Quick and Easy Meals- Garden Veggie Crustless Quiche

i've been making a lot of quick and easy garden meals lately, but i have a terrible time remembering to take pictures or write down the recipe. i rarely use recipes and when i do,  tend to use them loosely. We have just started getting eggs again. i only have 4 birds that lay right now, and they are not laying regularly. So some days i have quite a few eggs, and some days i don't.  i started getting 2 eggs a day this last week, so i have a few to use up and decided to make a crustless quiche.

Ingredients:
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
assorted garden veggies
1/2 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, american, mexican blend)
salt & pepper
oil

The lighting in the camper is really bad, so i apologize ahead of time for the bad pictures.  Except for the eggs, the ingredients were all from the garden. i used zucchini, summer squash, green and yellow peppers, onion, garlic, swiss chard, fresh basil, eggplant and a handful of cherry tomatoes. i took this picture after i had already completed the quiche, so not all the ingredients are pictured.

Preheat oven to 350.  You can really add what ever veggies you want. i chop/dice them all and saute in olive oil until tender. Set them aside and let them cool. 

Then beat 6 eggs with 1/2 cup milk, add the cooked vegetables and gently mix them together.

Pour half of the egg/veggie mix into a greased pie pan.  Sprinkles with cheese, then dump remaining egg mix on top.

Bake at 350 for around 35-45 min. Until golden brown on edges, and tooth pick inserted in center comes out clean.

This is a really simple meal that goes great with veggie hash and fresh fruit. 

Garden Update- Sept 1st

September first and the garden is still producing well.  The garden itself is not looking that great, Downy mildew spread all through my cucurbits. Mexican bean beetles devoured my bean plants, and almost all my tomatoes were pulled do to blight, but somehow the garden is still hanging on. i'm finally beginning to get some cucumbers. i planted a couple different varieties, the white ones are supposed to be lemon cucs, but all of the ones that grew in that garden are white.  i grew some in a different garden and they have all been yellow, so i'm not sure what's up with that.After looking around online for an answer i was begining to wonder if i had accidentally planted dragon eggs, instead of lemon cucumbers.

i have lots of volunteer sunflowers coming up all over the yard and garden. Most of these were planted by the birds.  i have a couple that were planted from last years sunflowers, but the ones i actually planted, the red variety, never came up.

My peppers are finally beginning to change color.i planted red, yellow and green this year.  

My October beans were just beginning to get streaks, but i picked them all because the bean beetles had stripped all the foliage off the plants.  Since i had to pick them a bit early, i shelled them and froze them instead of allowing them to dry in the pods. They'll be a nice addition to soups this winter. 

i plant squash every three weeks during the summer, so as plants are  dying back new pants are just beginning to produce. Most of my squash is done and have been pulled, but i have new zucchini and pattypan plants just starting to produce.  My zucchini has been extremely productive this year, even with the challenges of vine borers, squash bugs, mosaic virus, downy mildew and powdery mildew. Somehow, i am still picking zucchinis. 

Sweet potatoes are beginning to bloom. They are in the morning glory family, and so the flowers are so the flowers look very similar to morning glories. i have grown sweet potatoes every year without ever having a problem. This year, when i went to check my potatoes i found holes in the soil and the base of many of he plants. Something, a vole or possibly chipmunk had dug under the ground and eaten the sweet potatoes. i dug a few plants early, but the potatoes are quite small since they typically are not dug until right before the first frost.  i couldn't bring myself to dig them all, so i left some in the ground and have been checking them daily hoping that they don't get eaten.

As the summer garden begins to die back, my fall garden is starting to come in. i have newly planted lettuce, swiss chard, beets, broccoli, radishes,kale and snow peas.

This is the first year in a long time that i didn't do any canning. i was able freeze beans, a few bags of tomatoes, and lots of squash. i still have some potatoes in storage and hope to have sweet potatoes as well. It feels a bit strange though entering the winter without my usual stores of food.

The new house will be done before the winter, and i'll actually have a pantry and a cold storage area for the first time, but nothing to put it in it. :)  i suppose i should start planning for next years garden. :)

New House Construction- Week Two

Week Two of construction and we have a basement! 

The construction crew was back this week, and they really worked quickly to get things done!  They spent the first part of the week setting up the wall forms.

