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Archive for Family

Naomi’s Roasted Veggie Salsa

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Renee Spindle

There are a ton of jalapenos to be used up from my recent garden harvest. One of my favorite ways to use the jalapenos is in my daughter, Naomi’s roasted salsa. My daughter got me hooked on her salsa the first time I tasted it, and being the “spice weenie” that I am it’s amazing that I liked it at all. She roasts fresh veggies, and throws everything in the food processor for a yummy, yummy treat. This recipe has become a family favorite for all of our family get togethers.

Now here’s what you need to do to make it.

Ingredients:

8 big tomatoes
3 mild jalapeños
handful of cilantro
1/2 of a white or red onion
garlic salt
a couple of splashes of el pato tomato sauce
* Note – for a milder salsa clean the seeds from the jalapeño, and slice in half before roasting.

Directions:

1) Rinse your veggies, and toss them on a big cookie sheet. The jalapenos are de-seeded and sliced in half for my roasting purposes. Since I’m the spice weenie. I don’t want the heat.

2) Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.

3) Then turn your oven to broil, and cook the veggies for an additional 10 minutes.

4) After the veggies are cooked, cool them in the fridge overnite, or for at least 6 hours.

5) To put the salsa together pull out your favorite food processor.

6) Put the onion in the food processor in quarters, and chop until very fine.

7) Cut the center from the tomatoes, and either quarter them or cut them in half for smoother processing.

8) Place the remaining ingredients in the food processor, and pulse only for a thicker, chunkier salsa.

9) I pulse for just a few seconds and then check the consistency before pulsing again. This is consistency that I like to have for my salsa. Can you see the little bits of roasted jalapeno? This gives the salsa such great flavor. Yum!

10) This next item is very important in the salsa process. Get your favorite tortilla chips out of the cupboard, and taste test the salsa to be sure you have enough garlic salt, and the heat is the way you like it. You can also designate an official taste tester, but I prefer to do my own tasting.

11) I only like my salsa very mild (the spice weenie effect), so these directions don’t include a lot of ingredients for the heat. If you want or like the extra heat; leave the seeds in the jalapenos, and add additional el pato sauce.

This is a wonderful fresh salsa. You can use it in your favorite guacamole recipe, as a garnish on tacos or burritos. The sky is the limit. If you enjoy the roasted veggie flavor this is a great staple salsa that you can make all on your own. I’m off to the kitchen to make my next batch. Have a great weekend everyone.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Food, Gardening, Recipes

The Colors from My Summer Garden

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Renee Spindle

This afternoon I have been working on getting the summer photos organized. There are just a few that I want to share with all of you from my garden. Especially since the summer gardening season is winding down for many of us “green thumbs”.

First up – the lovely jalapenos. Mild and yummy just for me, since I’m a huge “spice weenie”. I don’t like the heat, just the jalapeno flavor. I’ve harvested close to 8 dozen of these beauties. Can’t wait to share my daughter’s roasted salsa recipe with you.

Next up – the mini pumpkins. This is a Burpee variety of pumpkin, called Small Sugar. They can probably be used for pumpkin baking, but for my purposes they will most likely just be decorating the house for fall.

Then there are the sunflowers. Evan and I had planted the huge, big sunflowers, and right after they bloomed they got attacked by this ugly fungus and I ended up chopping them down. But they were gorgeous for a little while.

There were also had the small sunflowers, which made a great backdrop in the garden. I had cut some of these and brought them in the house too. But, they still had so much pollen dropping I only did that once. They were a little messy, but very sunflower pretty.

Then there was this little sunflower, and I think he was saying, “Do I have to wake up today?” Kind of funny.

Last flower of the day is the lovely zucchini blossom. I took a lot of pictures of these blooming, because the flowers are huge. This is one of my favorites. I’m still harvesting a few zucchini, and making all kinds of baked goodies from them.

Now I am in the process of planting for a winter crop of cucumbers, sweet corn, spinach and lettuce. This is the first year I have attempted plantings after the summer harvest. We are fortunate here in California to have a second growing season, and this year I will be taking advantage of it.

