Nancy on the Home Front

Shrimp and Pasta Salad

I have mentioned before how much I enjoy shrimp. For me this shrimp and pasta salad is one of those perfect summertime salads, it can be served as a light dinner with some fresh homemade bread or you can enjoy it for lunch. To make it lighter use fat-free mayonnaise. By all means use fresh ingredients from your garden if possible! This easy salad makes about 9 servings.

Shrimp and Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

8 oz uncooked small pasta shells
1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup buttermilk
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1 ½ tsp minced fresh basil
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 pound cooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup frozen peas
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped
2 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions:

Cook the pasta according to the package directions. While the pasta is cooking make the dressing. Combine the mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, buttermilk, onion, parsley, basil salt and pepper in a blender; cover and process until blended.

Drain the pasta and rinse in cold water. In a large bowl combine the pasta, shrimp, peas, tomato and scallions. Add dressing and toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate until chilled.

Perfect with a glass of wine on the deck!

Ten Ways To Use Up Those Blueberries

It’s blueberry season and we have ten bushes! I’m always looking for ways to use blueberries! Here are the top ten ways I use up our blueberries!

Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry Vinaigrette

Blueberry Jam

Blueberry and Chicken Salad

Blueberry Crunch

Blueberry Lemon Sauce

Blueberry Torte

Blueberry Lemon Bread

Blueberry Cobbler

Blueberry Crisp

Say NO to Mold!

Need new sheets? August is the time to buy!

Summer humidity and the dampness can create an ideal situation for certain types of mold. Mold can attack your home’s structure as well as its contents (not to mention your health), and it can lead to the need for seriously expensive repairs. Mold usually grows in damp basements, though it can appear anywhere if the conditions are right.

Here’s how to help keep your home mold-free:

Be Spartan. Clothing, paper and furniture are the three biggest moisture magnets.

Run a dehumidifier.

In the summer months, if it’s not too humid, open the basement windows.

Avoid air-drying wet clothes in an already damp basement. Instead dry them on a clothesline.

Store firewood in a shed or garage, or neatly stacked outside under a tarp, not in the house.

Don’t carpet the basement floor.

Keep an eye on any water you have coming into your basement.

To absorb musty odors left by previous mold outbreaks, set out a few small bowls of vinegar, or place a lump of dry charcoal in an open metal container.

If you have a bathroom in your basement make sure there are no leaks to cause water to collect under the sink or toilet. If you have a stall shower make sure there is an adequate fan so that mold doesn’t start to grown.

Mold is not something you want in your home.

We have a carpeted basement but it is very dry, even so we run a dehumidifier full time during the summer months. This keeps our basement comfortable and dry. What precautions do you take to ward off mold?

In case you were wondering that is NOT our moldy shower or our wet basement wall!!

Today’s Rice Pudding

We don’t always have dessert in our house much to my husband’s dismay! However, I am always looking for new ways to use up leftovers and what better way to use that leftover cup of cooked rice than in a delicious, old-fashioned rice pudding? Yesterday’s rice, today’s rice pudding. You can add spices, nuts and dried fruits, but this is the classic version and the raisins are optional!

Yesterday’s Rice, Today’s Rice Pudding

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked medium or long grain rice
½ cup raisins
3 large eggs
½ cup sugar
2 cups whole milk
1 tsp homemade vanilla
½ tsp cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly butter an 8 inch square glass baking dish. Set the dish aside.

Combine the rice and raisins (if using them) in a 2 quart saucepan and add 1 cup of water. Heat over medium heat until the rice is rehydrated about 10 minutes. Drain if necessary and set aside.

Meanwhile whisk the eggs, the sugar, the milk, the vanilla and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Add the drained plumped rice and raisins to the mixture. Stir well and pour into the prepared baking dish.

Bake the pudding, uncovered until the center is almost set and a knife inserted within 1 inch of the dish comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled. I have to say this is a tasty way to use up leftover rice!

Beer Can Chicken, Take Two

Sometimes a recipe is just too good and too much fun not to share a second time. Plus I have a chicken in our freezer that I want to cook so I can sell the freezer! When the weather is nice outside I love to use our grill. Rather than turn the oven on and heat up the house it is much more fun to roast the chicken on the grill. We decided to make another Beer Can Chicken! You can Google “beer can chicken” and find all sorts of recipes. I found one on SimplyRecipes.com that sounded easy and delicious. I made a few adaptations as I had a wonderful jar of grilling spices from Mountain Rose Herbs.

