side.

Here is a pic of the eggs I boiled this weekend. I heard on some cooking show that the tell tell sign of an over cooked egg is the green ring around the yolk. No green on these eggs.

IMG_20160416_172042359

I love my chickens, they bless us with the most beautiful eggs every day. Like the Z Man says, “the best eggs you’ll ever eat”

Here is a picture of my favorite crackers that I’m having with my lunch today. They are plain and simple, three ingredients and only 40 calories, and good too.

What do y’all have cooking today?

Have a great day!

Till Next Time,

Lori

It’s Garden Time

The tomato seedlings are doing good. So far so good. In the past we haven’t done well with seedlings and have had to use already established plants from our local nursery. There isn’t anything wrong with that except it’s not as cost effective as starting your own. In a mode of uncertainty I planted extra thinking that if some died off then we still had a chance. Looking at them now, if all of these seedlings make it we are going to be up to our ears in tomatoes this year.

I ordered our seeds from Burpee this year and I got all organic and some heirloom varieties. I got roma, san marzano, heirloom slicers, and black cherry tomato seeds. I’m especially excited about the black cherry tomatoes.

If I’m being honest, I have to admit that in years past I’ve been guilty of not enjoying our gardens. I get so wrapped up in the process of canning and putting up the harvest that I forget to enjoy the seasons of fresh picked, sun kissed, sweet vegetables. Not this year. While I still intend to put up the harvest, more importantly I plan to enjoy all the fruits of the Z Man’s labors to the fullest all summer long, and I can’t wait!

This weekend we planned the layout of the garden and we’ll start putting stuff in the ground this week.

Oh, and on another exciting note we ordered our two piglets this weekend too. They were just born 4 days ago so it’ll be a bit before we get them. I love this time of year and just love our life. 🙂

Have a great day!

Till Next Time,

Lori