Oh Snap!

Some of you may know that I love to take pictures. Kids, babies, places, weddings, leaves, cupcakes, smiles... well, you get the idea.
It all started in high school when I got a really cool FILM camera, that's right folks, FILM camera :-) That was before digital pictures were around!
Check out Farm Girl Fresh on Facebook for a glance at some of my recent photography sessions.
Facebook.com/FarmGirlFreshDesign

Lasagna slow cooker

Slow Cooker Lasagna
This is one of our favorite recipes that I blogged about last year...

I'm in love with my slow cooker. So much in fact that my honey bought me a new fancy one for Christmas to go along with old faithful. Since I'm a nurse who works 12 hour shifts and has a young family, I love my slower cooker even more! Tonight I tried lasagna. I have always been a little nervous about cooking noodles and other "oven" type meals in my cooker. My thought was that the noodles would get over cooked and soggy. Not true. I was so impressed! With a little more prep than my average Crock Pot meal, it turned out to be a winner with everyone in my family of 5.

What you'll need:
1 lb of ground meat cooked- we used buffalo
1/2 onion, diced to hide
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
handful of frozen mixed veggies- to make me think we are healthy!
2 cans of your favorite pasta sauce- we used canned Hunt's
garlic, basil, house blend- to season to your families taste
1 1/2 C of Ricotta cheese, give or take
1 1/2 C cottage cheese
3 handfuls of shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 can of water- mix in with sauce
1 box non cook lasagna noodles

1. Cook your meat. I added the garlic, onion and spices. Since we used Buffalo meat there was no need to drain fat, but do so if needed. 2. Add pasta sauce and all other veggies. 3. Simmer for a few minutes while you spray your slow cooker with non stick spray. 4. While sauce is still simmering, mix all cheese ingredients in a different bowl. This all should take less than 10-15 minutes. I already had cooked the meat and it was actually a left over. 5. Spread some of the sauce in the bottom of the slow cooker. Then a layer of your uncooked non bake noodles. Then I did- sauce again, cheese mixture, noodles, sauce, cheese, noodles... until I ran out of noodles and other stuff. 6. Top last layer with sauce and a few handfuls of mozzarella cheese. 7. Bake on low for 3-5 hours or until noodles are soft. You can add more or less to this recipe- that's the fun.

YUM!

Pinterest Fail!

Hi my name is D and I'm addicted to Pinterest. Hi D. Like most of you I'm sure, I was introduced to the fantastic website that has become a black hole of time! Anything you could imagine is on there- total eye candy! I could spend hours looking at everyone's pins and letting my mind skip and dance from thought to thought. With my daughter's birthday rapidly approaching I thought I could find some awesome ideas for cupcakes to bake. I did. Super cute watermelon cupcakes that looked relatively easy to do. I thought it would make her and our guests swoon. Very 'Pinteresty' as I say. Well... Pinterest Fail!
After over baking the cupcakes a bit, I figured the cute frosting and chocolate chips would mask that. Then the fantastic idea to make green icing, put it in a pastry bag and swirl the tops sounded reasonable. The bottom corner with the fittings decided to clog and as any normal human would do, I squeezed harder. What proceeded to happen was the bottom blew out! Leaving large blobs of green frosting slipping off the cupcake tops. Panic. Then, my sister- in - law came to rescue. She is a perfect type A personality- read patient. When she swooped in the spread the tops and fix blobs, I happily kept squirting the ghostbuster-esq frosting. Until, I noticed that I had been slimed too! Yuck! Guests arriving, green frosting running down my shirt and cabinets. AWESOME! In my rush to get the clog out and Hercules style strength bounding, not only did the clog come out,but so did the top of the bag! Check out these pictures. Hahaha. Do I need to say that guests nicely asked, "What are these suppose to be?"

City Chickens

We have chickens and yes we live in the city. Not a high rise apartment nestled in downtown, but a normal home with an HOA none the less. Chickens- yes please. For a few years now I have had a thing for the fuzzy birds, so this is our second attempt at keeping backyard cluckers (the last time they "flew" south to farm across town). We have three little ladies now and have been looking at building a new coop. Where do you go to find an array of wonderful clucker housing options- Pinterest of course! What do you think? I die.

Blast from the Past Apple Cake

Here is a post from a year or so ago that I had another blog I wrote. Came across it the other day and still love the cake! I will be making this today while I'm home with a sick kid. Yummy!

So we all loaded in the car last weekend and made the annual jaunt over the hill to Apple Hill. In the snow. In October?!?! Fantastic.

We enjoyed the crafts, ponies, fed the sheep, bought pies, picked pumpkins, and of course, got apples.

To be honest...we always get apples, but they usually sit on the counter till they reach a perfect texture of squishy. Well, this year I have plans. Oh yes, plans. Thought we would start out with a scrumptious apple cake. Ran up to William Sonoma and preceded to buy the creme le creme of apple peelers. Did you even know that such an ingenious contraption existed? Not only does it peel- it cores and slices as well. Or so it says it does.

Try it. Maybe we are just apple peeler rejects, but it took forever to figure it out and made of a mess than anything else. We did however learn how to use the peeler part, which was pretty nifty!

After the adventure of making sure we still had our 10 fingers left (and a few cups of cut apples), we proceeded to make our fabulous apple cake. In the words of mother bear, we were "surprised and delight" at how the bundt turned out. Give it a whirl or a spin and enjoy with a cup of joe!

Also- if anyone has any wondrous tips on how to really work and apple peeler...let us know :)

3 C of sliced apples

1 1/2 C oil

2 C sugar

2 eggs

1 C chopped walnuts

3 C flour

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

2 t vanilla

1 t cinnamon

Mix apples, oil, sugar, eggs and nuts in a large bowl. Set aside. Mix dry ingredients plus the vanilla in a separate bowl, then add to apple bowl. It will be ridiculously thick. Pop in the oven at 350, for 1 hour or until knife comes out clean.We used a bundt pan, but you can enjoy an ungreased 13x9 baking pan too. Enjoy!

Hello world!

Another year has passed and the writing bug has bit again! As one of my goals this year, I am going to write (and maintain!) my blog for at least one year. In the past I have started many different times and then after a few weeks give up on updating. But this year I WILL continue. I have so many things to write about, photograph, and share with you. Since I have been taking photographs in my extra time and doing some design work, I decided to name the blog after that project. Farm Girl Fresh Design. Welcome.