On the way

Yep, we've got one on the way. This photo was taken a few weeks ago with our nifty new camera. Baby is due in October. And one of these days ill get to posting more photos...but I'm tired. Too much to do and not enough time to do it...ever!

Recent Activities

Just wanted to load a few picks of what we've been up to lately. Fishing, beach, and strawberry picking!

Here lately...

Last night we went to dinner. It was already late by the time we got into the big city. Not realizing that it was St. Patty's party night and all the crazies were out was our first mistake. Well, second since we started out for dinner later then we usually eat. I'd say that was the first mistake. It had already been a long day to say the least. T-Rex was driving us insane as any 3 year old would. He'd been driving us insane for the entire week. It's like the terrible 3's blew up and stuck to us like skunk spray and there isn't a thing that will make it go away except time. No tomato juice for this one. We finally got into a place that we wouldn't have to wait for 40 minutes to eat. We ended up sitting at a community table...didn't even know they had that kind of thing...where, with a 3 year old, hopefully no one else would have the gall to sit with us. Sometime during the course of dinner it occurred to me, you know that saying about how toddlers are like drug addicts. I know you've probably seen it somewhere...Pinterest, Facebook, failblog...somewhere along those lines. Well, it's true. While I'm standing in the bathroom with a 3 year old in flip flops trying to stand on top of my stilettos so he's tall enough to reach the toilet, I fall out in full on laughter. It's so true. This kid is like me when I'm 3 sheets to the wind. Who falls out of their adult stool in a fancy to do restaurant while dressed to the nines?--This girl. Who talks for hours about things that make no sense at all to no one?--This girl. Who wants to make out with the moon?--This girl. (Sometime after he fell out of the chair he decided loving the moon was his next endeavor.). Who tells jokes that are not funny and then laughs at them? Who can't find their shoes? Who mispronounces words and continues to repeat the same words with certainty they are being said correctly?--This girl. I could go on but I believe the point is apparent. How can anybody stand me...oh wait they are all usually 3 sheets to the wind too. Oh this child...for now I suppose I will continue to accept this phase and be glad he is cute!!

Veggies!

Ive been so busy with work i haven't had the time to sit down and do what i want to do. At this point I'm making myself because i want to share our latest activities. Our first share came on Friday the 1st and the table was full of goodies. We've never signed up with a CSA before so we were really looking forward to this. Now we can't wait for summer and our garden to start growing!

This is all the stuff we got from our first share!

These are our seedlings just starting to sprout.

Here they are again, pretty well sprouted.  Its mostly different varieties of Tomatoes but we also have Bull Nose Bell Peppers, Lime Basel, and Cilantro.  There will be even more in the garden once the weather gets warm.  Problem is we have too many tomato plants...but I have a plan!!

Ok, so this is a snapshot of what we ate--yes, yes it is!  I've got a couple of these.  Mostly want to show you what we did with the share food we got...this include what we already had in the fridge.

And heres some more.

Lastly, have to include Tristan at the park on base.  He wanted to be in this swing and refused to sit back in it.  He thought this was funny and, well, so did we!!

Lucy's Sweater

First of all, yes I knit...but I am the slowest knitter I know and I'm left handed.

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This is Lucy.

This is Lucy in her new sweater.  

Hard to get a decent photo when a 3 year old and the other shih tzu are climbing around.

Heres another photo.

And finally, baby girl with big eyes.  She was actually pretty happy.

Had to add in my first attempt at knitting a design in.  Its a heart!

Baby girl, don't say I don't ever make you anything. ;-)

Experimenting with the Dehydrator

I recently wanted to purchase a dehydrator, particularly the Excalibur but I didn't know which one to get. I've never used a dehydrator but found that it would be pretty important to have if we want to eat something other than salad. Plus, I can make crackers, dried fruit and what have you. Did I mention we signed up for our first CSA? It starts March 1st! My grandparents had a dehydrator packed away that they sent to us just this past week...after I called out to Facebook asking around for one. That Excalibur ain't cheep in case your wondering. So, back to this machine we got in the mail. It's called the Waring Food Dehydrator. It was sold through Amway and was shipped to my grandparents in '96. They probably used it a couple of times and then packed it away...and that's we're it stayed until this girl, 18 yrs later starts asking. Wow, '96 was 18 yrs ago? I'm not great at math but I think that's right.

