Back in My Henhouse =)

So I was looking back through the blog I wrote when Paul was on his last deployment exactly one hundred years ago. And I realized that I went crazy before the deployment causing all but a few people I knew to back cautiously away - a problem that has been solved this time around by my not really having met just a ton of people that I see on a regular basis - and then afterward I put those few remaining blog readers through about three months of trivial, self-absorbed drivel, not interesting in the least.

I'm not promising that won't happen again, but at least there will be pictures of kids thrown in to keep it a little more engaging.

ALSO, I got a great idea from Emily (see Gentry Family -> over there) to do a series on preparing fresh produce. Now that spring has gloriously sprung and things are growing again, the quality of the veggies and fruit availalbe to us out here in the boondocks has markedly improved and so have our menu options.

This is not the official start to that series because I still have lots of research to do about how to actually do a series well...I'm thinking, in my case especially, that iPhone alarms and reminders will need to be a significant part of that. BUT, I will tell you that we dropped almost an entire week's worth of grocery money on plant products alone to make up for the stacks and stacks of pancakes and loads of Easter candy our little bunnies enjoyed during our little trip up north.

Paul had fired up the grill to cook up some Bubba burgers, but then we discovered we only had two. Oops. So HE had those, and the girls had a couple of kinds of salad and an apple tart. None of the below pictures are mine due wholly to the fact that my camera was still in the car at that point and my cell phone doesn't have a flash. Also my food photography isn't nearly this good. =)

Fruit salad...made with kiwi, two gigantic oranges and a couple of bananas. No sweetener needed - sugar in fruit salad makes me feel a little homicidal....fruit is sweet enough already.

Tomato salad...made with campari (think a little larger than cherry tomatoes) cut into wedges, with about 1/4 cut of sweet onions cut into tiny, paper-thin slivers, half of an English cucumber halved and cut super thin, drizzled with olive oil, balsamic and a little bit of sea salt. YUM. If you, like shown in the photo below, add strips of basil and little pieces of garlic, you have - officially - my favorite salad ever.

Apple tart...adapted from the Cooking Light version our lovely sister-in-law made for Easter dinner. It's one pie crust rolled out, four or five very thinly sliced (not peeled - that's where the nutrients are!) apples. Drizzle the crust with a little honey, toss the apples with a tiny bit of brown sugar, lots of cinnamon, a little nutmeg and a couple of tablespoons melted butter (um, that part is NOT in the original version!!!) haha. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Aaaand that's it.

Today I'm going to teach at a conference for at-risk teens and afterward going to a baby shower. I'm super excited for that! Paul is home with the kids today and has already taken out the paint to get started fixing up our fireplace. It just needs a little love. =)