Tammy's Recipes

It's not Tuesday yet, but since Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles; see Leviticus 23:33-44) starts on Tuesday this year, I decided to post early. :)

I buy the whole, unpeeled carrots since they're cheaper that way. When I'm making diced carrots, I first peel the carrots and trim the ends. Then, I slice into the thicker end, leaving the pieces attached to the smaller end as shown.

I start dicing at the large end, and finish at the small end, doing a handful of carrots at a time. This is what seems to work best for me... does anyone else have any better tricks for diced carrots? :)

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

We have been blessed with fresh pears from my cousin! We had been eating them as they ripened, a few each day, but suddenly the rest of the box was ripe all at once. So, I dried them.

I dehydrate pears the same way I do bananas: peel (and core), slice, and dry! I lay the slices in a single layer on the dehydrator tray and use the highest heat setting (145 degrees).

I like dried pears, but dried bananas remain my favorite dried fruit. (And bananas have the advantage of being the easiest fruit to do!) :)

Yehoshua (4) and Eliyahu (2) helped me take the pears off the trays when they were done. They had fun doing that and were actually very fast! :) The dried pears will be a nice snack this winter to supplement fruit from the grocery store. :)

One of my brothers brought over his tent for us to borrow! Last night the children and I slept outside. It got chilly (mid-40's) but we were all snuggled under a huge down comforter and stayed toasty warm! :)

The boys have been very, very excited about "camping out". Camping in the back yard is far enough from home for me -- I like being able to run in the house whenever I want. ;) Here are a couple more pictures...

(Italian meatball soup)

Yom Kippur always feels like one of the longest days of the year to me... I'm so glad it's over! I am not as joyful about fasting as Joshua seems to be -- he is definitely a good example to me! :)

My brain is a little fried, so here are a few tidbits from the past couple of days:

--We're still battling our gnat infestation. I put bleach down the drains and set out lots of traps. We moved the box of unripe pears to the garage, and my compost bucket is outside the back door instead of in the kitchen. I'm really hoping things are under control before we have guests this weekend! Gnats are just plain gross!!

--At Aldi's this week we came across a mountain of free (over-ripe) bananas! We put some in the dehydrator, froze a few, and gave about 30 pounds away. Free food is such a blessing! the boys and I love to snack on the partially dried, hot, chewy, flexible bananas they dry!

--I stepped on the scale today and saw that I have now lost 20 pounds! This is amazing to me, since I have trouble keeping motivated. I feel so much better than I did 5 months ago.

--We're having company tomorrow for lunch, and I'm serving spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread, veggies, and some kind of dessert (maybe pudding?).

--We're also borrowing a tent tomorrow from one of my brothers. The boys and I are looking forward to sleeping outside at least one night in celebration of Sukkot next week, and we've even invited friends to our "campout"! (The tent has two rooms.) It should be quite an experience!

--Have you seen the deal at Shutterfly? Fifty free photos and free shipping too! I signed up last week and my 50 photos came in the mail just a few days later!

Lunch tomorrow: Easy Cabbage Casserole. This picture is from a few weeks ago, I just never got around to blogging about it then. I have cabbage in the fridge from my mom, and some beef already cooked up from the freezer.

I've written before about using my Food Saver for cooked meats for the freezer. It really does save a lot of space and prevent freezer burn! I started putting cooked meats into the freezer for the first time when I was pregnant with my second child 3 years ago.

Since that time, I have continued the practice and I absolutely love being able to just pull out a package of already-cooked taco meat, meatballs, or meat for lasagna! It really does save dishes and time!

What does the meat in your freezer look like? Raw? Or cooked? Or a little of both?

We do have raw steaks/roasts in the freezer, and usually at least one whole roasting chicken, but my leftover chicken meat and any ground beef is cooked when I freeze it. :)

I got a "new" piece of exercise equipment last week. Remember my query about reel lawn mowers? Well, it hasn't rained much since then and when the grass finally got tall enough to need mowing, I got a call from someone alerting me to a second-hand reel mower for sale.

