When we first moved into our house, I was excited, albeit surprised, to find chives growing underneath a pine tree in our front yard. As I was frantically trying to fill up the space that would become my perennial garden, I immediately transplanted them. They have grown happily there now for a number of years...until last year when the growing and spreading of said chives turned into more of an infestation than anything else! I removed several plants and transplanted others, but they are still a prevalent feature in my perennial garden and blooming with their little purple puffball blossoms right now. And so now is the time, friends. Now is the time to prevent further infestations. These beautiful flowers must be removed before they go to seed and threaten to overtake the world (or my backyard).

Fortunately, I recently realized that these flowers are edible. So, rather than simply cutting them off and throwing them away, I've been researching uses and ways to eat chive flowers. I've come up with a few really interesting ideas that I wanted to share!

I just tried out this Tip n Toss Pizza Cutter (and beyond!) for the first time tonight, and it works like a charm! For those who know me, you know I make homemade pizza all the time. For years, I had this old jenky pizza cutter I had gotten from a garage sale for about $.50 just prior to getting my first apartment. Needless to say, it never worked great. Years later, I decided to "upgrade" to a newer pizza wheel, only to discover that it really didn't work that great, either. It was sharper and cut better, but not great. Plus, with my Rheumatoid Disease and LAWs (little arthritic wrists), I always had a hard time cutting through the pizza crust. Not to mention that the toppings would slide everywhere and I'd be left with a mess of cheese and whatnot that I had to try to place back on the proper piece. None of those things are problems with the TipNToss Pizza Cutter! I am happy to report that this pizza cutter actually works - just a few times rocking it back and forth (making sure to press down on the edge of the crust -- my thin crust tends to get pretty crispy) and it cuts all the way through without messing up the toppings. And, it was easy on my wrists! Bonus! It's nice to find a rheum-friendly kitchen utensil. The handle is easy to grasp, and being a two-handed device makes it that much simpler for the fragile-jointed. This thing will definitely be getting a lot of use, and I'll be trying it out to chop veggies and herbs, as well.

*Note: I was provided with this product for free in exchange for an honest, unbiased review with my own personal opinions.



This 3-piece nonslip cutting board set from CC Boards is exactly what I have been wanting.  I already have a nice, large wooden cutting board that Tom got me a couple of years ago -- but I no longer had any of the small, easy to grab cutting boards.  I often found myself wishing I had one of my old plastic cutting boards back, especially for times when I'm just chopping up a little bit of onion or garlic.  These boards were just what I was looking for.

There are a few things that I really like about these cutting boards.

Firstly, the set includes three different sizes, with the largest board being 13.75" x 9" -- not huge, but

Small paddle cutting board. Perfect for mincing garlic!

big enough for most of my cutting and chopping tasks. And the smaller ones are perfect for just quickly chopping one or two ingredients.

Second, I was so excited that these had nonslip edges -- I hate when my cutting board slides around as I'm trying to chop something. Not to mention, that can be dangerous. The large and medium cutting boards held very still. I don't think there's enough of the silicone edge on the small paddle to prevent it from sliding, but that's probably not necessary anyways.

Thirdly, they are dishwasher safe! I cannot put my wooden cutting board in the dishwasher, and it is so convenient to just grab one of these CC Boards and be able to toss in in the dishwasher when done.

The boards seemed a little on the thin side versus ones I've used in the past, but I'm not sure there's any problem with that. They are lighter weight, which makes my wrists happy.



I cut up spinach tonight for some stuffed manicotti shells (that Tom's going to make -- his new specialty! Yum!!) -- and I was surprised how well and easily the cutting board cleaned up with the green spinach juice and all.  I was surprised to find out that they are actually stain resistant and I'm curious how they will hold up over time.  One of my pet peeves with previous cutting boards has been staining. It makes them look dirty even when clean. I will definitely be keeping all of these close at hand in the kitchen and will be giving my wooden cutting board a bit of a break!  This set of CC Boards is available for purchase on Amazon -- click here for details. It would make a great Christmas gift or housewarming or wedding present.

There's really only one reason I always hope for extra tomatoes in my garden. Okay, make that two. One is salsa. Two is homemade tomato sauce. I don't usually have much of a bumper crop, so I've only tried the tomato sauce thing once or twice before. This year, between my garden and our CSA, I did have an overabundance of tomatoes, and I was on a mission. You see, I wanted to make homemade tomato sauce that I could use in lasagna and spaghetti and other Italian dishes, but I wanted it to be simple. The recipes I had tried before involved boiling the tomatoes in hot water, followed by a cold water bath so you could remove the skins, and then removal of the seeds...just to then put it all back on the stove to cook for an extended period of time, only to end up with water, soupy sauce, unless I added extra tomato paste. Whew. After some thought and some research, I began to wonder about using my Crock Pot and immersion blender to make tomato sauce, without peeling and de-seeding. I figured if I blended it up, I wouldn't care if the tomato skins were in there, and I don't notice any off-flavor from the seeds. The results of the experiment were delicious, and the method was unbeatably simple!

