Balsamic Roasted Radishes - Recipe

Oh my yum! Really! I'm not much of a radish fan, but when my daughter asked to plant them this year I couldn't say no. Especially because I know they are super easy to grow and it would be so exciting for her to watch her hard work and effort pay off.

She planted the entire package.

Pretty sure every single radish grew.

You can see the small seedlings coming up here. The second bed wasn't even filled yet and we had sprouts of radishes.

This is our second harvest. The first she ate right at the garden bed after spraying them down with the hose. There's no way I would tell my kid not to eat a vegetable, even if it still had some dirt on it. If you look below the radish bunch to the right, you can see our spinach almost ready to go. It really is so exciting!

 Just for fun, here's my youngest doing her garden work. She's such a trooper. Always wanting to help and do whatever her momma is doing. I love having the help too!

Ok, on to the actual recipe...

Balsamic Roasted Radishes

1 Bunch of Fresh Radishes

1 tsp Coconut Oil

3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper to taste

1) Set oven to 450. If using a cast iron skillet, grease it with the coconut oil and place in the oven to warm up.

2) Cut off the root tips and discard (or feed it to your chickens like we did). Cut off the tops and set aside for later.

3) Halve or quarter each radish and put in a large bowl. Add balsamic vinegar to the bowl along with a few dashes of salt and pepper.

4) Mix everything together until the radishes have all been coated with balsamic. Place in a cast iron skillet or roasting pan and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5) After 10 minutes, add the radish tops to the skillet or pan and continue to roast for another 5 minutes, making sure to move them around at least once during that time.

Remove from the oven and enjoy!

The Best Blueberry Lemonade Recipe

At least once a week, I find myself in the kitchen mixing up something new. It usually involves soon to expire something or another. I'll be honest, most of my kitchen experimentation turns out to be a flop. My family is so good about it though and continues to try my "new recipes" in hopes the next one will actually taste good. Really, it makes me love them even more.

So, that being said, my youngest took the first taste test and declared it amazing and then asked to eat the mushed up blueberries. Ha! Fair enough. When my older two came home from school, they were all over it and insisted I needed to patent the recipe. Wow, huh? So even though lemonade is pretty hard to mess up, I'll take this one as a win in my book and go out on a limb and call it the best blueberry lemonade recipe. It's super easy to make, only takes a couple minutes, tastes amazing and in our case is almost completely organic.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

What you need:

Quart size mason jar (or other container of that size)

Small Pot

Fork or Spoon

Mesh Strainer

1/4 Cup Sugar (sub Honey and cut amount in half - or use stevia to taste to make it sugar free)

1/2 Cup Lemon Juice

1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries

1 Cup Warm Filtered Water

1 3/4 Cold Filtered Water

1. Warm up your 1 cup of water in the pot on the stove. Dissolve sugar completely in the warm water.

2. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the lemon juice, stir, then add the cold water and stir again. Taste test at this point to see if it is tart enough to your liking or the sweetness needs to be adjusted.

3. Add frozen blueberries to your mixture and allow to sit for a few minutes until they thaw completely.

4. Using spoon or fork, mash the blueberries up against the side of the pot. Once the have all been smashed, stir again and let sit for at least 10 minutes in the fridge to let the flavors blend.

5. Place the mesh strainer on top of the quart sized container and pour the liquid from the pot into the container. All of the blueberry pieces should be caught in the strainer. Discard (or eat - they taste good).

That's it! It's sounds more complicated than it really is.

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Take care!

Lisa

DIY Chicken Coop

(Ignore this weird box... not sure what happened, lol)

Ack!!! We finally got our chickens :) We've been waiting for this moment for years, so naturally, it was the first project we took on. It's also the very first woodworking project we ever even tried. Sooo, while I know the construction probably isn't perfect, I could totally care less. It functions just the way it should and it's cute. I love this little coop we made and I'm proud too :) I've included the link to the free plans we used below.

 First, can I just say - look at those cute little baby chicks! We brought home 10 of these little stinkers. They were cute little balls of fluff for about 30 seconds. Seriously, there's a reason everyone who owns chickens tells you to have the coop finished before you buy the chicks. They didn't last long in our bathtub (yes you read that right). We were in a mad dash to finish up building before these little cutie pies outgrew their home. Which they did. Multiple times. Thankfully we were able to improvise enough along the way so they were always comfortable and had enough space until it was warm enough to move them outside.

Below are a few progress pictures of our coop.

All framed and ready for walls...

Walls up and ready for paint and trim.

 We have the cutest little helper, with shoes on the wrong feet and still in pj's at 2pm...

Framing out the run.

 We modified the run by making it a little 5.5 feet tall - high enough for me to walk in without having to hunch over. We wanted the birds to have plenty of room to stretch their wings too. We let them free range while supervised, but otherwise they need to stay in their run because of predators.

We cut out a door with a latch for the chickens to get from their coop to their run. We also made little inserts to put in the windows for potential nasty storms.

The kids love to be with the chickens. They are an endless stream of entertainment for us, those goofy little birds.

Up close with Flight

Here's the link to the plans we followed, with some improvising along the way to suit our needs.

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- Lisa

5 Minute Dairy Free Ice Cream

This quick treat is perfect for when you're craving ice cream or something sweet, but don't want to stray from your clean eating habits. It has endless possibilities too!

The base of this dessert is frozen bananas. That's it! The only prep work involved is freezing the bananas. We always end up with an over-ripe lone banana in my house that no one ever wants to eat. So I just peel those, toss them in a Ziploc bag and store them in the freezer for smoothies, and this "ice cream". 

You can make this recipe with just bananas, or you can get adventurous and create your own flavors. Some favorites in my house include peanut butter and chocolate (I use cocoa powder for this), pumpkin pie (add pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and honey), blueberry peach, and strawberry.



What you need:
Blender or Food Processor
Frozen bananas (1 banana per serving)
1/4 C water, nut milk or coconut milk (optional)
Whatever add-ins you'd like

1). Place everything but the water into a food processor or blender and pulse until your bananas have a creamy smooth texture. You made need to add some water in order to do this, but add it a little bit at a time so you don't end up with a smoothie.

That's it!

If you find a combination that you fall in love with, please share it with us in the comment section below.

Have a great day!
-Lisa :)