Tasty Tuesday: Budget Addition

Yes, this is a budget addition thanks to a very short grocery budget this week.

My wonderful husband has recently decided he links tuna. I think it was that he has never tried it before! Now that I can buy and make things with tuna, canned tuna that is, my mom shared a few recipes that she makes.

Today I made another batch of cold tuna pasta. The basic proportion is 1 can of tuna to 1 cup of elbow macaroni. Measure the cup when the pasta is dry before you cook it. It's as simple as cooking the pasta, draining it (and I rinse it off to cool it off so I can eat the pasta sooner), mixing it with a drained can of tuna. The other ingredients to mix in are all to your own taste - diced sweet pickles, diced celery, mayo(I do not like mayo so I use miracle whip type salad dressing) and just a touch of yellow mustard.

I made a few modifications today. I added 2 tablespoons of milk to add a little more creamy-ness, although I think I could have added more. Also, we didn't have any celery so I made 2 different batches, one with fresh chives from our garden and the other for Dh with green onions(the white and the tops). He will probably make his hotter by adding hot sauce to it when he eats.

Growing Spinach

I have failed over and over again at growing spinach and lettuce but I'm trying again!

I wanted to share the simplest explanation of how to grow spinach that I found on the Hidden Valley website. The biggest thing that has caused me to fail previously are planting too late when it's already getting too hot. I think I finally got them planted early enough as they are growing like weeds in the cool weather!


(from the Hidden Valley website)
Grow your own

Spinach is fairly easy to grow, and it’s delicious fresh. The key is that it likes cool weather.

Plant spinach in early spring; it can resist mild frost. Spinach likes sunlight but not heat, so you might choose a location that gets shade for part or all of the afternoon.

Keep the soil moist, but not wet. You can spread grass clippings from your lawn around it, and that will also give it more organic material.

You can harvest spinach as soon as it looks big enough to eat. Pick leaves from the outside of the plant, because the inner leaves will keep growing and you can pick them later.

The spinach plant will eventually “bolt” — grow a long central stem, with seeds. Pull it up at this point, and use the leaves. The stem is too tough to eat. But your own fresh leaves, washed and eaten right away, are the most delicious spinach you'll ever have.

Find more tips at www.loveyourveggies.com

A sleepy puppy

It's funny to me to see a little dog sleeping like this instead of a large greyhound. But it warms my heart to know that our little guest was happy enough here during his stay to make himself right at home.

Wordless Wednesday