This is my patio area. It is too hot to spend time out in it in the summer, during the day, but in the evening and the spring and fall I cannot stay out of it. I love it.

Garden Pizza

uncooked
cooked! Yummmmm!


Small Flour Tortillas (wheat or white)
Alfredo Sauce or tomato sauce
Sliced mushrooms
Julienned Spinach (about ½ cup for each pizza)
Julienned Basil (just a leaf or two per pizza)
Diced Roma tomatoes (1 for each pizza)
Shredded Mozzarella or Italian Blend cheese
Optional: artichoke hearts, olives, squash


Pre-bake tortillas for about 10 minutes to get them nice and crisp. Spread about 2 tablespoons of Alfredo sauce or tomatoe sauce over tortilla, then add toppings and cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, until cheese bubbles and tortilla edges turn golden brown.


http://www.mormonchic.com/recipe/recipebox/pages/vegetarian.asp

I have read the Word of Wisdom and it says,
10 And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—

11 Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving

12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;

13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

This tells me that I should not eat meat except in the specific instances noted in 13. I also read an article located at this website, http://www.vegsource.com/articles/catano.htm

I was very inspired by what I read. I have changed my emphasis on what I eat and am trying to learn a whole new way of eating. We bought a Jack Lalane juicer and are enjoying fresh juices of veggies and fruits packed full of nutrients. The juicer takes out all the fiber or roughage which I think a person needs. The roughage it takes out can be put into different things like cookies. When I make a green smoothie I sometimes put in the roughage that was left over from the juicer.

I would like to include some recipes of good meatless dishes. My husband is going along with me as long as it tastes good. He isn't ready to jump onboard completely yet but if I am doing the cooking than that is what he gets. If I make a recipe and it passes his taste inspection than I will post it.

My Apricot tree is too young to produce yet but a neighbor has a tree overflowing with fruit that was rotting on the tree so I asked if I could pick and they said yes. I made Apricot Nectar. I am not sure what else to do with the apricots. I already have a pantry full of jelly so I did not want to make any more jelly.

This the the strawberry growing box my husband made for me. It is 8 ft long with 4 tiers. It is along the garden shed facing south. I now have strawberries, rasberries, rhubarb, seedless white grapes and purple grapes with seeds (probably Concord). I have an apricot tree, plum tree, nectarine tree and pear tree. None of the trees are producing fruit as they are only in their second year. We have been knocking off the flowers. I think next year we will allow them to produce fruit. We had a peach tree but it got planted in the wrong place so we gave it to Heather and Nate. It is doing well in their backyard.

I like to do theme dinners for the grandkids on Monday nights before Family Home Evening. I have only a few pictures to show. Not very many pictures for all that we have done. I need to do better about taking pictures.

We had an Easter Egg hunt in the yard. It is a large yard and there were eggs everywhere. They thought they were in Easter Egg heaven. They traded their eggs in for gifts and treats.

This was Princess and Prince night. I cannot remember what we ate.

This was cowboy night. They ate beans and weenies from a can with biscuits. They love to dress up.

This was St. Patricks day and all the food was green. Green Jello, Green Alfredo Sauce, green kool aid, etc.

This night was a Halloween theme with costumes, decorations, light by candles and scary music. Some of the kids did not like the scary music. The boys are wearing costumes (hard to tell).

This Monday night the kids dressed for a luau and we ate Hawaiian haystacks.

This Monday night we had a campout in the backyard with dutch oven cooking. I put the tent up and brought out the camp chairs and pretended we were out in the woods. Everything faced away from the house so it really felt like we were camping.

Leo likes the food. It was chicken in one dutch oven and apple crisp in the other dutch oven. The chicken turned out best.

These are wax beans. They have a mild green bean buttery flavor. This is a very good size picking. Next year I will have to double the planting because I wanted to fill my pantry up more. I still have pole beans to harvest but they are only just now starting to get flowers.

These are the wax beans I canned. I finally had enough to make it worthwhile to pull out the pressure cooker. I had some previous pickings but I just blanched them and froze them. It makes me feel good to see jars of home canned food on my pantry shelves.