First the grill was prepared for indirect heat. Once the coals were going we pushed them to either side and put in an aluminum pan to act as a drip pan.

I rubbed the chicken all over with olive oil and seasoned the chicken inside and out with the grilling spices.

I took a can of beer, opened it and poured out half of the beer. I then lowered the chicken on the open can, so that the chicken was sitting upright with the can in its cavity. the chicken does look kind of silly at this point!

The chicken was placed on the grill directly over the pan.

The cover was put on the grill and left alone for one hour. At that point you can check the chicken with a thermometer. Keep checking the chicken every 15 minutes or so until the internal temperature inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 160-165. The total cooking time will vary depending on the size of your chicken, and the internal temperature of the grill.

Once the chicken is done, carefully transfer it to a tray or pan. Be very careful because the beer can, and the beer inside it, is quite hot. Let the chicken rest for ten minutes. Carefully lift the chicken off the beer can. This may take two people!

The meat is so delicious and practically falls off the bone! It’s a perfect summer meal!

How Did I Get Started in Gardening Anyway?

I’ve had people ask me this question before. Gardening has been such a part of my life that it’s hard to even imagine not gardening! Even as a kid I enjoyed playing in the dirt!

However I have to say that it was my mom that was the major influence in my life, not only with gardening but in many other areas as well.

For as long as I can remember my mother gardened. She always had a vegetable garden and numerous flower gardens. When our property became too shaded and she needed a larger garden she helped to create the Community Gardens in our hometown. During the summer months there was always fresh garden produce on the counter and the excess was being canned into tomato sauce or packed away into the freezer to enjoy during the cold winter months.

I thought it was normal to have your own frozen vegetables in the freezer, no Birds Eye or Green Giant vegetables in our freezer!

After I was married and my husband and I were living in an apartment I decided I needed to figure out a way to have a garden. There was no space for a garden next to the apartment but luckily the local Audubon Center offered a space in their community garden. The land had been a former farm so the soil was beautiful. We had a wonderful garden for the three years we lived in Maine.

Gardening continued to be a part of our lives no matter where we lived. We have now been in Vermont for almost twenty years and have been pulling rocks out of the soil every year! After all this time, the soil is finally just where I want it. And now it’s time for someone else to move in and take over!

Even with the house on the market my garden is planted and I will be harvesting my garlic any day! The Gete-okosomin squash plants are doing well and even if we had an offer on the house I should still have time to harvest the squash before having to leave!

I will miss my gardens that I have worked so hard to create but look forward to my next garden where ever that might be! I always think of my mom when I garden, even when she moved into a retirement community she had a little garden, she always wanted to grow her own tomatoes instead of relying on store bought. She was a true role model!

The Essential Cleaning Toolkit

The essentials for keeping a clean house are really quite simple. We don’t need to purchase expensive overachieving cleaning equipment such as super filtering vacuum cleaners, sanitizing dishwashers, mite-proof mattress covers and ionic air cleaners. Of course if you are an allergy sufferer or have other sensitive allergies you may need these things, but for many of us most of our cleaning tasks can be performed with man-powered tools that work as an extension of our hands.

Here are the top three cleaning tools

The miraculous microfiber mop.
It can dust, wash, and polish your floors more thoroughly and anti-bacterially than any mop ever made, using nothing but water! How does it do this? It’s all bout the fiber. A microfiber is a very thin synthetic fiber that’s thinner than a human hair. It absorbs about seven times its weight in water and dries out two or three times faster than cotton, and refuses to grow mold and mildew! It sheds no lint or other allergens, holds it’s shape and can be machine-washed hundreds of times!

How do you use a microfiber mop? Lightly dampen the mop pad with water, slap it on the floor and press the Velcro-ed mop head onto the pad. You can quickly mop a whole room, when the pad looks dirty, either rinse it or toss it in the washing machine. Let your floor air dry or give it a glossing over with a dry pad.

The Humble Corn Broom
No mater how many advances there are in technology the corn broom is still considered irreplaceable as a serious tool of commercial cleaning. It has the ability to sweep rough surfaces as well as smooth ones, indoors or out. It doesn’t just move dirt around, the fine hairs at the end of its bristles grab onto particles and move them further up into the broom. It doesn’t’ require much manpower; a gentle sweeping is surprisingly efficient. As it ages the bristles soften and when they finally wear out the whole tool can be composted!

