Tomato Cucumber Salad

I love this time of the year, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, doesn't get any better!  Last night, after returning from a horrific experience at the doctors office, waited in the lobby for an hour before I was even called into a room, saw the doctor for 5 minutes and then waited another 30 minutes to do a blood test, after I went and complained that no one was helping me!!!!!  Good thing I didn't have to go back to work!

Tom and I decided to go to the movies and have "Date Night", but we wanted to eat something before we went, we had leftover stuffed poblanos (that will be in a future post) and I decided to make tomato cucumber salad with fresh basil and oregano, all from my garden!  I love it when I can "live off the land".

Tomato Cucumber Salad
1 large cucumber
2 large tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Fresh Oregano
Salt
Pepper
Olive Oil
Balsamic Vinegar

Start with peeling and cutting up the cucumber

 

Pick a couple good tomatoes, chop and add to cucumbers

 

Add some fresh basil and oregano

Toss this together with salt and pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar

 

I added some black olives, which my husband was not too happy about.  The great thing is I grew everything in this salad (except the olives)!

 

 

 

Spicy Chorizo Corn Chowder

When I browse thru magazines, the recipes I try to focus on have items that are growing in my garden.  This chowder recipe caught my eye immediatly because it has a couple of items from my garden, poblano chilies and fresh basil and it is pretty simple to make.

2 Poblano Chilies
12 oz chorizo, casing removed
4 cups fresh corn kernals, about 3 ears
2 cups chicken broth, reduced sodium
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup sliced basil leaves

The poblano chilies need to be blackened and have the skin removed, my husband does this for me on the grill, puts them in a zip lock bag for a few minutes and the skin comes off pretty easy. Let cool, remove stem, seeds and chop.

Cook chorizo, breaking up sausage, discard any fat.
Cut corn from each ear.
In a saucepan, add cooked chorizo, corn and chicken broth, bring to a boil and cook until corn is tender, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat to simmer, add cream and poblanos.
Ladle into bowls, sprinkle with onion and basil.

For some reason my computer did not want to load all the pictures, trust me it was yummy!

Thank you Sunset Magazine for the recipe!

The $5.00 Bill Savings Trick

I am going to share with you one of my money savings tricks, I have been doing this for a long time and everyone like to give me a hard time about it.  Whenever I get a $5.00 in my wallet, I pull it out and put it in a drawer, pretty soon those $5.00 bills are a few hundred.

Feeling Inspired

I was having dinner with some friends last night and we got to talking about blogs, of course I said I have a blog but haven't updated in awhile.  Well, my friend Kortney was telling me about her friend, Katie and her blog, I promptly looked it up, All Things Katie Marie, it was great!  After browsing for awhile, I wanted to jump up and get my blog going again, but decided to wait until the morning, that way I can sit, have a cup of coffee and organize my thoughts.

I originally created the blog to celebrate my Grandma Opal and the wonderful food she cooked.  I decided that I am going to evolve my blog into celebrating not only the great food my husband and I grow and prepare, but the values I have learned from my family and the things that are important to me.

Here are some of the topics I will be including in my new, updated version of Grandma Opal's Midwest Favorites:
 - Recipes
 - Exercise tips and tricks
 - Budgeting and money saving ideas

Thanks for the inspriation Katie!  Everyone please follow All Things Katie Marie!