Thankful Thursday- Three Things

This week for Thankful Thursday, I'm pulling a page out of my friend Christy's book (or, blog, rather!) and just picking three things to write about. Three things I'm thankful for today.

1. We are harvesting.  This harvest has been incredibly stop and go. We've hit the 1-month mark of harvest today. I'm thankful that we are actively cutting wheat today because the more we get done, the sooner we will be DONE with harvest. It's just been dragging on forever. So, today, I'm thankful for progress on that front.

Harvey in the Spring Wheat field.

The wheat in that photo is all gone and cut now! The photo was taken a few days ago. We're getting closer to being done with harvest!

2. Garden produce. Our garden has been bountiful this year again. Right now we have zucchini, beets and green beans in high numbers and the tomatoes are just starting to really turn on. Our neighbors planted a huge garden this year, too, and were kind enough to share a few squash and zucchini with us. I really love summer meals with produce from the garden. Just can't beat the flavors!

The mango did not come from the garden, but everything else did! Aren't those watermelon zucchinis so cute?!

3. Much-needed haircut! I got my haircut this morning and I'm so happy with the new length. It had gotten pretty overgrown over the summer and it was high time for a chop. Just in time for back to school! Just excuse the no-makeup, crappy lighting selfie. It looks like I'm drunk or high, but I promise I'm not! Focus on the hair, not the face! Either way, so happy and thankful for the haircut!

Eeek...

So, there you have it! Short and simple Three Things Thankful Thursday post! What are you thankful for this week?!

Stay tuned for tomorrows post on Oiselle Flight Friday!! I'll be reviewing another piece of my Oiselle gear and going over the first Principle of Flight! :)

Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry

You know I love to cook with beef! Today, I'm sharing one of my favorite healthy beef recipes with all of you: Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry!

Hey! I'm getting a little better at photo editing! Ha.

One thing that I really miss about living in a larger city or town is access to a variety of restaurant food, especially ethnic cuisine. I'll admit that I have a guilty pleasure for Chinese food. I love it. When I lived in Jackson, there was a Chinese restaurant that actually had a drive-through! I didn't know a ton of people when I lived there, so the drive-through was the perfect option for me. Quick service, and I didn't have to awkwardly sit alone in the restaurant and eat by myself. When I lived in Bozeman, the mall that I worked in had the standard Chinese fast food restaurant in the food court that I frequented more often than I probably should have.

Havre does have an assortment of fast food taco joints, so I guess that counts as Mexican, and they have two Chinese buffet restaurants. I'll hit up the buffet once in a while when I'm in town for errands, but I'm not likely to drive an hour just for Chinese takeout, guilty pleasure or not. So, how to please those cravings for Chinese takeout at home? Learn to cook it!

As a follow up to yesterday's Thankful Thursday post where I told you all how thankful I am to be able to eat my own home-raised beef, I thought I'd share with you an easy at-home recipe for Chinese food. This stuff tastes just like the real deal, guys. And, it's a little healthier than the gut-bomb that Chinese takeout can sometimes be. Best of all, you can customize the recipe to use whatever ingredients you have on hand. I used beef (of course!) and some fresh, seasonal veggies. I wrote in detail about the recipe first, then the actual recipe itself is listed all together at the bottom of the post. Let's get started!

First, gather your ingredients. You'll need four cups of vegetables and one pound of beef. For the veggies, you can use whatever you like in a stir fry. I used asparagus as my star because it's in season and we have a big community asparagus patch down the road, so it's also free for the picking. :) I paired the asparagus with some slivered red bell pepper for color, and about 1/4 cup of slivered onion for extra flavor. I recommend checking your garden or local market for whatever veggies are fresh right now. You can also just look in your fridge at what you need to use up, or use a bag of frozen stir fry veggies for an extra convenience factor. 

Before starting any of the actual cooking, I like to prep the sauce. Pour the soy sauce into a glass one-cup measuring cup, then add the rest of your ingredients, brown sugar through garlic, to the soy sauce. No need to pour into another bowl- then you have one more thing to wash. Plus, it's easier to pour out of a measuring cup anyway when you go to pour your sauce on your stir fry later on. So, measure all of the sauce ingredients into the measuring cup, stir with a whisk, and set aside.

