Two of our favorite recipes

We love to eat in this house. Jason and I were trying to find something we had in common and we both like to eat and cook. Here are some of our favorite fresh recipes.

Pesto Pasta with zucchini

For Pesto you need
2-3 cups of fresh basil
2-4 cloves of garlic depending on how big and how much you like garlic
1/4 cup of nuts (pine if you like a sharp flavor or walnuts if you like mild flavors)
1/4 cup of romano or Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Mix everything but the olive oil in the blender or food process. Then add as much olive oil as you want. I put in about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup depending, we like it just barely runny. If the basil is too sharp/spicy you can add spinach or parsley to dull the flavor. So make this and set it aside.

Cut one zucchini per two people into quartered dices. Saute for about 12 minutes in a frying pan with two teaspoons of olive oil per zucchini. Add either a cup of cherry tomatoes or a cup of diced tomatoes for about two to three minutes, until they are soft. Pour over pasta, and drizzle pesto to taste. Mix and enjoy!


Another fantastic recipe is our homemade tomato sauce.
For just one dinner for a few people these are the ingredients.

7-10 large tomatoes
3-5 cloves of garlic minced
1/3 cup chopped onion
salt and pepper to taste
one tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup fresh herbs minced: basil, oregano, parsley are good ones to start with
and if you like veggies in your sauce add whatever you want

I run my tomatoes through a press but you can skin them the old fashioned way by boiling them for a few minutes and then putting them in cold water and pulling the peels off. Then smash them up, if you want to make them absolutely smooth put them in a blender or food processor.

Put the oil, onion and garlic in the pan and saute them for a few minutes until the onions turn translucent. If you want the onions to brown add two teaspoons of sugar in with them. Then add the tomatoes and the herbs and salt and pepper. Bring to a rapid boil for five minutes and then reduce to a simmer until it reduces in half. That can take anywhere from one to two hours. Just beware. If you don't have that kind of time, add a can of tomato paste. Then you can brag that you made homemade sauce in like twenty minutes!

These are our favorite meals to eat during the summer. Hope you enjoy!

What happened to the heat?

So I have loaded tomato bushes and tons of flowers still on them and no heat!!!!!!!!!! Everything has been weird this year. It has been cooler, wetter and more humid than any Utah summer that I have spent in Utah! It is crazy.

Here are some observations from our yard.

Mom and Dad were right of course, the lilac just needed a friend and some shade. I moved one of the pots of basil out there and it perked right up. The wind killed the basil on Sunday. So much for that.

The sunflowers that I planted really early have still no blooms and are small. The ones Daniel and I planted almost the end of june are about four feet tall and opening up. I think it is because the other ones get no house protection from wind, which has been bad this year. I also think they get too much water because the ground over there never dries out between the lawn sprinklers and the flower bed sprinklers. Any other ideas about why the early sunflowers are sad? Maybe I planted them too deep?

My square foot garden was good but not like super fantastic this year. But I think we did pretty good for our first garden out of pots. Next year will be even better, the tomatoes will be planted differently for sure. I am still glad we did it.

My cosmos are beautiful and just starting to really bloom. we had one that was like a really awesome dark pink. It was really cool and Daniel loves to show people the yard.

The butterfly bushes are now twice the size and they look awesome. They are not over two feet tall and are about three feet wide. They have attracted lots of pollinators our way.

The trees are all doing good and we didn't lose one in the wind on Sunday which was nice. One of our ash trees is a hornet hangout and it is not doing as well. It's leaves are brownish and the new leaves take a long time to uncurl. Not sure what to think about it. The other ash tree is really pretty and doing well. The pine trees and other trees are all doing good so we are glad.

I have heard that if it can last for one year, than it will probably stick around. So is the planting news in the area. It will be interesting to see what happens in the yard through next year.

I have read a few phenomenal books and wanted to write them down before I forget. One is "Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West" by Marcia Tatroe. I loved this book because it helped me not hate our rocks. The other one was "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture" by Toby Hemenway. This book was just amazing. It wasn't fanatical but a very realistic way to approach your yard. Permaculture is a functioning garden/landscape that both wildlife and humans enjoy. It has been very helpful in provided good ideas about catching rain water, planting for your area, and bringing nature to life and work in your yard. Jason has agreed to let me put some of the less extreme ideas to work in our yard. Anyone have a tractor we can borrow?

Utah has announced/legalized the ability to put two one hundred gallon rain barrels in our yard. Or anyone's yard in Utah. This will be our first step in letting nature help us in our yard. We are still debating about chickens.