There were 3-4 guys working and it took them several days to get it all sent up.

Once they got the wall forms secured, they added vertical and horizontal re-bar to reinforce the back fill.  Then they placed support beams to hold the forms in place. 

On thursday they brought in the cement trucks, and began pouring! It took a lot longer than i expected, and they brought in many trucks to get it all done.

Once the concrete had been poured the crew began smoothing it and adding anchors.

On Friday the crew came back and began removing the forms.  It took them several hours to get it all removed and cleaned up.  It was pretty neat to see a basement now standing where a last week there was only a hole.  There are 2 windows, a large french door and main entrance doors that have been framed in.  We were unable to see them until the forms came down.

A square hole was cut in the front wall  where the downstairs chimney thimble will be placed.  They will be leveling off the driveway so that we will have a walk in basement.   The basement is very similar to what we had before, but it will be a full basement rather than a half basement.  We will have a space for cellar type/cold storage,  a family room, a utility room and enough space for Kenan to move his glass shop back home. 

The french doors will walk out towards the woods, and as you come out the doors our chicken coop is to the right. Above this will be the wrap around deck, providing a nice shady hang out with a view of the woods and chicken yard.  i think it going to be a really nice space. It is very much what we had envisioned for our old house.

The concrete needs to cure for a week or two, and the house is scheduled to be delivered on Sept. 10th. Once the house is set on the basement there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before we can move in. We were originally told we would be in by Thanksgiving, but the house was constructed earlier than originally anticipated, so i'm not sure what that means for our estimated move in date. This entire year has been such a whirlwind of crazy. It's hard to even comprehend the amount of change we have experienced this year, and i honestly do not know how we are still sane.

We are really looking forward for all of this to be over, so we can just go back to normal life again. 

Quick and Easy Meals- Veggie Hash

* i changed the name on this post to make it easier to find. My apologies if it comes through email again. 

 As you can probably imagine, over the last several month we have gotten into the habit of eating some not so healthy stuff.  After the fire we spent a week at The Hotel Floyd, and another week in a friend's office.  We ate out almost every day at restaurants, or ate frozen/boxed dinners.  

Once we moved into the rental house i was able to cook again, or at least i had the tools too cook. However the truth is that i was unable to really cook much of anything. All of my stores of homegrown canned and frozen food were gone, and i found myself at the grocery stores not really know what to buy.  Still in a state of shock, with depression setting in our meals consisted of a lot of grilled cheese, frozen pizza, boca burgers and pancakes/breakfast dinners. There was probably a few days that we ate cereal for dinner. 

When we moved into the RV, i found myself challenged again when it came to meals.  The camper has very little refrigerator and cupboard space. So we can keep a very limited amount of food here before it goes bad. The humidity causes the bread/buns to mold unless refrigerated, but there just isn't space in the fridge for them. i also quickly realized that i was still missing a lot of my necessary kitchen items. The house we had been in was fully furnished so i didn't need anything.  Now that i was in this RV i realized i didn't have simple things like a carrot peeler, a paring knife, casserole dishes etc.  So it took a bit of time to begin collecting all the things that i needed again.  

So even though we back at our property, we were eating a lot of crap. Now that the garden is producing well, we have really finally started to eat better. i do not have to rely on food in the fridge to create meals, i can walk outside and pick it right out of the garden. The limited space still means i need to create rather simple meals, but i have a lot more options now!

Veggie hash has became a favorite recipe.  My potatoes ended up with late blight this year so i had to dig them all early. i ended up with over 40lbs of tiny new potatoes.  New potatoes will not store well because they have such thin skin and were not hardened off, so they needed to be eaten!  We have given some away, but still have a bunch so i'm been cooking them up just about every other day.

i'm sure there are lots of ways to make a veggie hash, i didn't follow a recipe just used the veggies i had on hand.   i quartered the potatoes (i have red, purple and white) and cooked them with onions and garlic in some olive oil until they began to brown. Then i added diced peppers, zucchini and yellow squash. and continued to cook until all the veggies were tender.  Add a bit of salt and pepper or fresh herbs to taste. You can add other veggies, sweet potato, Swiss chard...what ever you've got. 