Clean your produce and cut your veggies down to bite-size pieces. For the asparagus, that meant each piece was between 1-2 inches long, depending on the thickness of the stalk. You want the pieces to be close to the same size so that they cook evenly. As you're chopping and prepping, preheat a skillet or wok to medium-high and swirl some oil in the pan. I used a mix of chili oil and olive oil. Then drop in your veggies and saute for a few minutes until they are crisp-tender. Remove from skillet into a bowl and set aside. You don't want to completely cook them at this point because they'll get more skillet time later and there's nothing worse than sad, soggy overcooked vegetables, especially asparagus.

You gotta love fresh veggies! There is nothing like home-grown asparagus for freshness and flavor.

Now, let's talk about the beef. I used a round steak which I cut in half length-wise, then cut into strips about 1/4 inch thick , cutting against the grain. You could use about any type of steak--sirloin or flank steak would work well, too, and both are lean cuts. You can also pick up pre-cut stir fry or stew beef at the meat counter of your local store. Again, you want your beef pieces to be close to the same size so they cook evenly, and you want them to be close to bite-size so you don't have to bring a knife into the picture later when you're eating. Let's say you don't want to use beef-- you could use any meat you like in this stir fry, but I personally feel the soy-sauce based sauce lends itself best to beef. (If you want my recipe for Orange-Basil Chicken, I'll gladly share that one sometime, too!)

Anyway, after you've sauteed and then removed your veggies from the skillet, you can add just a bit more oil to the pan and then drop your beef pieces in. Cook until they are browned through and fully cooked. You may have to drain some excess liquid. 

Once the beef is cooked through, add the veggies back to the pan and give everything another minute or two to stir fry all together. Now, remember your sauce you made? Give it another brisk stir with the whisk and then pour it over everything in the pan. Stir it all up so that everything gets coated with the sauce, then let it sit for a few minutes. You want it to come to a simmer because that really helps the sauce thicken and gel together. Once you get to that point, turn off the skillet and give everything another big stir so that the delicious sauce coats into every nook and cranny of food. 

All those tasty veggies and beef playing together so nicely in the skillet! Can't wait to eat it!

Now you're ready to eat! Spoon your stir fry over rice or noodles and top with cashews, peanuts, or toasted sesame seeds, and enjoy! 

 Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Vegetable Stir Fry
All You Need:
4 cups of cleaned, chopped vegetables of your choice
1 lb beef, trimmed and cut into bite size pieces
1/3 cup lite, reduced sodium soy sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 Tablespoon corn starch
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon ginger powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional.
Minced garlic, to taste. (I typically use about 2-3 cloves)

All You Do:

1. Prepare sauce using soy sauce through garlic, stirring with a whisk. Set aside.

2. Preheat a large skillet or wok to medium-high and swirl some oil in pan. Add veggies and stir fry to crisp-tender. Remove from skillet and set aside.

3. Swirl a bit more oil into pan and then saute beef pieces until browned and cooked through. Add veggies back to pan, stir frying for about one minute. Pour sauce into pan. Stir fry to coat and bring to simmer to allow sauce to thicken. Remove from heat and let sit for a few minutes before serving. Serve with rice or noodles and top with cashews, peanuts or sesame seeds.

Chinese Takeout Style Beef and Asparagus Stir Fry.
YUM!

This recipe is a little healthier than a typical Chinese takeout recipe. It uses fewer oils. The sauce is packed with flavor, which means you don't need as much of it, too. Really loading up on the veggies, such as high-in-iron and folic acid asparagus, and Vitamin-C packed red bell peppers, give it more of a nutritional punch, too. Add in the lean beef and rice, you've got close to all the food groups covered! Let me know what you think of this recipe if you give it a try! What are some of your favorite beef recipes?

Salad In a Jar

If you haven't noticed, mason jars are really trendy right now. Just do a Google or Pinterest search and see what you come up with. They are being used for everything from light fixtures to soap dispensers and everything in between, including good old canning and food storage. Here on the farm, we do a fair amount of canning to preserve our garden bounty and Carol also does canned beef every year. We have no shortage of jars around and we're not afraid to use them!

So when this week's Shape Up Montana Weekly Challenge was to make ahead some salads in mason jars, we were completely on board and ready to go! We don't have any garden produce yet, but since we do get a Bountiful Basket every other week, we were able to find some salad recipes that utilized ingredients we had on hand, including lots of fresh produce and grains and some healthy, lean proteins. Yesterday, Jeff, Tom, Carol and I got together and combined our resources and ingredients to put together a whole bunch of mason jar salads to eat throughout the week.