I'm not really sure how this happened, though I imagine Pinterest is at least partly to blame, but somewhere along the way I have become obsessed with aprons. I don't normally wear an apron when I'm in the kitchen. I got one as a wedding gift, and it was the only one I had. I wore it when I remembered, which wasn't nearly often enough. More often than not, I'd jump right into the kitchen after work without changing my clothes or halfway through a weekend day, and I'd end up with flour, water and who knows what all over my shirt. I had seen some cutesy aprons and made a mental note that that might be cool to have. Then, I started picking up sewing again. Basic sewing -- I don't really know what I'm doing and I'm still terribly impatient and not good with patterns -- but sewing nonetheless. It also just so happens that a friend introduced me to this awesome book on how to make homemade bread -- and it's AMAZING -- so I've been baking quite frequently. All these things combined, and I suddenly decided that I NEEDED to make myself a cute, fun, flirty apron. Of course, immediately following that, it dawned on me that my mom's birthday was coming up and she's big into baking cookies (which are the best cookies in the world, in case you were wondering) -- so, she definitely NEEDED a cute, fun apron as a birthday present!

This is what my sink looked like Thursday night when I was almost done with my cooking!

It's hard to believe but we just had our 9th Annual Halloween party!  Due to some other conflicts we had to have the party on a Friday night this year, which was a little chaotic.  Wednesday was my cleaning day.  Thursday was my cooking day.  And Friday, was rush around to do the last minute prep after work before people started coming over.  I made another giant pot of chili, cooked in the turkey roaster which can also be used as a ginormous crock pot.  There were lots of leftovers, so I have lots of freezer meals :)

Giant pot of chili!!

Another cute idea I stole -- a pumpkin-shaped cheese ball!

Tom and I both had "cartoon-ish" costumes this year.  I was Velma from Scooby Doo, and Tom was Cap'n Crunch!  

Jinkies!  You want a Scooby Snack??

Crunchatize me, Cap'n!

Oh yes, it's a home-made mustache, too!

I actually found the majority of our costumes at Goodwill.  I could not believe my luck when I found an orange turtle neck sweater, red shoes, a red skirt AND a wig for my Velma costume!  I had the glasses already and the socks I borrowed from a friend.  I made a box of Scooby Snacks by snagging some images of the "Snausages" brand Scooby Snacks.

I found Tom's blue jacket at Goodwill, too.  It was actually a ladies blazer....shhh!!  We didn't realize until looking at a picture of Cap'n Crunch how ridiculously high his collar comes up.  I had to attach some foam to the blazer to make that, and used a combination of foam and felt for the rest of the jacket decorations.  The hat I made out of foam padding; I don't know what it's actually called but I found it at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  We just had to spray paint it so it was the right color!  Also, the Captian's eyebrows are kind of floating up above his hat.  Not sure why.  Cartoons are funny like that.  Tom won our costume contest...kind of not fair, being hosts and all...but I also feel like his winning should be my winning since I made almost the entire costime :)

And now, for the pumpkins.  The first one I modeled after "Mutant Enemy" productions, since we've been watching a lot of Joss Whedon stuff this fall - including going through the Firefly series with some friends and now getting addicted to Dollhouse.


The second one I saw on Pinterest and one of my friends carved it for me!  She did a good job.  He looks so worried.  I have more spiders now...but haven't gotten an updated photo.


We had a discussion about how if you had spiders crawling all over you, you would probably DO something about it rather than just sitting there and looking worried.  However, Tom pointed out: "Well, what if you were just a head, without a neck? What would you do?"  Touche.  I guess all you can do is sit there and look worried!

And, finally, we have Halloween, the actual day, on Wednesday.  I may have to dress up as Velma again just so I can offer Scooby Snacks to our trick-or-treaters that stop by.  We're employing the same methods as last year to try to lure kids to our end of the neighborhood by giving away full sized candy bars!  This will be year number two, so we'll find out if last year was successful in training the kids to come this way or not!

I just wanted to post a few of the recipes that I've made recently.  I've tried a couple of my own and found a couple online that I've tried for the first time.  Let's start with the holidays, because that always brings out something fun and festive!  We spent time with family around the 4th of July, and actually had a family reunion the following weekend.  This was just cause for TWO festive desserts in one week.  The first one is my favorite...