We drove 10 miles to look at it, and I probably over-paid, but saving the earth's landfills sometimes means we buy old junk from retired folks, right? ;)

Just kidding. The guy assurred us that there was enough scrap metal in the mower that we couldn't lose money. And I don't think he was exaggerating, because "light" and "easy to push" aren't what come to mind when I mow with this thing.

Especially since our lawn was/is 6 inches tall and full of little sticks. Oh, and the guy said he had never needed to sharpen the blade. You all warned me about tall grass and sticks, but where there's a will there's a way.

During my first mowing attempt, Yehoshua said to me "Mommy! You can take a picture of this for your website." and I laughed! After forty-five minutes spent pushing through 6-inch tall-and-very-thick grass the last thing I planned to do was blog about it!!

It's too dark in this picture to tell, but tonight I went back over some of what I had initially mowed and it went pretty well! Over short grass, this mower pushes about as hard as our old push mower did through really tall grass, so I think I can handle pushing it.

The "woooosssshhhhh!" of the grass being cut is a really lovely sound, too.

Every time I came past Ruth, she did this:

And I could actually hear her squeal as I mowed!

I'll post an update next summer when I'm having to mow all the time. :)

It's that time of year again -- when I just can't seem to keep the gnats away. The variety of garden produce sitting on my counters/porch, the compost pail that's ever-filled with peelings and cores, and the bananas we love to snack on -- all work to breed lots of very disgusting fruit flies!

Tonight I made sure everything was wiped down really well and I made some gnat traps. They really work wonderfully! And that's my tip for this week -- trap those nasty gnats in a bowl of slippery dish-soapy vinegar! :)

And another tip for this week -- Hannah's blog post about butchering chickens (with photos) brought back lots of childhood memories. Ahhh, the work I was subjected to as a child! ;) Anyway, head over there if you want to see how it's done -- because her pictures show it all (consider yourself warned, faint-of-heart!).

To participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays: Post a kitchen tip in your blog, with a link to this post. Then come here and add your name, tip subject, and URL to this post! Links must be family friendly, as always. If you don't have a blog but would still like to share a tip, just leave a comment here with your tip! Everyone's ideas are appreciated. :) Note: Please link to your individual post, not your blog's main/front page! Thanks for participating! :)

Yehoshua and Eliyahu love it when I use my mini loaf pans for bread.

The little loaves are pretty cute, and could be sliced thinly and used for snack sandwiches.

Yehoshua shows one of the slices from his loaf. Usually he begs me to not slice his loaf because he likes to bite it off!

Here is Eliyahu holding his stack of slices... so cute and fun!

Do you ever use mini loaf pans? What's your favorite thing to bake in them?

Doesn't this shortbread look delicious?! I don't think I dare try Eilidh's recipe until Joshua and I have lost our last few pounds. ;)

And muffins... these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins sound yummy! I still have numerous quarts of canned pumpkin from last year and am looking forward to baking muffins, breads, and cakes with pumpkin in them this fall! :)

I loved this post about beans and rice from Jaynee, a sweet missionary lady living in Mexico.

Jaynee shares her recipes for cooking dried beans, making refried beans, and making Mexican rice. Scroll down for some pictures of their tacos and tostadas! They're making me hungry! :)

This is from a week or two ago... I had no clue what to make for dinner but I had some sandwich buns/hoagie rolls on the counter and some meatballs in the freezer (yay for pre-made meatballs!) and I remembered how much my husband loves sandwiches, sooo... :)

1. Mix some butter with garlic salt and parsley. I never measure... it comes out better when I don't.

2. Spread butter on buns and toast in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes or until toasted.

3. Heat up some pizza sauce and meatballs.

4. Put meatballs on toasted bun. Top with some spoonfuls of pizza sauce. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese.

5. Broil for a few minutes until cheese is browned.

6. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and enjoy!