Beautiful jars of Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad.

The inspiration and recipes for our salads came from an article I found on Buzzfeed. The article featured eighteen recipes, each a different combination of ingredients for mason jar salads. Jeff looked through all of them and found two that worked well with ingredients we already had. When we all got together, Jeff was the task master, too, and coordinated all of the salad creating efforts. The recipes we chose were similar, but contained different ingredients. We made Burrito Bowl Salads, and  Chopped Black Bean and Corn Mason Jar Salad.  Both had southwestern inspiration and flavors, and both had a "dressing" of greek yogurt and salsa.

Jeff places the first ingredients in the jars. I'm showing off his skills with Vanna hands. 

 What took the most time in preparing these salads was chopping veggies and preparing the ingredients. We were more or less starting from scratch, so all the veggies had to be cleaned and diced, chicken and sweet potatoes had to be seasoned and cooked, corn had to be thawed, black beans rinsed and drained, lettuce was torn, rinsed and spun dry. It was a good thing we had all hands on deck because it would have been a lot of work for one person.

While waiting on a few ingredients to be prepped, Jeff and Tom talked farming as Tom read the latest copy of Progressive Farmer.  

 The first salad we started on was the black bean and corn salad. It contained Greek yogurt, salsa, black beans, corn, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, cubed pepper jack cheese, and lettuce. Even though this salad is meatless, the beans, corn, cheese and yogurt will pack a powerful protein punch.

Jeff measures out black beans for each jar.

 We tackled the Burrito Bowl jars next. Ingredients for this one include Greek yogurt, bell peppers, cubed sweet potatoes, cilantro-lime quinoa, diced cooked chicken, shredded cheddar cheese, and lettuce. Again, this salad will be a protein powerhouse as quinoa is high in protein and it also contains chicken, cheese, and Greek yogurt.

Tom and Carol spoon some Greek yogurt into the bottom of the Burrito Bowl jars.

 I think the salad in a jar idea is really great because it allows you to prep some meals ahead of time that can be used later in the week. Jeff and Tom will be able to take them in their lunches while they're working on seeding barley, Carol can eat one for a quick lunch in the house or wherever she is, and I plan to bring a jar to my track meet tomorrow evening. It's a great on-the-go meal for busy people.

Putting lettuce in each jar.

If a person didn't want to spend a bunch of time cutting and chopping, you could use leftover ingredients from meals earlier in the week, or buy pre-cut produce and pre-cooked chicken, etc. I think a person could be really resourceful in using up leftovers from the fridge and making up your own salads whenever odd bits of leftover ingredients are around. 

Screwing lids on jars.

One thing that is important to remember in creating a mason jar salad is to put the wetter ingredients and salad dressings in FIRST. Then progress to drier ingredients as you fill the jar, saving lettuce for last. This way things like lettuce and cheese don't get soggy from sitting in the dressing. Plus, the colorful layers really look great in a clear jar!

Finished! Aren't those layers beautiful?

 When you're ready to eat, just dump your jar out onto a big plate or bowl and chow down. Easy, right?

If you're looking for a fun meal to make as a family that's healthy and delicious, mason jar salads could be just the ticket! Even young kids can get involved in helping and layering ingredients, and you can teach them about nutrition along the way. We had a great time making these together over the weekend and I can't wait to dig in! The four of us will definitely get our ten bonus points for Shape Up Montana, and these will work well for the Protein Challenge I'm participating in, too.

Have you ever made mason jar salads? What are some great, healthy meal ideas you use in your busy house?

A Day in the Life AND Early Summer Roundup, Installment Four: Seattle Proper!

A day in the life...

So good to be home for the whole weekend. Jeff and I both have been looking forward to the time when we'd no longer be traveling so much and this is the first full weekend of being home.  Not that we aren't busy, however.  Jeff has been spending most of his time mowing CRP that we will be putting into production.  And when he isn't mowing, he and I have been on ranch duties. 

Right now, our cows are running with Tom's at pasture.  They are in four groups and spread out among the different pastures we own and rent.  Late July is a restless time for the cattle, however. The bulls in particular are starting to get antsy.  By now, they have been with the cows for some time and have, ahem, well... one might say they have achieved their mission.  At least we hope they have.  Judging by the tendency of the bulls to get out lately, one could safely say that at least the good majority of the cows are bred.