The Nontoxic Toilet Brush
There is nothing glamorous about a toilet brush – nor should there be. The real innovation is in how you use the thing. Television commercials have taught us the we need to gear up while pouring toxic potions into the dreaded bowl. This is unnecessary even in the worst situations. Instead, use some distilled vinegar in a spray bottle. For light cleaning, just spraying the bowl and around the rim, and scour lightly with the toilet brush. For heavier cleaning add a couple of cups of vinegar to the bowl and close the lid. Walk away for a couple of hours, and then brush the insides of the bowl as usual.

What are your essential cleaning tools? I purchase vinegar by the gallon and have a pile of old cloth diapers I use as my cleaning rags. Nothing fancy but it does the trick!

Brie Leek Tartlet

I love making appetizers using the frozen miniature phyllo tart shells. They come together in no time at all and make such a nice presentation. These little brie leek tartlet appetizers are always a hit every time I serve them!

Brie Leek Tartlets

Ingredients:

1 medium leek, white part only finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
3 Tbsp butter
½ cup heavy whipping cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of ground nutmeg
1 package (1.9 oz) frozen miniature phyllo tart shells
2 oz Brie cheese, rind removed

Directions:

In a small skillet sauté the leek and garlic in the butter until tender. Add the cream, salt, pepper and nutmeg and cook and stir for another 1-2 minutes or until thickened.

Place the tart shells on a baking sheet. Slice the cheese into 15 pieces; place one piece in each tart shell. Top each with 1 ½ tsp of the leek mixture. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes or until the tartlets are heated through. Serve immediately. Leftover Brie Leek tartlets can be refrigerated. Makes 15 appetizers.

Where is the Summer Going?

Remember when you were little and you couldn’t wait for summer to arrive. When school finally got out it seemed like there were endless days to enjoy the beautiful warm weather of summer. Why is it now as an adult that summer just seems to slip through your fingers?

Being a gardener summer is full of things to do, getting the gardens ready, planting seeds, keeping ahead of the weeds, watering and then of course the harvest. As the weather warms up the spring flowers begin to flower – daffodils, forsythia, creeping phlox and then the iris. I try to take notice and enjoy the colorful blooms because soon they are gone, only to be replaced by different flowers such as the summer day lilies. One bloom after another and the summer hastens by.

This summer seems to be flying by faster than usual. I don’t know why but it may be because we have several trips planned. We also have weekends blocked for company coming to visit. Our home is still on the market, but there hasn’t been much interest. My husband is looking for work and we’re praying for a buyer for our home.

The days are full of various projects, some related to the house sale and some projects that just need to be finished like the twin bed safe stripping project!

With each day that passes we move closer to the fall. I love the different seasons and enjoy them all. As summer flies by I am trying to enjoy each day, who knows this may be our last summer living in Vermont!

Cherry Compote

What are compotes you may ask? Compotes are fresh or dried fruits slowly cooked in sugar syrup to retain their shape. They frequently contain wine or liqueur. Remember all those sour cherries I picked last week? I have a double batch of Sour Cherry Cordial sitting on our counter and I also wanted to try making Cherry Compote. The suggested uses were serving it over a slice of cheesecake or pound cake. Sounded good to me! Well the recipe was so delicious I immediately made a second batch. We’ll be lucky if this lasts until the winter!

Hopefully you can find an orchard near you where you can pick sour cherries!

Cherry Compote

Ingredients:

1 cup dry red wine
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
4 cups fresh or frozen pitted sour cherries
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp Sour Cherry Cordial or Kirsch

Directions:

Before you start prepare some jars for canning using a water bath method.

Place the wine, sugar and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high het, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add the cherries and return to a boil. Reduce heat and boil gently, uncovered for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove hot jars from your canner. Remove the cherries from the liquid with a slotted spoon and pack into the jars. Continue simmering the syrup until it is reduced to 2/3 cup.

Stir together the cornstarch and water and stir into the syrup. Return to a boil and boil gently for one minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in the cordial.

Pour the syrup over the cherries to within ½ inch of the rim. Place jar lids on and process 15 minutes for half pint jars and 20 minutes for pint jars.

Makes exactly three ½ pints.

Delicious served over vanilla ice cream!