checkerboard apples

Local eating means eating a lot apples in the winter. They store well. We like them. They can be apple sauce or apple chips or apple muffins. There’s enough other variety in our menu and enough variety in the way we ‘serve’ apples that no child has ever complained. None the less, I’m always on the lookout for new ways to make apples exciting.

Which is why I love Checkerboard Apples. I love them because my kids love them. And anything that keep my kids convinced that their waste-free, mostly local lunch is infintely better than a packaged alternative is good by me.

To make Checkerboard Apples:

• Quarter an core the apple.
• Slice just through the skin of the apple, first lengthwise, then side to side. The effect at this point will be a squares cut into the skin.
• Carefully, remove the skin from every second square, making a checkerboard pattern.
• Rub with a little lemon to prevent browning until lunch!

The first time I sent these to school for Asher, he reported a class full of grade one students ogling. What could be better than a class full of six year olds ogling over an apple!

Great uses for apple?  Please comment! Share the apple love.

Taken at Tonquin Beach
Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/building-on-the-beach-the-kids-dont-care-its-cold-theyre-just-happy-to-play-in-nature/feed/ 0 gumbootgarden Media_httpdistilleryi_gfumb http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/christmas-tree-magnet/ http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/christmas-tree-magnet/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 18:15:21 +0000 gumbootgarden http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/?p=459 ]]>

We’re making glass magnets from the kids Christmas art and scraps of wrapping paper. Easy and cute and useful – my kind of craft! This is Bergandy’s (age 3) Christmas tree. And in other news – we’re going to get the real deal this morning.

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Filed under: Uncategorized ]]> http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/dyed-pasta-drying-for-the-first-xmas-craft-with-the-kids/feed/ 1 gumbootgarden Media_httpdistilleryi_phkvw http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/apple-festival/ http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/apple-festival/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:41:55 +0000 gumbootgarden http://gumbootadvertures.wordpress.com/?p=443 ]]> The kids and I recently decided to have our very own Apple Festival.  You can read all about it at Growing Up Green, my weekly series at www.thriftyandgreen.com. Here’s a little behind-the-scene look at our fun!

We don’t have apples growing yet – next year I hope – so we hit the farmer’s market for a selection of shapes colours and sizes.  Bergandy is always attracted to tiny things! So, crab apples:

Crab Apples

We laid out our spread, filled bowls with toppings, and dug in! You try getting them to look up after saying go…

Our At-Home Apple Festival

I thought the kids would gorge on the sprinkles & chocolate, but they surprised me. They always do! That’s half the fun. Bergandy liked sweet apple with sweet honey. Sweet. Asher laughed at the idea of picking a favorite. Between bites  – “Who needs a favorite with all this good stuff!”

Apple Love

Even Weston partook – using any and every apple slice he could get his paws on as a teether! No chocolate sauce for him, though you know he tried his hardest to get into that fun too!

Baby Weston Loves Apple

After gorging ourselves on 10 – yes TEN – apples, we needed to burn off the honey, caramel and chocolate. What better way than to done matching monster t-shirts and dance around the living room to Monster Mash!

Monster Moves

Until we collapsed. Here, Bergandy does her very best “dead pose”.

Dead Dance

Pesto Pre-Presto

The garden is in full swing and we’re enjoying its goodness at least every day and often at every meal! One of the ubiquitous family favorites at our house is fresh pesto. When the bright flavours hit our pallet, we know that summer has really, truly arrived.

Our pesto recipe is simple and traditional, with a little health zing: kale! A handful of garden fresh kale disappears into the strong flavours of garlic and basil. Around here, only the grown ups actually enjoy kale but since it’s a super food – packed full of nutrients and vitamins – so we sneak it into the kids every chance we get.

Italien Soup w/ Pesto

Pesto is great as a pasta sauce. For a quick, healthy, kid-pleasing meal we like to sautee the pesto with cubed tofu for a few minutes, before adding cooked pasta, olives and cherry tomatoes. It’s also perfect dolluped on top of a tomato based vegetable soup like minestrone or Italian Bean soup. At snack time, try pesto spread on rye crackers with fresh sliced tomatoes.

Basil & Kale Pesto Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh basil (leaves, stems, flowers – it’s all good)
¾ cup of olive oil
¼ cup pine nuts (it’s nice to roast these in the pan with a little olive oil first)
1/3 cup parmesean cheese
2 large cloves of garlic
5 kale leaves, off the stem

Directions:
Strip the leafy greens off of the kale stem. Disgard the stem. If desired, pan-roast the pine nuts in a bit of olive oil for a nice nutty flavour.
Combine all ingredients in a food processor.

Puree. Eat. Enjoy.

Rose

Yesterday the kids spontaneously started collecting the fallen rose petals.  They were freshly fallen and pretty much perfect, so I suggested we bring them in for a rose bath. They added a few sprigs of lavender and had a spa treatment soak at home.  What fun! The whole bathroom was filled with intoxicating rose aromas and the kids relished the indulgence.

So often I think of our garden as a source of food production – I find beauty in its usefullness, in its ability to provide for us. As such, I view the flowers as a means to an end. They attract the bees and the butterflies.  Sometimes they ward off the pests. They dot the garden with bits of colour and some of them can be eaten.  But I have long neglected to enjoy the flowers to their fullest.

That’s changing. For whatever reason, this year I’m taking absolute joy in the delicious uselessness of beauty for the sake of beauty. I’ve begun cutting fresh flowers for a vase that now lives on our table. The kids and I have plans to dry flowers next week. And now this, a rose bath.  The change may be attributed in part to the housebound state I’m currently living in as a sort-of-stay-at-home-works-every-possible-opportunity-never-finds-time-to-relax mom or maybe it’s because after a year of renovations, I’m craving the beauty.

Thank you kids, for reminding me to enjoy the pretty petals.

Tomatoes Ripening

It’s the time of year when a lot of the work in the garden is either pinching or picking.  To increase production, plants need to be pinched. To maintain continuous production, other plants need to picked regularly. The practice of pinching sends the energy to the fruit, increasing the likelyhood of nice, big, ripe fruit and vegetables. Our tomatoes have been especially needy in the pinching department as they struggle to produce ripe fruit amidst a short growing season and the constant threat of blight.

PINCHING

Tomatoes  – Tomatoes can be pinched in a couple of ways. (1) Once flowering starts, pinch the tops to stunt growth and send energy to fruit production. (2) Especially in wet climates, pinch the lower leaves to prevent the onset of blight. (3) Once fruit production begins in earnest, thin out leaves to send energy to the fruit and to allow the sun to reach and ripen the fruit.

Squash & Pumpkins – If size matters, pinch all but a few flowers to get big, lovely pumpkins and other squashes. If space matters, trim back the vines, unless you’ve trained them up.  Squash flowers are edible and make a nice colourful addition to salad.

Strawberry – Trim back those runners! Strawberry plants should be replaced about every four years. Unless it’s replacement time, trim back the runners to direct the energy to the plant, and to allow enough space for the existing plants to produce well.

PICKING

Peas - Peas require continual picking to keep up their production. In August, the novelty of the peas can wear off as other vegetables come into season. Don’t let the peas become the neglected plant in the corner. Continued love will be rewarded with long lasting production and fresh peas for salad, stews and pesto well into the summer.

Brocoli - Quick, before it flowers! Any remaining brocoli needs to be picked now before it flowers. Leave the plants for a second set of heads ready for harvest later in the fall.

Leafy Greens - Picking a few leaves from each head of lettuce and from the kale, chard, and spinach is key to preventing to bolting and to enjoying fresh sweet salads all summer long.