Ideas to Use All Those Tomatoes

These are just what my hubby picked yesterday. We also have a couple of bowls on the kitchen counter so today is going to be crockpot sauce day.

Every summer I make a pot of this and I am able to freeze it in batches plus we have spaghetti for dinner the night I make it. So fresh and wonderful tasting. It is easy and my instructions for making homemade spaghetti sauce are here.

I am also going to make a batch of homemade salsa. Just fresh ingredients chopped and mixed. So easy.

Here is the recipe for my homemade salsa.

Linking to:
BNOTP
Wow Us Wed.
Weekend Whatever

Sunny Simple Sunday

 Highlights of our fourth. We don't get to do our own fireworks usually so Q tried her first sparklers.

 The biggest kid of all was my 18 year old. She was very into the day. We actually had two days of fireworks, the 4th with my family and the 5th with hubby's family.

We had a wonderful time and made many memories. Oregon family I miss you all so much already!!

I hope you all had a nice weekend so far. Onto Sunny Simple Sunday.
The most viewed posts were A Spoonful of...

and Ash Tree Cottage

Two of beautiful blogs. You will enjoy a visit I am sure if you haven't been by yet.

Now onto the party. Just link up your posts on life, family, or anything you would like to share. Simple is my motto so here we go...

Vacation Ends

Spent some time viewing the Rogue Gorge. It is an amazingly beautiful place. They think it was created by a lava tube that collapsed over time. It is extremely powerful and dangerous. Sadly we saw a sign of a family looking for any signs of a boy that fell in taking a photo. There was a high fence but still folks take chances and I was so saddened to see the reminder.

Nature is my favorite type of vacation destination. I live in a big city urban area so we never choose to visit other large cities for vacation. We always head out for some natural beauty.

I always feel most restored and at peace in settings like this. How is it that I am a city girl?

I kept seeing such lovely places and saying how I could see myself living there. I love the wide open spaces.

After the gorge we went to Eagle Point Mill which was a delight. The owner has extensive collections displayed throughout the mill and I loved this rooster. Someone must have loved this Barred Rock to stuff him.

His collection of red wing pottery was the largest I have ever seen. They went up to 24 gallons and more.

The mill is worked daily and they have every sort of grain and flour you could want.

This is the mill store. More extensive collections I was drooling over. I bought several wonderful finds in his antique shop.Very good buys compared to CA prices.

This is only a part of the stores offering of goods you could buy.

Cutest antique shop I have been to in a long time. Can't wait to share my gorgeous blue ball jars. All of these goods sit on his porch year long. He has never had a theft in seven years. He has had money slid under the door for things folks buy. I was happy to hear of this as it gave me a good feeling that there are still places you can trust folks. I love Oregon. To me it is God's country and I would move there in a heart beat if given the chance. We are however firmly planted here for now so I choose to be happy here too. I had to reconcile these feelings a long time ago when my husband's job kept us here. It is far better to have him employed and doing well than for me to chase a dream. We still have some of the best weather here which allows me to garden year round and our proximity to gorgeous beaches and mountains is such a blessing.  So where is vacation taking you this year? Anywhere I must see?

Linking to:
Seasonal Sundays
BNOTP

Quinoa Salad

I recently started cooking with Quinoa. It is a grain with the highest protein count of all the grains available.
The family loved this. I went to have some leftovers the next day and it was all gone.

Here is the recipe I followed for cooking it and then I added what I had available. Delish!

Quinoa Salad


Cooking the Quinoa:
Take one cup of quinoa and soak it in cold water for five minutes. Drain and rinse thoroughly through a fine mesh strainer. Put in a saucepan and add 1 1/2 cups of water and a dash of salt. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer on very low for 15 minutes. When time is up leave the lid on and let sit at least five minutes. After than fluff with a fork.

To Make the Salad
I drizzled generously with olive oil and squeezed the juice of one large lemon and added salt and pepper. I then added some barely cooked chopped green beans, some toasted cashews I had on hand, crumbled feta, diced tomatoes and chopped fresh chives from the garden. I also chopped up some fresh parsley. Mixed well and put in the fridge for a few hours.
The options are endless for this salad. Any fresh veggies you have on hand you think might taste good. Enjoy!!

Linking to:
Tabletop Tuesday
BNOTP

Crater Lake

; ;

 We took a road trip today to see Crater Lake in Oregon. It is the deepest lake in the U.S. formed from the crater of a volcano. I did not edit the color of these photos. The water is so blue because of the depth.

My brother and I.

The white you see is snow. There was lots of it too. It was in the 50s.

The island in the lake is called Wizard Island.

 Is that blue or what?

This was Q's first time in the snow. She had to throw a few snow balls.

Cousins!

Really enjoying our time. It has been a great week so far. We also went to a few other wonderful places. I am going to share later. Tomorrow is the 4th so we are hanging out at my brother's for bbq, swimming and fireworks. I hope you all have a wonderful day!!!

News From the Road

We are having a wonderful time and spent the first part of the trip with my husband's family. I won't post pics of all of them as I am not sure how they feel about their pictures out there so I try to be sensitive to that.
Anyways other folks are with us but I will show you our family.

We have been staying at a beautiful home in the woods in Southern Oregon. Here's #3 enjoying the hammock by the pond. Our days are so full and we are all tired but something about vacation keeps you going. Daily trips to Dutch Bros. coffee up here is a must.