Just a few pictures of the item in question!

Now that the dehydrator is here and I'm not at work, it's time to get started. I had two recipes I wanted to make.  The first was Flax Crackers, the second Raw Cocoa Crackers. Lets start with the first one.

Flax Crackers

If you juice like I do save your pulp.  You can use it for this recipe. 

Ingredients

1 cup Walnuts (soaked for 1 hr or more)

1 cup juice pulp (I had carrots, apple, and kale)

1 cup Almonds (soaked for 1 hr or more)

1 medium tomato 

1 cup Red Onion

3 tablespoons Flaxseed

2 teaspoons Sea Salt

Oh and don't forget the food processor!  Throw all your ingredients into the food processor and pulse till its smooth!

Some of the ingredients. I forgot to photograph them all.

Once you've got that done, it's time to spread it onto the dehydrator trays. This dehydrator sadly has one setting: 140. These crackers are supposed to run on a lower temp like 115. Since this is the first time I'm using it, I'm just winging it. That's probably not the greatest idea but I'm learning. There supposed to be crackers at the end and the dehydrator is supposed to suck the moisture out right? So I figure you just keep an eye on it periodically until there dry. That's what most of the recipes say to do.

Alright, before I loaded the trays in the dehydrator I made the second recipe.

Raw Cocoa Crackers

Ingredients

1 cup Cashews

1/3 cup Flaxseed

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1/4 cup Cacao Nibs

1/2 cup Date Paste 

(I get my date paste recipe from www.addictedtoveggies.com, basically you get Medjool Dates, remove the pits, and process them in the food process with a little water.  It depends on how many or how much your using.  I didn't soak the Medjool dates I bought.  They didn't need it.)

2 tablespoons Chia Seeds

1/2 cup Water (as you need it)

A photo of all my ingredients (I forgot to photograph the process.  I'll get better at it.)

Throw all your ingredients into your food processor and pulse till the mixture is smooth.  This one turns out a bit more sticky then the other did but thats alright.  Once you've done that, take the mixture and smooth it out onto your dehydrator tray.

Now its time to load up the trays.  The thing thats different about this dehydrator than the Excalibur Dehydrators is that the heat is coming from the bottom.  I read that was not a great thing because stuff tends to drip into the motor and the air doesn't circulate as well.  The Excalibur motor is on the back end as apposed to the bottom which means nothing leaks into the motor and the heat/air is distributed throughout the machine.  

Here it is doing its thing.

I had to move the trays around a couple of times so it would dry everything evenly and wouldn't have to wait forever.  I forgot to mention, the dehydrating process takes time.  For mine it took 8hrs for the Flax Crackers and a little over 24hrs for the Raw Cocoa Crackers. They probably could have gone a lot longer too.

Flax Crackers

Raw Cocoa Crackers

I hope you've enjoyed my post tonight!

New Year so what now....

Apologize in advance if I'm all over the place. It will all make sense soon enough ;-)

We've made it through the holidays and are now in 2013. I just had a big birthday too. It seems like we've had something going on non-stop for the last year- deployment, Texas, Vegas, NOLA, moving, and more visits. Now we've got nothing on the schedule except work and aging. Seems so weird to have nothing planned since we've been so non-stop.

On another note, we are venturing even further into the vegetarian/vegan/raw world. I hate that it has to have labels. Should be, "hey we're trying to eat normal" but normal isn't normal anymore...so got to give it a new name, label. None the less, we still like our dairy so that's still in the cards. We found raw milk (stuff is awesome and I don't even like milk) to go along with our fresh eggs and cheese. Also got ourselves signed up with the local CSA. Ordered seeds just yesterday which is super exciting. I've got high hopes for the garden this year! Stay tuned in for that. Right now I'm attempting to make crackers...without a dehydrator. Hope they turn out awesome and before the weekend is up!