How did your garden grow this summer? What is your favorite fruit or veggie from your summer garden?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, Family, Gardening

There’s An Anniversary We Did Forget

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Renee Spindle

Our son, Zachary, turned 21 this past July. In August, on the 14th to be exact we should have done the “happy dance” for Zachary and at the very least remembered the date. August 14th, 2012, was Zach’s 8th Anniversary of cancer survivorship. He’s a survivor of childhood leukemia (ALL). I told our family’s story earlier this year in a three-part series, where you can read all the details of our experience.

I woke up this morning feeling a little bummed out that we had forgotten to mark the date this year. I have never forgotten to celebrate this date since Zach’s chemo ended in 2004. So, since I have this platform to celebrate my son and his good health, I am.

December 2001 – Zach had been in treatment since April of 2001, and continued his chemo regimen until August of 2004.

Christmas 2001 – Zach’s a trooper!

Turn the clock ahead to 2012-Healthy and strong.

Zach’s 21!!*

Happy 8th Anniversary, Zachary. Livestrong, Superman.

*Photo credits from the birthday party – Elaine Zee.

No comments Posted in Around the House, Family

Zucchini Pancakes

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Renee Spindle

The zucchini harvest here at the Spindle Ranch is going gangbusters. I had been perusing the allrecipes.com website and came across this recipe for a pancake with a twist. This was a great breakfast pancake as it has the zucchini, onion, and my favorite, cheddar cheese. You could add any variation that you please with this recipe. Maybe add some green onion, or finely chopped jalapenos, or green peppers. Travel Man suggested this would be a great pancake to eat with a couple of fried eggs on the side.

With your next harvest of zucchini try out this scrumptious recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated onion
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup biscuit baking mix (such as Bisquick®)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil, as needed

Directions

Mix zucchini, cheddar cheese, and onion together in a bowl.
Stir eggs and biscuit mix into zucchini mixture until well combined.
Heat vegetable oil on the griddle or large skillet over medium heat.
Scoop about 1/4 cup batter onto heated griddle.
Cook until pancakes are browned, 3 to 4 minutes per side.
Repeat with remaining batter.

I did not take pictures when I made these, so my post is a little barren. But I wanted to share this recipe with you, because it’s almost like an omelette and biscuit on your plate at the same time. An easy, simple weekend breakfast kind of pancake. Enjoy!

One comment Posted in Around the House, Family, Food, Recipes

How do you Charge your Electronics?

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Renee Spindle

What’s the best way to take control of all of the electronics being charged in your house?

I’m a fairly organized person. I prefer to have things in order, and put away as much as possible. But here is my current dilemma, there are chargers everywhere in our house. I have tried and tried to corral the cords, but they always end up back in their own little corners. Near a chair here, or a table there. For our house, The Party House that is, we have a never-ending stream of cords, especially in the living room.

Chargers for phones, chargers for netbooks, chargers for headphones (this a travel man thing), chargers for kindles, chargers for camera batteries. Yes, we do have a lot of electronic devices. Remember, I live with Travel Man, and he’s a “road warrior”, so he has a lot of gadgets. I had been asking him what we can do to get the cords under control. So our first solution has been to try this:

A big charging station in my office, which is closest to the living room by the way. This has definitely helped the situation. But, when Travel Man comes home from a trip the chargers and cords multiply by leaps and bounds! We have quite a few phones in the family that all use a similar charger. I thought with my charging station some of the straggling chargers in the house would disappear and everyone could just use my office charging station. The chargers around the house have diminished slightly, but not as much as I had hoped.

Oh, and how many of you use your cell phone for an alarm clock too? So that means you have to be able to charge your phone next to your bed. Another cord! See what I mean. It’s getting almost to the level of the Tupperware dilemma. You know how you have that one piece of Tupperware that you can’t find the lid for, or you have a lot of lids and no bowl. It’s like they duplicate themselves when you are not looking!

If you have any suggestions for taking control of the “charging” dilemma please leave me a comment and let me know how you’re handling this situation. Maybe it’s not a dilemma for you, I’d love to hear from you.