Therein lies the problem.  The bulls get restless and decide to push on fences here and there and escape.  They go into the neighbors herd (where there are fewer bred cows...) or into the neighbor's wheat field (wheat tastes better than grass! Duh!)... or just into some other pasture (Hence the phrase, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence).  All this activity has lead to Jeff and I spending time mending fences and gates here and there.  As Jeff is on the mower as much as he can be, it has been my job over the past few days to drive around and check whether the cows are in or out at the various pastures. 

Mornings have also been spent watering the vegetable garden and flowers at Tom and Carol's house, and harvesting veggies.  Lettuce is on the down-side of its bell curve of ripeness, while cucumbers and green peas, and snow peas are on the upswing.  If anyone has any good cucumber or pea recipes, send them our way because we have a bumper crop for sure! Tonight I am making pasta with bacon and peas, and I think I am going to experiment with making pea spread either today or tomorrow. It will be like hummus, only green, and I think it'll freeze fine, too.  First step in making pea dip will be simply to figure out how to put together and use the food processor...

So that's what has been happening around here over the weekend.

Back to the Early Summer Roundup, here's the photos from our time in Seattle. 

Really, the only super-touristy thing we did was go to Pike's Place market.  Even though it was crowded with throngs of people, I still enjoyed it.  It was cool to see so much produce and seafood in one place. Although I did wonder how much of it was produced locally versus shipped in from warehouses or facilities from far away...

 

We met up with a very dear friend of mine from college, Ellen, whom I hadn't seen since I still lived in Iowa.  She and her husband and their young son were also in Seattle for a wedding (not the same wedding!) so we met at the market for breakfast.  They are organic farmers in Western Iowa.  They also have a CSA and Ellen is a huge advocate for local, sustainable food. I love her.  Here's one of their websites: Pin Oak Place.

I took this picture in the market because of the beef prices.  HOLY COW! No pun intended.  Glad I don't have to buy beef at the store... although I am sure there is a Pike's Place Market Markup.  Would anyone out there like to pay Bangs Beef that much for one of our steaks?!?! :) 

I bought some delicious Tequila Caramel from this stand. We were first attracted to this booth because of the name-- Woodring Orchards.  We have some close family friends from Townsend, MT with that last name... any relation!?

 

And now moving into the main reason we went to Seattle in the first place! For the wedding of my dear friend, Steven.  Steven and Jessica started dating back when I still lived in Ames... so maybe 2006? I had the great delight of meeting and getting to know Jessica before the two of them moved to Seattle.  Steven I have known since we were in seventh grade.  He's actually still to this date the friend I have had the longest who I still keep in touch with.  He's a pretty tremendous guy! Jessica is so wonderful as well.  Wish we all lived closer. :)

Steven is a very talented person in many different realms. One of his talents is glass blowing.  Steven and a friend made all these little glass penguin figurines and glass ornaments for the centerpieces at the wedding reception.  They were beautiful!

 Another person I was so fortunate to reconnect with at the wedding was another dear friend from high school, Leslie! I hadn't seen her since high school but was so delighted to find that we were still easy friends. Sometimes when you reconnect with someone you haven't seen in a while, either you or they have changed so much that you can't see why you were friends in the first place. Not so with Leslie.  I had a great time catching up with her!

 Jessica and Steven.  The happy couple! I wished we had more time to catch up with them, but that's the nature of weddings. You're surrounded by friends and family but it's so hard to have meaningful conversations with any of them.  Next time, friends!

The light is a little goofy in this photo, but here's me, Jessica, Steven, and Leslie.

 

The wedding reception was at Golden Gardens park, right on a public beach on the Sound. Looking across the water, you could see the Olympic Peninsula and the mountains. 

 The reception was held in what was formerly a bath house and is now an events venue. It was perfect. The weather was perfect. The people were perfect. Everything was perfect!

 
 We were really only in Seattle for about 48 hours, in total, so we didn't have a ton of time to see too many people, unfortunately. Sunday, we did take some time to relax at a baseball game. Happily, the Cubs, my long-time favorite team, were playing the Mariners in interleague play. We decided rather last minute to buy tickets at the gate and go to the game before heading out of town.

