mama llama loves blueberry pie

Since we had the day off yesterday, I wanted to do something fun.   We ended up going berry picking at Larriland Farm.  It was certainly hot out there, but holy moly, was it worth it.  The blueberries were AMAZING.  Huge, blue berries ripe for picking (and a lot of eating!).   They just rolled right off the branches.  I can definitely see why strawberries and raspberries cost more at the store - they're a lot more work to get (and a lot more delicate).   We ended up with half a pint of red & purple raspberries that we kept for eating the rest of the week, and a pint of blueberries that we used to bake a pie.

The above picture shows our berry loot at checkout.  That whole thing cost us $4!!!  That's a STEAL! Larriland is a real farm, and they have some very friendly (and hungry) goats & llamas who like to eat corn husks.  Emma kept calling them "mama llamas".   :) 

The above picture was Em's idea - she wanted to pose like a "Grand Ole Flag".   :)   In addition to berries, we bought cantelope, fresh, unpasteurized honey, juicy zucchinis and peaches, and we also picked our own wildflowers and fresh basil which we used to make fresh pesto for dinner. 

After cooling off at the pool in the afternoon, we used our fresh blueberries to bake a 4th of July pie.  The design was all her idea. We had some homemade ice cream in the freezer to go with it.  It was SOOOO good!!

Favorite Things Friday

I've seen other bloggers do this, and it really is fun.  This is just a little group of things that I've/we've been loving recently.

1).  Target girls Jeggings.  These things are the BOMB!  My sis turned me onto them.  Emma is built just like me - long waisted with short legs.  Even with adjustable waist jeans, pants just never fit her right.  Well, helllllooooo ladiessss.  These are fantasic.  They pull right up, and go with practically everything.  She tucks them into boots or wears them with her twinkle toes.  We picked up two pairs the other day and wore one to school today.  She came home ranting and raving about them being the best pants she's ever worn.  Done.  And done.

2)  Kashi frozen pizza.  I always stock up on a few frozen pizzas for our usual Friday night pizza night.  Usually the basic ones are fine, and I throw on some veggies and extra tomatoes.  But then I discovered Kashi brand frozen pizzas.  If you're a Kashi fan, you know how GOOD their stuff is.  The pizzas are great too!   The three of us can split one pizza, and I feel good knowing that we're eating a decently healthy meal.  My favorite part is their Flax Seed Meal crust.  We usually get the Mediterranean ones, but the others are fab too.  Dinner in 10 minutes?  Um, okay!

3)  My black and tan boots.  They rock.  They're the only boots I've owned that did NOT gap at the top of the calf.  Minor detail, but I am anal retentive about boots fitting me properly.  Plus, they go with everything!

4)  The Cooking Light's Way to Cook Vegetarian cookbook.  Cooking Light has a series of Way to Cook cookbooks and they are all visual guides to cooking.  This?  Is for me.  I need pictures - lots of them.  I happened to pick this one up at the library, and I've already tagged it up.  This could be revolutionary for me. We eat pretty well, but I always want to find a way to incorporate more vegetables - especially into breakfast and lunch.  We're not going to go full bore vegetarian, but I like to have a couple nights a week where dinner is meatless.   It's recession chic.  :)  Roger enjoys a good protein, but Emma doesn't eat much, and I could take it or leave it.  So this is a good compromise for all of us.  I LOVE visual guides when cooking.  Definitely a favorite for us, give it a try!

5)  Spinach smoothies.  Ok, before you get all turn-up-your-nosey at me, just hear me out.  It's JUST like any other smoothie you would have, except it's green.  I'll give you that.  For this one, I threw some bananas, frozen berries, frozen mangos, a little orange juice, a little water and a handful of baby spinach in a blender.  That's it.  The raw baby spinach doesn't taste like much (the strong flavor comes when cooked) and everything else is sweet.  I topped it with whipped cream for fun.  I've been getting a request for this daily, so I'm clearly not forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do :)

6)  Sundown Naturals Vitamin D3 caplets.  There's been a lot of talk recently about Vitamin D deficiency.  I didn't worry about this as much in San Diego, but according to some research most people living in the Mid-Atlantic, and Northeast USA are not getting enough Vitamin D.  I started taking these a few months ago (as soon as the days threatened to get shorter) and I definitely think it's improved my mood.  I take 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 a day, along with a Calcium supplement, Cod Liver oil and Folic Acid.  I am always interested to hearing people's vitamin stories.  What do you take?

Happy Friday!

irish cows

In an effort to blog more (and less self-consciously), I'll probably end up posting a lot of randomness.  Today's randomness is brought to you by Irish cows.

The picture below (albeit not a very good one.....it was hard to get the white balance just right) is of two sticks of butter.  The one on the left - Kirkland brand unsalted butter (which we buy in bulk at Costco.  We go through a LOT of butter).  The one of the right - a stick of Kerrygold butter.   This is "pure Irish butter" made from grass-only fed cows.

I first heard about Kerrygold watching a great cooking show that seems to air sporadically on PBS (Rachel's Favorite Food at Home).  Pretty standard (if British...so everything is in metric) cooking show, but she made a point to talk about the benefits of dairy from grass-fed cows, and the show ends with a commercial for kerrygold (clearly, a sponsor).  Anyway, the food looks amazing and easy, but the last few seconds featuring those shiny cows grazing on neon green pastures, fresh mountain air, birds singing, and I! was! sold!

I stumbled upon a stick last week at none other than Trader Joe's.  At almost $3 a stick it's a luxury-butter, but my point to all of this was to show you a visual!  The Kirkland brand butter on the left looks tired, doesn't it?  The grass-fed cow butter on the right looks rich and yellow and scrumptious.  Who knows if there's any scientific weight to grass-only fed, but I sure feel healthier eating it!

Happy Monday!

FOOD!

One of my peeps at work started a food blog, and graciously invited myself and several other co-workers to contribute. How fun!! I made crepes this week - so check out the EASY recipe & instructions! :) You can check us out here:

Turning Paper Into Water