Wordless Wednesday

Are you ready for some football?

This is the San Diego Chargers' practice field - it's close to where I work!  I love football.  I'm a die-hard Vikings fan (grew up in Minnesota) and also love the Chargers.  Anyone else out there happy that football is finally here?

(ok, those are some words... but not many....  possibly it should be called not too many word Wednesday?)




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Tuesday Garden Party - It's a Start!

We got started on our fall garden this weekend!  I started with this:

And a bunch of newspapers.  I used the newspaper to make little pots in which to plant the seeds.  And here they are!

I started with the peas and 1/3 of the lettuce.  I'll plant the at intervals so that (hopefully) we'll have lettuce to harvest throughout the fall.

I'll be planting carrots, onions and broccoli next month.  That should give us some nice fall/winter veggies.  In theory.  ;-)

We also bought our tulip and daffodil bulbs to plant in the front beds for next spring.  They are so pretty, I'm not sure I can wait until spring to see them!

The Mr and I have been talking about making our garden bigger.  Maybe even building a greenhouse type structure to take advantage of some of the unused space in the yard.  That way we can grow more - maybe bell peppers, squash, more strawberries, carrots and potatoes next year?  Even some melons and pumpkins? We'll have to see - but planning it certainly is something to get excited about!

Though I've started the fall garden, we've still got plenty of summer left here in San Diego. Next week I hope to have some more veggies to harvest - come on back to see what we've got. In the meantime, check out An Oregon Cottage for her weekly Garden Party.

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Do You Cache?

Have you heard of geocaching? Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

I started geoocaching in 2001 while on an extended business assignment in Peoria, IL (a spot not known for its entertainment... apologies to any Peorians reading this). Lots of parks in the area, lots of great places for caching.

As much as I loved this activity, it was always kind of a pain to do.  We had to go to the website, download the cache data to our GPS devices, print out the cache info... then once we are done, log allthe caches we found.  Lots of planning.  So we tended to only do it occasionally.  Once every two or three months if we were lucky.
Then we got our DROIDs.  And we got a fabulous (and free) geocaching app!  This app shows us caches nearby wherever we are, acts as our GPS to help us locate the cache, shows us all the info that we would normally have to print, and allows us to log the cache right when we find it.  SO much more efficient.

In fact, so easy that we found 8 caches over the weekend when we were out doing errands!

Have you ever heard of geocaching?  Are you a cacher?  "Friend" me on the site if you want - I'm "Aurora"!




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Sunday Snapshot - Surprises!

We had a gorgeous San Diego day today. The Mr and I spent some time in the yard - I raked and raked up eucalyptus leaves. I love the trees - they grow fast and give our house lots of shade,
but they are messy!

I cleaned tons of leaves out of our enormous aloe plant that lives under one of our eucalyptus trees. Less than 10 minutes later The Mr finds this little lady in the aloe plant, just where I had been clearing leaves - surprise!    She built that web really quickly!

(I won't zoom in any further - she's kind of intimidating!)

We had a great haul in our CSA box this week. A couple of things I had never cooked with before.

With some of our CSA take I made Eggplant Parmesan with zucchini (surprise!).  Kind of Zuggplant Parmesan.  I modified a recipe I found from Cooking Light.

Wow!  This was fantastic!  I was totally surprised at how much I liked it!

We served it with delicious homemade whole grain bread and roasted asparagus.

Probably the biggest surprise was that The Boy liked it! Ate his entire plate of it.

We also had the most amazing dessert.  Strawberry Rhubarb Souffle.  I was surprised that it came out perfectly, had the most amazing light texture and sweet-tart rhubarb flavor, and was incredibly light calorie-wise.  Surprisingly I didn't get any pictures.  :-(

What a wonderful harvest dinner.  We are really enjoying our CSA - seasonal dinners are fun!














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Honeydew Cucumber Salad

This was a delicious dish! Really refreshing and cool on a hot summer night. It reminded me of a dish my dad would make in the summertime - cucumbers, vinegar, sugar and water. I don't think anything else... and that was tasty too.

Try this one - even The Children liked it!

Honeydew Cucumber Salad
Yield: Makes 5 cups; 4 to 5 servings

Ingredients
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups cubed or balled honeydew melon pieces
2 cupa diced peeled cucumber
1 cup halved seedless green grapes
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

Preparation
1. In a 1- to 1 1/2-quart pan, combine vinegar, honey, 1/4 cup water, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and salt. Simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes, then boil over high heat, stirring often, until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 2 minutes longer. Let cool.

2. In a salad bowl, combine vinegar mixture, honeydew, cucumber, and grapes. Cover and chill, stirring occasionally to blend flavors, at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.