 

Approaching the stadium, with great Mount Rainier in the background.

Safeco Field is pretty new and a very nice stadium.

The view from our seats.

Alas, we look pretty confused as fans.  Jeff in his Braves shirt and I in a Mariners hat, and we both cheering for the Cubs.  We got a few funny looks from the people seated around us.  I bought the Mariners hat because I had neglected to bring a hat of my own to the game and it was pretty sunny.  I guess I'm a Mariners fan, now! Since they are AL and the Cubs are NL it's probably OK to be fans of both, right?

 

Stay tuned for the next episode of Early Summer Roundup, coming soon!

Garden and Columbine Photos

It has been a while since I have done a photo montage of the garden, so here it is!  Everything is coming along very nicely with the garden, although we have had to use quite a bit of water lately due to the hot, dry weather. 

Just some of our many tomato plants. They are doing great, for the most part. The first tomatoes will be ready soon, I think! 

The corn was knee high by the fourth of July and is looking good overall.

Raised bed number one... onions, lettuce, broccoli, cukes, okra, more tomatoes, peppers, peas, and more onions... 

Raised bed number two... carrots, more onions, sugar snap peas, and beans

I also took quite a few photos of some of Carol's flowers.  I have been obsessed with taking macro photos of flowers lately.  These next few are some of the best I think.   

How Does Your Garden Grow?

 After the Memorial Day Rain/Snow Event, the remainder of the week was fairly nice, allowing for some time to work in the garden spaces.  Lots of vegetables and flowers have been planted, both at my house, and at Tom and Carol's. Primarily, the garden spaces are at their house, but Jeff and I have a small container garden here, too.

A recent trip to the local community greenhouse yielded many vegetable starts which we now had to find permanent homes for the season. Jeff and I visited the greenhouse on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, on its first day in operation.  Hopefully I can do a post just on this greenhouse and its owner sometime in the near future because there really could be a lot to write about it.

Anyway, tomatoes came six to a packet, not individually, and we wanted three varieties... so we ended up with eighteen tomato starts.  Jeff and I planted six or eight maybe in our containers at our house, and the rest joined Carol's in the new Tomato Plot.  Carol had quite a few tomato plants as well. In total, I think we have 27 tomato plants, representing 7 varieties.  I guess we will see what we like! If they all produce, we could have quite a heavy harvest later this summer. Plenty for making sauces and salsa!

I am a little nervous that the close proximity of the different varieties of tomatoes will cause them to cross-polinate. Does anyone know anything about that or have experience with that happening? 

Here is the tomato plot. We have cages, mini hot-houses made from milk jugs, and water wall thingys (technical term, yes) to help them out. 

Here is a view of one of our other vegetable plots. This one was reserved for larger veggies-- plants that need more space. Here we have zucchini (in the tires), two rows of corn, and two rows of bush beans. All the green stuff kind of growing in a patch is volunteer spinach.  The spinach has been very prolific this year- we have had many delicious spinach salads!

We do have a plot dedicated to herbs, but there is also an abundance of volunteer chive plants coming up EVERYWHERE! 

Harvey is not much help in the garden. He prefers to either be running around the yard, or to be asleep, as in this photo. 

So. The raised beds are coming on very well.  Jeff and Tom fashioned a protective fence around the two beds out of some old sheep-wire fence and some leftover fence posts.  What are we trying to keep out? Deer? Rabbits? No, No.  We are trying to keep out our DOGS who LOVE to dig in the dirt!! 

This bed contains: red onions, white onions, cucumbers, okra, broccoli, carrots, peas, and various types of salad greens. 

This bed may appear to be coming on a little slower, but really, most everything planted in this one was put in the ground later.  Here we have radishes, carrots, more onions, sugar snap peas, and some beans. 

Here I am harvesting some fresh oregano in the herb plot. 

After the days efforts planting and weeding in the garden, it is so rewarding to be able to harvest a few things, too.  Today's pickings were oregano, chives, lots of spinach, and the last three asparagus stalks! 

I am pretty sure the geese were wondering why they were not still south for the winter!

As I mentioned, Memorial Day Weekend was dominated by cold, wintry rainy sleety weather. This had the farmers in a great mood as the moisture was desperately needed. I took these two photos of some geese in our farm yard.  The image quality isn't that great, but you still get the idea. 

And... They're off!