We are now with my brother's family and having a wonderful time with my kin. I don't see them often and this is such a treat to be with my family. My own blood. Love them. Tonight we went to buy our fireworks for the fourth and that was such fun. My daughter carried over one the size of a trash can laughing. $50 bucks blown in one shot. That must be some firework. We kept our choices more on the mild side.

Tomorrow it is off to gorgeous Crater Lake. Will share soon when the time is available. Just savoring my wonderful brother and his family that I love so much. They are the warmest folks and I am so lucky to be related to these folks.

Sunny Simple Sunday

Welcome to Sunny Simple Sunday. 

It is one of my favorite holidays this week. I love the Fourth of July.

We will be in Oregon visiting my brother's family. I am beyond excited to be with them. I wish you all a wonderful week.

Now onto the party. The most viewed post from last week was:
My Cozy Casita. What a charming garden and home.

One of my favorites was Little Homestead in Boise. Her post was full of recipes, gardening and chickens of course!

Okay, everyone time to link up to Sunny Simple Sunday.

Thanks so much for visiting and have a wonderful week ahead.

Perfect Summer Recipes

Here are a few of our favorite recipes for summer and barbecue season.

We love to cookout and do it about three times a week in summer. These are the most request from the crowd in this house.

                                                         Simple Deviled Eggs

                                                       Mom's Best Potato Salad

                                                     Summer Baked Potatoes

                                                    Best Ever Cole Slaw

               Moist Tender Barbecue Chicken

                                                     Refreshing Jello Poke Cake

Battling the Bulge

In the last seven months or so I have been struggling to drop a few pounds I had put on. I have noticed since turning 45 the chub just wants to settle in my stomach area. In the last couple of weeks I have really ratcheted up my exercise since I am not a good dieter. I have been walking daily for 35-45 minutes and doing some morning yoga and strength training, yet the scale has barely moved. Ugh!!!

Okay, so what is your secret? I think I need to really watch portion control and sweets which I do for the most part.Perhaps as we get older it is true that we do not need to eat as much.  I did get on the scale this morning and have lost a pound and a half. Better than upward. Vacation will be a challenge but I will try to keep my walking up. I am trying to drink more water hoping this helps. 

Frugal Challenge - Keeping Vacation Food Costs Low

We will be hitting the road for a 12 hour trip this summer. I am over the moon to see my brother and his family. I love them and miss them so much in between visits. When we travel we try to keep our food expenditures low. Eating out is just not a huge priority to us. We try to keep the sodium in our diets low and limit fried food and of course try not to spend our entire vacation budget on food. Here are some of the ways  we economize:

1. We make all of our food for the road ahead of time. Not only do we not want to waste time sitting down to eat in a restaurant but we find it cheaper to make our food ahead of time. I will pack a snack bag with junk food, trail mix, fruit and waters. In our ice chest we will have sandwiches and yogurts and sodas for the road.  One of my daughter's has the responsibility to make us all our sandwiches. While we are packing the car and getting ready to leave, she is preparing lunch and writing everyone's names on their sandwiches. Easiest way to find whose is what in the ice chest. We stop only for gas and to stretch our legs and maybe an ice cream to get us through the last couple of hours of the trip. It helps pass the time too to have munchies.

2. Some of our stay will be in a hotel and we always choose one that serves some sort of breakfast. That is a huge savings and we manage to stay free as well because of all of hubby's travel for work.

3. If our hotel does not have a refrigerator in the room, we keep our ice chest iced up for drinks and snacks, fresh fruit, yogurts and sandwich makings. We will take our lunch if we are heading out for the day for sight seeing. We usually plan a couple of meals out but really pre-planning is what helps me to save. I know we will eat out this day or have dinner out one night. Mostly we are eating with family but will have a meal or two out.
I keep an itinerary of our trip and what we want to do each day. I will usually fit in a run to the market to have food for the trip home.

4. Sometimes I take my small crockpot with us. Yes I do. I can throw some dinner fixins in there before we leave and when we come back from a day of sightseeing, our meal is hot. A couple cans of chili and some turkey dogs heat up nicely and are ready when we get back but usually I will have a frozen meal in our ice chest that I can put in the crockpot and have hot by the time we get back. I can slice up a melon and serve the chili and dogs on some buns and have dinner very cheaply or bring out some carrots and ranch dip to add to other meals. Here is a good recipe for travel. Freezes well and heats up nicely. Plus we are tired and just getting back to the room so kids can swim and relax is my goal at the end of the day.

Linking to:
Bloom
Thursday Favorite Things

Chicken News

No, my girls have not started laying. I am so ready. I did though put some decoy eggs in the nest boxes as it is supposed to show them where to lay their eggs.

This girl had her wing clipped. She is starting to really jump and fly high and when I saw her on a gate just below the back wall I knew she needed to be clipped. It does not hurt them and she was very calm while my husband held her so I could clip her.

She was checking it out here. I can see I missed a couple of feathers. She never knew it even happened after about 30 seconds.

This girl is so inquisitive. They say the Barred Rocks are curious and she always wants to know what I am doing.

Their bottoms are getting fluffier and wider in preparation for laying those anticipated eggs.

They are doing well and are so routine driven that I just shoo them into the big run each day after their backyard time. So far so good. All is well with the City Chicks.

Wow Us Wed.
Home Sweet Home
Show and Tell Friday