Pizza!

It has been almost 8 years since I've made my own pizza but today I decided to try it again. I made the dough from scratch as well as the sauce.

First round of toppings: sauce (with fresh basil and oregano from the garden), onions, some local bacon bits and panchetta.


Second round of toppings: spinach from the garden, local shitake mushrooms (yes we found local mushrooms yesterday), more basil and a little more local bacon.


I added way too much cheese but I used mozzarella, some shavings of local Olde Salty cheese and some Parmesan.

And its done. Aside from too much cheese, it was so yummy! Trust me homemade and local is soo much better than delivery.

Snapshot Sunday

Pizza dough rising on the table.

The toppings for the pizza, fresh from the garden.

My new birdhouse...decorated by moi!

Jon's lizard that hangs above the bathroom.

My new aloe plant and little cactus.

Garden Update

Here is the very first bunch of radishes from the garden. These were for my mom but we picked more and made potato salad.

Here is one of the biggest radishes from the garden (and it's organic!)

A baby pear. All the fruit trees have the beginning of fruit coming up.

Here's the sunny side of the garden. Everything is doing really well. Except there are a couple broccoli that up and died and one of my cauliflowers dropped dead. The first row of peas is all the way up and over the pea netting.

The shady side is just starting and seems to be doing pretty well. You'll notice little buckets in the garden and those are there to hold the weeds. So many weeds!

My tumblers. They have a ton of flowers so I'm hoping we get lots of tomatoes.

This basket of strawberries is doing soo well. It has tons of fruit and some are turning pink.

My grape has survived! And it seems to even be putting out new branches.

Basil? What's your deal?

My basil seems to hate me. First I started growing it in the greenhouse with the other herbs but it turned brown and died (while everything else took off). So I bought another basil plant and put it in the garden outside. Now it too is withering away. It won't produce new leaves, it is wilted and the leaves have brown edges. Yesterday I bought another plant and put it in the house near a window. If this one dies too, I'm done! It's going to be grocery store basil for me.
Is there a trick to basil that I am just not getting? I water it, I feed it, I try not to let it get too hot or too cold. What more does it want from me? (This is very distressing to me because I tend to my garden everyday and this is the only plant that keeps dying!)
I'll update the progress of the new basil and maybe I'll post a comparison of the new one to the old ones. Grrr, so annoying. Any tips are welcome!

Snapshot Sunday

Recipe: Chicken Corn Noodle Soup

This recipe is my own variation on the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch chicken corn soup recipe. But it was just so unhealthy I had to change it and now I make it all the time. It also freezes nicely so you can make a big batch and save some for later. Please note that I didn't write down exact amounts because I never make the same size batch twice.

You will need:
Chicken leftovers fat removed and shredded (if you have meat left on the bones save them for this)
1 can or box of chicken or vegetable stock
1 can organic kernel corn
Handful of organic spaghetti or linguine noodles
1/2- 1 whole onion, finely chopped
2-4 celery stocks, finely chopped
spices (I use sea salt, garlic powder, paprika, and black pepper)

To prepare, chop your onion and celery and shred your leftover chicken (if you can't get the meat of the bones it's ok, if you throw the bones in with the meat still attached it will boil off and add flavour). Add to a large pot or slow cooker the onion, celery, corn, chicken (meat and bones), chicken or vegetable stock and a couple cups of water. Set your slow cooker to low or turn your pot on to simmer and let the soup simmer for a couple hours. Give it a stir occasionally and you can remove the bones as soon as the meat comes off. About 30mins -1 hour before serving add the noodles (broken into bits about the size of your pinky finger) and the spices (remember that with soup you want to almost over-season because a lot of the flavor will be diluted). About 15 mins before serving begin tasting it and continue to season to taste. When the noodles are al dente, serve or store the soup.

This soup is great with some homemade pita chips or some homemade bread (try it will the pumpkin bread). This recipe is just a guideline, always to these recipes to your own tastes. You could add small cubes of potato or chopped carrot, or add flavor with green onions or leeks. Be creative and as always enjoy!

A Womans Body

As a woman, I spend 4 days out of every 28 just hating my body. Why would nature do this to me? The bloating, the cramps, the fatigue, the mood swings, it just seemed too cruel. But suddenly I realized that maybe if I got to know my body a little better things could be a little better. So that's what I did.
I've been reading "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Werschler. It is full of everything that every woman should know. So that's when we decided to throw out the birth control pills and do it that natural way. We have been charting my cycles and it has almost become fun, trying to guess what is going to happen when.
So between actually knowing what was going on and knowing what helps (I've been taking Vitex to regulate my cycles and Dong Quay to help ease the cramps) my periods have been much easier to handle.
I encourage all women to read this book, learn your cycles, test your cervical fluid (do you even know what your cervix feels like?) and see what happens!