American Flag Ice Cream Cake

4th of July Flag Ice Cream CakeIngredients:

Ingredients:
- 1/2 a box of graham crackers
- 3 Tbsp. butter, melted
- 1 quart of vanilla or fruity ice cream, softened (I actually used blueberry frozen yogurt)
- 1 small tub of whipped cream, thawed
- Fresh blueberries and strawberries

Directions:
Crush the graham crackers into crumbs (I actually used my food processor this time -- it's less messy than by hand!).  Spread graham cracker crumbs in bottom of a 9x13 cake pan.  Pour melted butter over top and mix well, until butter is thoroughly mixed throughout. Spread evenly into a thin crust along the bottom of the pan.  Place pan in the freezer to let the crust set -- wait at least 15 to 20 minutes before starting the next layer, otherwise the crumbs will stick to the ice cream.  Once the crust is very cold, spread the ice cream in an even layer over top.  Place back in the freezer again until set, then spread the whipped cream over top.  On top of the whipped cream, arrange blueberries in straight rows and columns to form a square in the upper left hand corner.  Cut each strawberry in half, lengthwise, then cut each half into slices.  Place the strawberries in horizontal rows to represent the red stripes, leaving a space between each row to represent the red stripes.  I didn't think I'd actually have enough room for 13 stripes, but I did!  I think I was short a few "stars", however.  Anyways, place the cake back in the freezer until completely frozen.  Thaw for a few minutes before serving to make it easier to cut.  This was a big hit with our family, though we had a few pieces left over....which we readily ate for breakfast the next day!


Patriotic Cupcakes

Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Okay, I did not make up the recipe for these...I found that over at Mama's Gotta Bake.  These are supposed to be Red Velvet cupcakes with a Cream Cheese Frosting.  However, when I got home from the grocery store and started to make these, I realized that I only had half the amount of red food coloring on hand as the recipe called for.  So, I called these "Pink Velvet" cupcakes, as they were a lightish red color.  I was disappointed at my local grocery store, too, because I could not find any 4th of July, red/white/blue sprinkles of any sort.  I was hoping for some stars or something cool to put on top.  I searched high and low and all around the store...but I did find these little mini pinwheels!  In the absence of patriotic sprinkles, I thought these would do well.  I almost got little American flags on toothpicks to stick in, but these seemed a little more fun.  I had some regular type sprinkles on hand, so I just used those to add some color and festivity.  The recipe was okay, but it was not my favorite.  I guess I've really only had one red velvet cake that I've been a big fan of, so maybe I just need to try something different next time.  Also, it makes a TON of frosting.  I piled it on pretty good and still had a bunch left.  I saved it in case I could come up for another use for it, but I didn't.  And the frosting is verrry cream cheesy--a bit much for me, but a lot of other people really liked it.  Overall, I think people enjoyed these, but I may try something else next year.

Okay, on to some other fun summery eats.  What's the best thing to eat in summer?  Why, fresh picked berries, of course!  And other fruit, I suppose.  So, here are two great summer (or anytime recipes) that I made in the past week or so:

Fruit Pizza


You may remember my fruit pizza recipe from my post last year.  It's also a favorite at Christmastime.  However, it really is the perfect summer desert.  It's cool, it's light, it's delicious, and you can use seasonal fresh fruit.  I made the fruit pizza pictured here for a get together with our neighbors.  Yum -- it was a good decision.  I did screw up one thing, though.  I didn't used refrigerated cookie dough to make the crust...which would be fine, except that I used a bad sugar cookie recipe.  When I say bad, I simply mean the wrong type of sugar cookies.  The crust was way too hard.  The recipe would have been great if you were using cookie cutters to make cookies and frost them, etc.  However, next time I decide to make the crust from scratch I will need to do more research and be sure to use a recipe for the softer type of sugar cookies.  Lesson learned.  Still delicious.

Blueberry Muffins!


This is not my recipe either, but I think I'll be making it again!  I found this recipe for Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins on Allrecipes.com.  I was searching for a blueberry muffin recipe that was healthier than some but that still tasted good.  I opted to not do the sugary streusel topped ones, even though they taste so good!  This recipe used unsweetened applesauce (which I still had in my freezer form when I made it last year!), fresh blueberries and whole wheat flour.  They were quite delicious and made a great breakfast almost every day last week!  A great way to use some of my fresh blueberries!

And, finally, let's move on to a dinner recipe.  

Stuffed Poblano Peppers


This was a quick, simple dinner that could easily be done before or after making my Queso Burritos or Tacos, as was the case this time.  I had made tacos a few nights prior and had leftover ground beef.  From there, I made some of my cheese queso, and you can find the recipe for that here.  The only difference was that I added Ro-Tel tomatoes instead of just green chiles.  I added my leftover ground beef to the queso sauce and let that warm up on low.  I also made some white rice.  Once the rice was done, I dumped the cheese mixture into the rice pot and mixed everything up together.  I then took some fresh poblano peppers and sliced them in half lengthwise, filled each half with the rice mixture and baked at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.  There are lots of variations you could take with this too -- omit the meat and add black beans for a vegetarian dish; add different vegetables, or start with the cilantro lime rice, if you want to use some of the leftovers from queso burritos or vice versa.  Onions would be a good addition, too.  Quick, easy, tasty.  And now I need to grow some poblano peppers in my garden.