Black Bean and Corn Salsa

The holiday weekend meant that we had family visit and an impromptu kickball game.  It also meant that we ate... a lot.  Most of the time we eat pretty simple foods.  I love to cook and experiment but during the school year I often don't have time to do much of that.  But during the summer I get a chance to do some experimenting.  Last summer a friend introduced me to Black Bean Salsa.

Now, we are a salsa loving family.  We eat it almost everyday...and not just with tortilla chips.  We eat it on eggs, potatoes, bean burritos, tacos...well, you get the idea.  But I've never had a salsa with beans in it.  Let's just say that this is one salsa I can eat all by itself. 

Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe

2-3 ears cooked corn (about 2 cups - you can use canned corn that is drained)
3-4 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 cans black beans - rinsed and drained (you can make your own with dried beans)
2 large tomatoes - chopped
3 jalapenos - chopped (optional)
1 red onion - chopped (you can use white)
1 avocado - chopped (optional)
1/4 cup cilantro - chopped

Mix all ingredients and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

Enjoy!

For more great recipes, check out Tasty Tuesday.

weekend goodness..

The holiday weekend has been so very good around here.  It started with pizza night, of course, and a visit from Carl's brother and his family for the evening.

On Saturday, we attended a good friend's Eagle Scout Court of Honor.  It was good to see how other Troops do their ceremony.  This young man helped with both Christian and Josiah's projects and they helped with his.  I love seeing these boys become young men...right before my eyes.

On Sunday, Benjamin got to sing in our worship service.  The praise team sang "Slow Fade" by Casting Crowns, there's a child's part and he sang it in front of about 300 people.  (I took the picture during practice so as to not disrupt anyones worship - just so you  know.)  I love that our church allows our young people to really serve.  The worship and production teams have teenagers serving each week, playing guitars, running lights and sound.  A lot of the teenagers rotate serving in the children's area also.  It's pretty cool.

Our church also recognized all of the graduates during the service.  It was amazing seeing them up there and realizing that I have seen each one of them service in different areas of our church over the years.  (ok, this picture I took during service...but it was during the greeting time...I try not to be an obnoxiously proud mama.)

After church, some of my guys (including my husband) went to play paintball at a friend's ranch.  That left me some much desired quiet time to explore the 30 Day Vegan Workshop I'm taking.  Hopefully, I'll be more prepared next week.

I'm realizing more and more that I really need some quiet time each day. Just to think...  I'm toying with the idea of getting up an hour or so earlier so I can have more quiet time in the morning. 

Today we'll have another visit from Carl's brother and his family and maybe, just maybe, a multi family kickball game...

Wishing you and yours a very memorable Memorial Day.  Remember to thank those who so willingly have served our country.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. (inspired by SouleMama)

summer squash and pasta recipe

As you can see from the picture above and the garden numbers in the sidebar we've harvested A LOT of summer squash this year.  It's been such a blessing. 

We've dehydrated some for winter soups and shredded some for baking.  We've added it to stir fries and even breakfast tacos.  We're eating a big pan of it sauteed almost daily. We've shared with anyone willing to take some.  But this "recipe" is by far our favorite and are having it for lunch several times a week. 

Summer Squash, Pesto and Pasta Recipe

What you need:
Enough cooked pasta to feed your family - we cook 2 lbs at a time
Yellow squash, zucchini, and white squash
Carrots & green beans (optional)
Onion
Garlic (or garlic powder)
Salt & Pepper
Italian Seasoning
Pesto
Parmesan Cheese (optional)

Cook your pasta with a little salt. Drain it and toss with some pesto (if you don't like pesto then don't use it instead toss with a little olive oil)

Chop all your veggies.  You can chop them in chunks or dices  - it is up to you.  The more delicate you pasta is (like angel hair pasta) the smaller you should chop your veggies. 

Saute the onions and garlic using olive oil (or butter, or coconut oil).  When the onions are clear add all the other veggies and saute until they are the desired firmness.  Add a little italian seasoning, salt and pepper to taste.

Plate your pasta and add a big scoop veggies.  Serve with salad.  Or grilled chicken. Or whatever you want to...

Top Bar Bee Hive

Have you ever received a gift that just left you speechless?  You know, the kind that wasn't for any holiday or special occasion.  The kind that was just because the giver thought you'd enjoy it.  Gabriel received a gift like that this weekend.

This is a top bar bee hive.  It's a traditional Kenyan beehive.  There are no frames, the bees build their honey comb on the bar and then down in a triangle shape.  A friend of ours, who loves woodworking, saw this in a book and made it for Gabriel.  Our friend was so excited he drove 20 miles to deliver it about 9:00 at night.