The night of this photo i served it up with a fresh garden salad, sliced cucumbers, fresh sliced peaches and green beans. Everything came from the garden except the oil to cook them, dressing for the salad and the salt and pepper. For the first time in a very long time i was almost excited to cook again. i've started looking for other simple garden meals and will share them as i come across favorites.

i'm planning a little giveaway, but haven't quite decided what i am giving away yet. i was thinking about having a garden seed giveaway, but realized i don't have a lot of extra seeds right now. Was also thinking about posting an Autumn themed bendy doll giveaway, but i'm still working on it.  Trying to play catch up on a few posts and then i'll figure out what i want to giveaway. Should be fun regardless.

*update! Giveaway has been posted!! Click here to check it out!

What's growing in your garden?  Do you have any favorite easy garden recipes to share? 

Finding Inspiration.

i've been on a bit of a crafting break ever since we moved back to the property. Part of this is because it's garden season and that tends to occupy my time. This year we've had a ton of rain, and that gave me a lot of opportunity to be creative and yet i wasn't.  Truth is, i just wasn't feeling it. i've been struggling with depression, and the space inside the RV is not great for crafting inspiration...especially with two kids in it as well.

i was really hoping that once the kids started back to school i would start feeling inspired again. i started making a few dolls and got a request for a family set. i do not typically take custom orders, but every once in a while i will.  The request was for a family set.

i love the way it turned out. The dolls were all remakes of previous dolls i have made in the past.  It was the motivation i needed to make a few other family sets.

Acorn family. This set is available for $26 shipped first class (US).

Toad Stool Gnome family set.   This set is available for $26 shipped first class (US).

As much as i love making bendy dolls, i have been wanting to get away from it and find something else that i enjoy.  Something that actually pays for the time i put into making them.

Last year i really started to get into making Waldorf dolls and then lost all of them in the fire before i ever got around to putting any of them for sale. i lost over a dozen dolls, and a ton of materials that had just been purchased and hadn't even been opened.  i think i had 10lbs of wool, and around 10 yards of organic cotton fabric and a huge box of hand sprung wool yarn hair. So although i wanted to start making them again, i've been a little apprehensive.  The materials are so expensive, and i really didn't want to have to re-buy all of those materials again.A sweet friend donated some materials so that i could make Sage a doll  for her 7th birthday, and was really pleased with how it turned out. So i decided to give doll making another try. i picked up just a yard of fabric and a lbs of wool to get started.

i thought with the kids in school i would be able to sew without distraction.  i had no idea how much trouble a kitten would be. :)  Thank goodness he naps often.

i was pleasantly surprised at how quickly i remember the process.  i really do enjoy doll making, especially the hand sewing and face embroidery which really connects you with the doll. 

This was my first one using materials i just had on hand.  She is only 8" tall. i wanted to make a handful of mini-dolls to make my one yard of fabric last a bit longer, rather than just making one full size doll.  i'm still working out my pattern on these, but i do hope to offer them for sale soon.

So this has been my week. Trying to get back into it.  My only real struggle has been making the dolls a consistent size. i don't have a drawn out pattern and just sort of wing it, and so although the dolls are around 8" tall, it is not exact. i'm also having a hard time finding hair yarns that i like. i don't want to buy anything in bulk, and the art yarns are so expensive. i've been browsing the internet looking for some wool boucle that is reasonably priced.  It took me a long time to collect all the fabulous hair yarns i had before, so it's a bit depressing having to start over again. i have a feeling i'm going to have a bunch of bald for quite a while.

i'm really looking forward to getting back into doll making. i've decided i don't really care for this little size. i actually prefer the 16"-18" dolls. i really enjoy making all the extra accessories and really personalizing them. Once i get settled in our new house and begin to set up a craft space i plan to buy the materials so that i can start making the larger dolls.

i do have quite a few of the bendy dolls available for purchase, if your interested you can visit my fb page (it's the only place i sell at these days).  Once i have all these dolls finished, i will be posting them for sale as well.   i'll be sure and post more photos of them as i beining to finish and personalize each one.  i have so many other projects i want to do, but am really limited in this RV.  So for now i am just working on making a bit of money to go back into my supplies. i really look forward to having a full stocked craft space again one day.