And, if you want this to be more of a whole meal rather than a snack, heat up some mixed veggies to go with it! :)

When I got done taking a picture of Joshua's sandwich, Yehoshua said "Take one of me, pretending to gobble mine up!" :) I love that little guy. Tonight before bed, he sang "You are my sunshine" to me all by himself... so sweet to hear his voice (usually we sing together).

Wow, I feel so out-of-it.

Right after my last post (Monday evening) Eliyahu joined Yehoshua with the stomach flu and I spent several hours consoling them, bathing them, and cleaning up (or trying to clean up) the messes. I got them settled about 2am, just as I started feeling sick myself.

What a fun way to spend Rosh Hashanah! (Not.) Joshua got up at 2am and took over caring for everyone (good thing he had the day off work!) as I spent the next 24 hours moving as little as possible and taking care of Ruth as needed.

Wednesday I felt somewhat better and Joshua started getting sick. So, we swapped places as the children continued to recover.

Now, tonight, the boys are actually sleeping in their own beds instead of on blankets on a shower curtain on their floor! (They begged to sleep on the floor again but I was ready to be able to walk through their room.)

Tomorrow, provided that we are all feeling okay, I'm hoping to get the carpets (living room and their bedroom) steam cleaned and the laundry caught up and just maybe our house won't smell like the flu.

I can hardly remember what day it is... what I had planned to blog about this week... I've got a stack of bills to pay and phone calls to make. I'm just glad I'm feeling well enough to look at a computer screen... walk outside... take a shower. Thank you, Yahweh!

P.S. I asked Joshua if I could just swap Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year since I fasted on Rosh Hashanah, but he said it doesn't work that way...

Our favorite traditional Rosh Hashanah treat -- New Year's Apple Challah! :)

Jennifer blogged about their Rosh Hashanah celebration at her blog -- including a photo of her son blowing the shofar. :)

Will any of you be celebrating Rosh Hashanah this year? I'd love to hear about your favorite traditions and activities! :)

Please accept my apologies for not mentioning this sooner. I won't be hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays this week because tonight and tomorrow is a Sabbath for us as we celebrate the Biblical festival Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashanah! :)

Kitchen Tip Tuesdays will be back next week! Thanks for understanding. :)

I'm glad to hear that so many of you love lamb, since I have a great lamb burger recipe to share today! :)

These Spicy Grilled Lamb Burgers are so, so yummy!! They're packed full of herbs and spices and fun ingredients like garlic (mmmmm) and I just love the flavor! Eating them with slices of cucumber, onion, and tomato gives them a nice vegetable-y crunch. This recipe was somewhat of an adaptation on a recipe from allrecipes.com. :)

We had these burgers again today for lunch, and I kept raving to Joshua over them. He, unfortunately, doesn't like them nearly as well as I do! I am not much of a burger person to start with, and I tend to like really seasoned burgers, like the garlic turkey burgers. Joshua prefers a more plain burger with little to no seasonings on the meat.

Well anyway, I think these lamb burgers are my almost-favorite burger recipe, right after the garlic turkey burgers which are the best ever for a garlic lover like me. ;)

I'd also love to hear -- if you've made lamb burgers before, how did you season them and serve them?

Rachel asked:

Rachel, yes, the dough for the bread bowls can be made in the bread machine! :)

I follow the instructions for my bread machine, which says to add all liquid ingredients and then all dry ingredients, with the yeast being added (on top) last. So I just take the ingredient list for any yeast bread recipe and add the items in that order and use the dough cycle! :)

My dough cycle does a knead (~22 minutes) and then a rise (~98 minutes). If your recipe doesn't need a first rise (e.g. it says to knead the dough and then immediately shape it) or only needs a partial first rise (e.g. it says to let the dough rest for 15 minutes) you can stop the bread machine and take out the dough at any time and use it in the recipe! :)

Does this sound like what the rest of you do with your bread machines when using the dough cycle?

Answering some of your questions from this post:

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