Gabriel really doesn't like me taking pictures of him.... I heard comments such as, "Just ignore her and maybe she'll stop."  ha..little do they know...

This hive has an observation side.  When you open the front there's Plexiglas so you can see how your bees are doing without disturbing them.

This is one of the two dividers, you can arrange them where ever you want them.  The honeycomb will (hopefully) be in that shape.

Carl, Gabriel, Benjamin and our friend's son checking it out.

I had to ask our friend to step closer to the hive...he kept stepping out of the range of the camera...ugh...

This is a top bar.  We'll put beeswax in the groove and that will tell the bees where to begin building their honeycombs. 

Our beekeeper friend is trying to re-queen a hive for us.  He's so nice like that.  So we (as in Gabriel) might end up with two hives this year. It'll be interesting to see where this adventure takes us.

In the garden...

One of my goals for 2012 was to have a complete garden planted by May because it gets too hot here to plant anything after May.  So far, we've done pretty good especially since I was so distracted this spring.  We've already harvested a lot of yellow squash, zucchini and white patty pan squash.  I'm trying really hard to offer the extra to people without being pushy...I don't want people avoiding me.

Our blueberries are doing quite well. They are on the small side, I don't know if it's the variety or if I'm not watering them enough. We're still going to try to start new plants from a friend's bushes so we'll be able to compare them next year.

This is a volunteer tomato plant that is growing right off our patio. By the time I discovered it, it already had tomatoes so I decided to leave it where it was.

These are the lemons on the lemon tree that came with the house. My other lemon tree isn't doing so well. I'm hoping it survives.

Our tomatoes are starting to ripen. This is a variety called Cherokee Purple.  We also planted Roma, Lemon Boy, Rutgers, Lemon Boy, Cherry, Yellow Pear and Yellow Cherry. 

Benjamin standing by the zucchini plants. He and Gabriel help me the most in the garden.  Both of them enjoy harvesting and looking for vine borers which we've already had one round of.

Our pumpkins are starting to turn orange already. I really need to figure out when to plant these so that they are ready a little later in the summer. Last year we planted too late and the plants got burned up and the couple of pumpkins that did ripen got eaten by pill bugs.  This year we're putting plates under each pumpkin, I don't care who makes fun of me.  We are also already having trouble with powdery mildew. 

All in all the garden's doing well.  There's some things we forgot to plant, like spaghetti squash and melons, so we've gone ahead and planted some seeds. 

If you garden tell us how your garden is doing. If you have pictures please leave a link in your comment.

This post is linked to Barn Hop

and the winner is...

Commenter #3 - Alison "We have decided to be home with our children everyday after school instead of running around to multiple activities. This last year we have also eliminated evening activities Mon-Thurs. This has allowed for us to have more quality parent/child time and has reduced stress for our family drastically. Many other parents think that this is an odd choice, but "That works for me!"

I'm so sorry I've not posted this sooner, Alison you should have received an email from me.  Let me know if you didn't get it.

we've survived...

When I wrote my last post I was desperately trying to avoid having a panic attack.  (I'm only half joking)  I'm glad to report that not only did I not have a panic attack but we also had a lot of good times over the course of the last few weeks. I didn't take many pictures since we were so busy having fun but here's a few from the plays and Christian's graduation.

The plays were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of the Black Forest and King Midas and The Touch of Gold.

Josiah - King Absent Minded

Christian - Prince Good Hearted

Here they are on stage Prince Good Hearted trying to take
King Absent Minded to his daughter "Snow White"
... or was it "White Snow"?

Christian was also a Greek fisherman in King Midas

Christian graduated on Saturday.  Traditionally our local homeschool group has a commencement ceremony on Mother's Day weekend.  It seems to be a good weekend for families that  need to travel and it doesn't conflict with any other graduations. 

Each graduate and his parents have 10 minutes (you can use less but not more).  They all did slide shows and after the slide show the graduate and his parents go up front and can say whatever they want and present their graduate with his diploma.  I was so very glad that Carl did all our talking and kept it short and sweet.

Each graduate has a 6 foot round table that he can use to display memorabilia.
It was fun seeing all the tables and seeing what was important to each graduate.

And here he is... our first graduate...

...and his diploma.

I've spent the last few day enjoying not "having" to do anything more than just the very basics.  In between doing the basics I've been thinking a lot about the last 13 years of homeschooling.  Things we did wrong, things we did right, things I worried about needlessly and what all of that means for the rest of my children.

I'm hoping to be sharing some of those thoughts with you in the future ...