Tag: food

Easy Cheesy Bread Snack

Is your belly grumbling for something tasty to eat? Is your mouth tired of eating the same things all the time? Let’s try a fun but simple way to liven up some bread! We’ll call it Easy Cheesy Bread! Doesn’t this look delicious? 🙂

Let’s start out with some Italian bread, though feel free to try whatever bread you have on hand. I found this little loaf of Italian bread at our local grocery store and it seemed the perfect size for 2 people.

This snack only needs some butter, grated parmesan cheese and maybe garlic powder in addition to the bread. Another item that will make it extra tasty is some pasta sauce…but I’m getting ahead of myself! First cut the bread into slices and place them on a cookie sheet with some parchment paper covering the pan for easy clean up.

Spread some softened butter on each slice of bread.

If you like garlic flavor, sprinkle some garlic powder on each piece of bread next. The Easy Cheesy Bread is still yummy without the garlic powder if garlic is not your thing.

Sprinkle a generous amount of grated parmesan cheese onto each slice of bread.

Pop the tray of bread slices into the oven on broil. Keep a close eye on the bread so it doesn’t burn! The time needed to toast the bread will depend on the broil temperature you use and what type of oven you have. Just watch the bread till it starts to turn brown and smells delicious! It only took a few minutes when I made these.

You can eat the Easy Cheesy Bread just like it is or for an added bonus, heat up some pasta sauce in a cup and dip your bread in it. MMmmm! So tasty!

That’s how simple it is to make Easy Cheesy Bread! Try some and make your mouth AND your stomach happy! 😉

We’ve Been Canning Red Beets Again

Late summer is the time of year we process the red beets we grow in our garden boxes. Do you know where red beets come from? Do you like to eat red beets? Since I shared this experience with you last year, I’m sharing last year’s post again for anyone that might have an interest in learning more about this yummy healthy vegetable. Here we go! 🙂

You’ve probably seen red beets and even eaten them. I’m guessing you bought them from the store in a can like this:

But do you know where red beets come from? Have you ever seen a red beet plant? We grew our own red beets this year in one of our garden boxes. (The orange flowers you can see are Marigolds which can help keep bugs away from the red beet plants.)

The red beets grow under ground and then they are dug or pulled up. Here’s a closer look at the plants and what you can see above ground.

This is what one red beet looks like when it’s taken out of the ground.

A raw red beet is hard and is best eaten cooked. There is a process to follow if you want to cook red beets. First you cut off the top leaves, but it’s important to leave about 1-2″ of the stem intact. And you don’t cut off the roots. If the roots or the stem are cut off, the color will bleed out of the red beet when its cooked.

We sprayed the red beets outside with the water hose in order to remove the biggest part of the dirt from them. Then they were taken into our kitchen and put in the sink.

Next they are washed by hand and put into a large pot.

Water is added to the pot so that the red beets are all covered with water.

The water is brought to a boil and the red beets are cooked until the skin of the red beet will slide off the outside of the beet. The beets are then put into a large pan of cold water so they can cool. Once they are cool enough to be handled without burning your hands, each beet is gently “squeezed” and the skin, the root and the stem will slip right off.

And ta dah, there is your red beet ready for eating or canning into jars.

We canned or preserved our red beets so we will be able to eat them all through the winter time. In order to can the beets, they are cut into smaller pieces.

The red beets are packed into special glass canning jars and some salt and boiling water is added. A two piece set of a metal lid and a metal ring and placed on the top of each jar. Then the jars are processed in a pressure canner for a while. When the right amount of time has passed, the canner slowly cools down and once the pressure is gone, the jars of beets can be removed. As the jars cool, the metal lid will seal and that is what makes it safe to keep the red beets for a longer time on a shelf.

That is an abbreviated version of the canning process, so if you ever can red beets yourself, be sure to follow the instructions that come with your pressure canner. 🙂 Now you know where red beets come from! I hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about red beets!