3. Stir in chives. Spoon onto plates to serve.

(adapted from Sunset Magazine)





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I Remember

9 years ago on this day at this time, terrorists flew a plane into the first of the World Trade Center towers, changing our lives forever.

I remember waking up that morning and watching the news.  Our local news switched to the Today Show shortly after that plane hit.  I stayed glued to the news throughout the day and evening.

Over the next few hours, as things became more clear (and more confused) we began to realize what had happened.

Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives.

Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, friends, colleagues were lost that day.

We all lost something that day.  We lost our sense of security.  We lost some of our freedom.

I think we forget, as we grumble our way through the extra security at the airport, why we live this way now.  We forget that some terrorists attacked us.  On our home soil.

In the subsequent years, more American lives have been lost protecting our home and our freedom.

Today I hope you remember those whose lives were taken in hate and those who have given their lives in the name of freedom.

Freedom isn't free.  I remember.

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Canning Tomatoes

All summer long, I have been waiting for my tomatoes to look like this:

(this is not from my plant unfortunately)

So that I could make some of this:

(this did in fact come from my kitchen if not completely from my garden)

Tomato sauce is the reason I planted the darned tomato plants in the first place.

The tomatoes have not been cooperating.

However, the nice people at the farmer's market are having great luck in growing them, so I guess that is a good second choice.  I recently found myself with just enough beautiful ripe tomatoes to make 3 quarts of sauce.  Normally I might not have gone to the effort of getting all the canning stuff together and going through the process for just 3 jars, but this was my first time canning anything except jelly and I wanted to test the process before getting full-on into it.

And it worked!  Easy too, and only a bit time-consuming.  Here's the recipe:



Seasoned Tomato Sauce
Makes about 5 half-pints.

10 pounds washed, peeled, cored and chopped tomatoes
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
3 tablespoons fresh basil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon sugar


Add all ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Press mixture through a food mill and discard seeds. Return to sauce pan and cook over medium-high heat until thick, stirring frequently. Add lemon juice or citric acid to hot canning jars and pack with hot prepared tomato mixture leaving ½-inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim and screw threads and adjust lids and screw bands.


Process in a boiling water bath canner
Half-Pints 35 minutes
Pints 35 minutes
Quarts 40 minutes

I love this!  For a lot less than it costs me to buy sauce, I have my own, healthy tasty sauce on the shelf!  Now that I know how easy it is, I'll be on the lookout for sales on tomatoes!


For more great recipes, check out The Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap! If you have a recipe to share, please join in the fun!

If you are looking for some healthy and budget friendly recipes, check out the recipes at Get Healthy Cheap:

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Before and After

You all had wonderful suggestions about my photos last week!  I learn so much from your comments - thanks!!  I'm working on my shot from last week and will share it when I get it to the place I want it.  ;-)

I could use a vacation.

We'll be getting one (hopefully soon) when my sister hears about the baby she is adopting from Ethiopia. Then we'll have a true adventure as we travel with her!

Until then, we've held off on our vacations. And it is wearing on me.

So I thought I would look at some pictures of recent vacations.  We took this on our trip to Hawaii.  This is a demonstration of a hukilau at a luau.  We had a fabulous time even if we didn't take a great photo here.

I did like this shot though, with the silhouette of the boat and the sun on the water.  So I cropped and changed the lighting and color saturation a bit.

It may only go to show that not all pictures can be fixed, but I do like it better.  And it might help me make it until we hear when we can go on vacation!  ;-)


If you like my shots, you need to visit Pixel Perfect for more before and after fun! And if you want to play along all you have to do is show us your SOOC (straight out of camera) shot and then the edited version. Link back to Pixel Perfect and link up your post below! Feel free to share with us your editing program and camera gear too!

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Five 5-Ingredient Soups

Fall is coming and that means soup time!  Fall also means that we're going to be busier than ever.  Which means less time to cook delicious soups.

Fortunately, I found these recipes (and more!) on cookinglight.com!  They are all made with 5 ingredients (most of which you probably have in your pantry right now) and can easily be customized to taste.

