Cheap, Organic Produce Cleaner

I like my produce to be sparkling clean, free of naughty dirt, and free of the money wasting store bought so-called “Fruit and Vegetable Wash”.

This recipe is super cheap, smells great and hardly costs anything. This is my simple solution to keep your produce sparkly and ready for consumption.

 

Here’s what you’ll need to make your very own Produce Cleaner:
1 TBS Lemon Juice
3 TBS White Vinegar
3 Cups of Water
Spray bottle (I bought mine from Target for $3)
Funnel

 

Using your funnel, measure out and pour in your 1 TBS Lemon Juice.

 

Next add your 3 TBS White Vinegar.

 

Pour in the 3 Cups of Water and attach the spray nozzle. Give it a bit of a shake.

 

Ta-da! That’s it. Now go get your produce sparkly clean. Have fun.

Cook-fest & bein’ real

For those of you that have been with me since the beginning when I started blogging in March of 2010, you may already know that I like to keep a clean house. If you are new around here, let me give you a couple of examples that highlight my ridiculousness. I color coordinate my closet, face the labels on all of my canned goods to the outside and have a system for almost everything.
We don’t have any kids, so it’s easy to do.
And thankfully, I married a man that is just as anal retentive as I am.
But, every once in awhile, I get a wild hair and get “my dirty” on.

This is how Cookfest began. I decided today would be the day to experiment, use up my garden’s harvest from the past couple of days, try out new recipes, and freeze a bunch of goodies for upcoming visitors.

 

The peels multiplied as I came up with more and more ideas to concoct.

 

I lined up my projects, pulling out ingredients to make sure I had everything on hand. I didn’t. But that’s never stopped me before. I decided to avoid the grocery store and improvise per usual.

 

For dinner, I wanted to try out a recipe for roasted sweet potato, carrots, onions and garbanzo beans.

 

There was some naughty cross-breeding going on in my garden which produced 2 mystery squash. Add those to a small pumpkin and I decided they would be the basis for my “Pumpkin-ish Pies”.

 

Zucchini Chocolate muffins were next on the list.

 

And my craving for Butternut Squash Soup was satisfied with the few small butternut found in the garden.

 

Pureed Squash was everywhere, pots were boiling over on the stove, dishes were piling up…

 

…every mixing bowl, spatula, measuring cup and appliance was being utilized, covered in some mixture of squash, vegie peel, cinnamon and flour concoction.

 

And my normal sidekick-Biceps-was rehearsing for a show. What’s a girl to do but keep cooking, keep piling up the dishes and wipe down the cabinets covered in bubbly squash juice from time to time.

 

Cookfest started at approximately 2pm and lasted until 8pm. It produced 2 pounds of meatloaf, two casserole dishes of roasted vegies, two pumpkin-ish pies, 4 dozen zucchini muffins, butternut squash soup, mystery squash puree for future soups or lasagna, one extremely dirty kitchen and one tuckered out but delighted Rebekah.
Cookfest was a messy success.

Seriously Delectable Split Pea Soup

I know what you are thinking. I never wanted to eat Split Pea Soup either.
What’s next-Broccoli Soup? Come on.
But, Biceps requested Split Pea Soup. He’s crazy like that and I like to silence his crazy.

She may not photograph well, but this here soup is downright amazingly good. It’s also very simple to make, full of protein and yummy veggies.
Biceps said it’s one of the best soups that I’ve ever made. And now, this Split Pea Soup has now become a staple in our weekly routine. Biceps likes to remind me how not crazy he is for making this suggestion to me.

Here’s what you’ll need to make your very own Split Pea Soup (serves at least 8 as a main dish):
A large stockpot
6 Cups Water
4 Cups Split Peas
3 1/2 Cup Chicken Broth
2 Lbs meaty Pork Hocks or Ham Bone
1/2 tsp dried Marjoram
1/4 tsp Pepper
2 Bay Leaves
1 Cup Chopped Carrots
1 1/4 Cup Chopped Onions

 

Rinse and drain the 4 Cups of Split Peas. Pull out any yucky ones.

 

Combine the water, split peas, broth, pork hocks/ham bone, marjoram, pepper, bay leaves and 1/4 Cup of the chopped onion.
Bring to a boil and reduce your heat. Simmer for 1+hour with the lid on, stirring occasionally, until the meat easily comes off the bone when pried with a fork.

 

Remove the bones and let cool. Cut the meat from the bones and coarsely chop. Discard the bones.

 

(Sorry, forgot to take a picture of this step. Here’s an up close and personal finished product shot instead…)
Add the meat to the stockpot and stir in the chopped carrots and the remaining 1 Cup of onions. Return all the ingredients to boiling and reduce heat. Simmer covered for 20-30 minutes more or until the veggies are tender. Stir occasionally to prevent scorching.

Serve with tasty toast or toast that’s tasty on a cool fall night. You are going to love this, guaranteed! If not, I will come over to your house and personally eat the remaining soup. Seriously, I’ll do it. I have a lot of frequent flyer miles that need to be used up. Enjoy!

Easy Dehydrated Apples

We recently acquired a free bag of red delicious apples left behind from our last tour. We are fans of gala apples and I typically use granny smith in my pies…so the red delicious really weren’t that exciting of a find. Until, my brain went into gear.

I pulled out my trusty $5 dehydrator purchased from a garage sale (Nesco American Harvest Food Dehydrator and Jerky Maker), my lemon juice, my knife and went to work.

 

First things first, I cored the apples with my handy apple corer. Simple ’nuff.

 

I sliced the apples up to be about 1/4″ thick.

 

I threw the slices in a ziplock bag filled with lemon juice and tossed them around, making sure they were thoroughly coated.

 

Next, I rinsed the lemon juice off of the slices.

 

I arranged the slices on the the dehydrator trays evenly and set the temperature to 135 degrees (which is the recommended temperature for fruits and vegetables).
I left the dehydrator on for about 4 hours, checking it each hour.

 

Once the apples were done, we ate them. Pretty much all in the same day.