Roasted New Potatoes and Green Beans

I loved the recipe I posted last week and wanted to try it but there are just two of us plus one that eats tiny bites so I needed a smaller recipe.  I wanted to pare this with green beans fresh from the garden so I just added them to the mix.  This was served with my mini meat loaves that I keep in the freezer for quick meals .........YUMMMMM

8 ounces small new potatoes (cut in 1 1/5 inch pieces if they are bigger than this)
1 cup fresh green beans
1/2 small onion, sliced top to bottom
1 tomato, cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic, mashed but still in skin (keeps it from burning)
1/8 teaspoon Chili Flakes
1 teaspoon herbs de Provence
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon Red Wine Vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pepper

Wash your hands and mix this all together until all the vegetables are coated with olive oil.  Place on a baking pan. Roast together at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook for 25-30 more minutes (stir after 15 minutes).  Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon chopped chives and cook another 5 minutes.  SERVES TWO

What To Do With Tiny New Potatoes

Small new potatoes, roasted with onions, garlic, tomatoes, olives, and herbes de Provence.

The garlic cloves are cooked with their peels still on (but crushed) to help keep the garlic from burning or drying out. The peels also help keep the mushy roasted garlic distinct, so that if an individual doesn't want to eat garlic, it can be avoided. You can either remove the skins before serving, or let the individual remove them once served. SEE MY CONVERTED RECIPE FOR TWO

• Prep time: 10 minutes
• Cook time: 50 minutes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 lb small new potatoes (look for the smallest you can find, the potatoes should be no bigger than 1 1/2 inches, if they are bigger, cut them into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces)
• 1 medium onion, sliced in the direction of root to top
• 6 cloves of garlic, crushed with peel on (do not remove peel)
• 2-3 small to medium vine-ripened tomatoes, or plum tomatoes, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
• 10 pitted olives, green and black (Kalamata and Nicoise)
• 1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp herbes de Provence
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh chives for garnish

METHOD

1 Preheat oven to 400°F

2 Put all ingredients (except chives) into a bowl, toss with your (clean) hands to coat completely with oil and seasonings.

3 Spread out in an even layer in a roasting pan.

4 Put the potatoes in the oven, cook for fifteen minutes at 400°F. Then reduce the heat to 375° and cook for 30 to 40 minutes more, until the onions and tomatoes are somewhat caramelized and the potatoes are cooked through. Halfway through cooking, stir the potatoes so that they remain well coated with oil and do not get dried out, and the bottom of the pan stays coated with oil.

5 Remove from oven and let sit until cooled to room temperature.

Sprinkle with freshly chopped chives to serve. Excellent served with steak and a side of greens. (You can toss fresh spinach or chard with the oil remaining in the potato roasting pan and put back into the oven for just a few minutes until just wilted.)

Yield: Serves 4 to 6.

From Simply Recipes (including picture)

* NEW * - Buckwheat Pancake Mix

We've combined our 'BETTER THAN WHEAT' flour, freshly ground from our mixture of healthy heritage Gluten-free grains and some freshly ground buckwheat groats to produce a TOTALLY GLUTEN-FREE and scrumptious pancake mix!

You'll love the fresh taste of the freshly ground grains! 

These pancakes are great with with addition of fresh fruits and even shredded zucchini!

You receive a 2 pound bag of Pancake mix that includes the gums and fresh gluten-free baking powder. Recipes for 2-6 servings on each bag.

Available directly from us (contact us) or through www.NebraskaFood.org.

$7.95 for a 2 pound bag.

Elderflowers

Do you have Elderflowers growing near you?

In my area, we are still seeing elderflowers in bloom! These beautiful lacy flowers have more value to them than just their beauty.

Go visit Jill at Jill's Home Remedies for the rest of the story..........

Common Mullein - The Roadside Herb

Today’s featured plant is Common Mullein, Verbascum thapsus.

Common Mullein is also known as Great Mullein, Aaron’s Rod, candlewick plant, flannel plant, flannel leaf, lungwort, feltwort, cowboy toilet paper, shepherd’s staff, velvet dock, woolly mullein, torch plant, torches, miner’s candle, big taper, blanket mullein, “Hig candlewick”, “Bullicks lungwort”, “Hare’s-beard”, “Ice-leaf”.”Beggar’s blanket”, “Moses’ blanket”, “Poor Man’s blanket”, “Our Lady’s blanket” or “Old Man’s Blanket”.

(There are more names, but this list is getting pretty long already.  Do you get the impression this thing is pretty widespread?)

Range and Identification of Common Mullein

Common mullein is native to Europe, but it is now found on every continent except Antarctica.  (As I said, it gets around…)   The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service provides a range map, but it’s really found pretty much everywhere in the U.S..

The plant is known as a colonizer of open disturbed soils.  The Wisconsin DNR lists it as an invasive, but they have an awful lot of plants listed as invasive. Okay – non-native – still, it’s been around so long, does it really matter at this point?  They do say it can be invasive in the plant detail page, but I haven’t found that to be the case in my area.  It prefers dry, sandy soils, but can grow (really HUGE) in rich garden soil, and even grow in marginal soils such as chalk and limestone.  It can be found in neglected meadows, forest openings, pastures, fence rows, roadsides, and industrial areas. (WI DNR)

Plant height is 2-6′ (60-180 cm) (the happy monsters in my garden last year were pushing seven feet).  The leaves are large, oval and fuzzy.  As you can see in the photo below, a large happy specimen in my garden has leaves larger than my shoe, which is a size twelve.   Leaves are 12-15 inches long (or longer) and covered with velvety hairs.  When the flower stalk emerges, leaves cling directly to the stalk – there are no side branches.

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY GOT TO 

COMMONSENSE HOME

Food Preservation - Choosing a Method - Cabbages

Our ancestors devised many methods of preserving their harvest out of necessity.  They did not have the luxury of having fresh food shipped, sometimes thousands of miles, to the grocery nearest them.  Nor did they have freezers that would hold the food cold for months at a time (except in the coldest climates where it was kept in attics or outside).

Food Preservation includes many different methods:  Canning, Freezing, Dehydrating, Cooked and Frozen as meals, Smoking, and Fermenting to name a few.  When choosing a method or methods to use for a particular fruit or vegetable coming out of your garden or bought bulk at your local farmers market you have to decide how you are going to use this product and primarily how you prefer to eat it.  There is no sense dehydrating everything if you don't like reconstituted dried foods or canning if you hate, well canned peas for example.  Sometimes the way you use that particular food will dictate how you preserve it.

Eggs - New Layers Growing in our Chicken Tractor

Our current layers are Red Star Link Hybrids.............they are horrible.  Burned out fast, don't lay in hot or cold weather and I SHOULD HAVE KNOW BETTER but I needed some chickens fast and they were purchased at 5 months old and ready to lay.