Beefy Corn and Black Bean Chili

5 Ingredients:

• Ground round (1 pound)
• Chili powder blend
• 1 package frozen seasoned corn and black beans
• Beef broth (fat-free, less sodium)
• 1 can seasoned tomato sauce for chili
• Optional: sour cream, green onions

Prep: 1 minute
Cook: 27 minutes

 Corn and Bacon Chowder

5 Ingredients:

• Bacon
• Prechopped celery, onion, and bell pepper mix
• Low-fat milk
• 2 packages frozen baby gold and white corn
• Reduced-fat shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Prep: 2 minutes
Cook: 14 minutes

Sweet Potato, Leek, and Ham Soup

5 Ingredients:

• Cooked ham (diced)
• Leek
• Sweet potato (pre-chopped)
• Chicken broth (fat-free, less-sodium)
• Evaporated fat-free milk (1 can)

Prep: 6 minutes
Cook: 28 minutes

 Turkey Sausage-Gnocchi Soup

5 Ingredients:

• Hot turkey Italian sausage
• Vacuum-packed gnocchi
• Beef broth (fat-free, less-sodium)
• Italian-style stewed tomatoes (1 can)
• Parmesan cheese

Prep: 1 minute
Cook: 14 minutes

Spicy Poblano and Corn Soup

5 Ingredients:

• 1 package frozen baby gold and white corn
• Fat-free milk
• Poblano chiles (4) or green chiles
• Onion
• Reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese

Prep: 3 minutes
Cook: 10 minutes

Don't these all look delicious?!  I am making the Turkey Sausage - Gnocchi soup tonite - reviews to come!

What are your favorite fall soups?

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Tuesday Garden Party - No Progress!

Do your remember last week?  When I told you I would be getting my fall seeds planted?

Not a single seed has seen soil.  Apparently I negelcted to look at our busy calendar.  Hopefully this week though.

I can, however, show you some of the flowers that will usher in autumn...

Pinks...

... purple....

... red!

And our surprise star - The Sunflower!

We'll see next week if I can get some planting done. In the meantime, check out An Oregon Cottage for her weekly Garden Party.

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Sunday Snapshot - Reunion Time!

Every year since 1969, on the Sunday before Labor Day, my family has had a reunion.  Technically "The Romano Annual Family Picnic", we just call it "The Picnic."

41 years!  That in itself is an incredible tradition!  My aunt is the only person to have attended all 41 picnics.  Pretty cool.

We've got other traditions too.  Some of them old - baseball, salami sandwiches, Auntie's Coffee Cake...  Some new - Guitar Hero, Frisbee golf, piñatas, bounce house...  Two of our favorite traditions are what we call "the dice game" and "guess the nuts."

The dice game is a great game.  And, apparently, how we teach the younger generations to cheat your family members.  Here's how it works.  Everyone brings a wrapped gift per adult.  We set up long tables, and put the wrapped gifts in the middle.  We have many pairs of dice.  For 5 (sometimes more, sometimes fewer) minutes, we throw the dice.  If you get doubles - take a gift from the middle.  If you don't see any gifts on the table, take one from someone.  At the end of the game, you get to keep whatever you have.

Sounds simple.  And it is.  My family likes to take it to another level.  Or we can't see the dice.  You decide, because towards the end of the game there are a statistically unlikely number of people getting doubles.  Every year.  And usually Uncle Ron is one of them.  Hmm.  It is all in good fun though - the prizes are white elephant kind of gifts, or household items.  I won this year a roll of paper towels, a can of chicken noodle soup and a box of baby wipes.  They were all in one bag, and that bag looked interesting!  It was a hard-fought win.  I am certain that I had doubles when I grabbed that last package.  Though the game was pretty frenzied... ;-)

The kids play a somewhat tamer version.  They all get a prize at the end.   And when they don't, we encourage them to share.  Which they actually always do.

Injection molded plastic toys are super-interesting when they are won!  (Rex actually gave this to another little guy who didn't end up with anything, leaving Rex with only unfrozen otter pops... he was so sad, but he decided he would give up his toy anyway...)

Everyone wants to win the bubble wands...

And books are OK too.  I guess.

The other tradition we have is "guess the nuts."  My godfather has the responsibility of bringing many jars filled with nuts and candies.  He and his wife count the number of nuts or candies in each jar, and we all guess the number.  The closest guess wins!

Here are the winners with their jars - see anything perhaps odd?

(how cute is this little man?)

(and this smile?)

(is there anything sweeter than brotherly love?)

So, did you pick up on anything?  Anything?

Here's a shot of all the winners.  See it now?

Here are my thoughts.  Either:

1. We are raising a group of child prodigies that have the innate ability to guess the amounts of random items in jars until they hit adulthood, at which time they lose that ability;
2. We are a short (but good-looking, don't you think?) family; or,
3. There is some kind of cheating going on here.

Well, whatever it is, we all have a great time.  We get to see everyone at least once a year, catch up, remember old times and tell stories about our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.  What a wonderful day to soak up all the family love!  We missed all of you who couldn't be here this year.  But rest assured, we talked about you!  ;-)

How lucky am I, to have such and awesome family tradition, not to mention such an awesome family?!









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