Creating Fridge-Appeal!

     Since we are going to be hanging out in the kitchen, we may as well spend some time making it work for us. My kitchen isn't that small but the only place I currently have for the refrigerator is tiny. So I can't fit a big fridge in that space. If I want to have healthy choices readily available, like I posted last week, I need to be able to know what it is in the fridge. I can't tell you scientifically how many seconds you have before your brain makes up its mind if there is anything to eat in the fridge but I can tell you the way things got shoved into my fridge in the past I would give up quickly and go to the pantry instead. Sometimes I didn't even want to open the refrigerator door.
   My fridge always started off full of fresh fruits and vegetables but by day three once healthy food was hidden on the bottom of the "Stay Fresh Fruit" drawer or hidden in a plastic sack at the back of the fridge. By the time I found it, it often had shriveled up or grown green hair.  I was throwing out hundreds of dollars worth of fresh fruits and vegetables and missing opportunities to eat healthy snacks between meals and fresh sides with our meals.
   Game over. I decided it was time to get this fridge organized. I investigated different refrigerator organizing systems and decided on a 50ct box of Rubbermaid for $19.98 at Sam's Club. I pulled everything out of the fridge including the drawers and made room for shelves to hold the Rubbermaid containers.
   I gave some thought to what I wanted to see first when I opened the fridge door. I wanted to see the fresh fruits and vegetables but instead all I saw were bottles and bags. The fruit and vegetables were hidden down in the drawers out of sight.
     You know what? I thought. Why don't I put the bottles of condiments and dressings into the drawers out of sight? It turns out I can now pull out the drawer and see exactly what condiments and dressings I have on hand. Guess what I found out... I had three bottles of ketchup and four bottles of Italian dressing that I didn't know I had. Apparently that is why I kept buying more.

   Now I had all this room in my fridge to store what I really wanted to see when I opened up the fridge. I took everything out of their bags and stored like fruits and vegetables together in the see through containers. Make sure the like fruits and vegetables are sealed in together. This helps keep early rotters from igniting rotting in longer lasting ones. So I sorted by type and sealed up fresh everything still worth eating and that which I brought home from the store for this week's meals.
   Now when I open my fridge door, my focus is directed on wonderfully arranged, inviting healthy fresh fruits and vegetables and I can quickly tell what I have on hand to cook with or serve for a healthy snack.

It Begins in the Kitchen

     Never be on a diet again! Have a diet. Have a good one. A good diet begins in the kitchen.
     You don't have to worry about craving a treat during a movie at home if when you get to the kitchen you can't find any temptations. If you have a bowl of apples or a jar of nuts sitting on your counter, you can treat yourself guilt-free. You can have a snack that leaves you satisfied and your body feeling good. On the other hand if you find a bag of chips or a bag of Oreos, then you will blow a "good diet" in the blink of an eye and a slight of the hand. Not only that but you'll feel sluggish and unsatisfied when you're done.
     A good diet is only as good as what you stock in your pantry, your fridge, and your cupboards. When you crave something sweet, you will grab a hand full of grapes every time unless there is a tray of cookies next to them. If you have to choose, you will have to go through the "eat this not that" routine and see which one wins. You know what is good for you, you know what you should eat so don't put a bad diet in your kitchen to tempt you. 
     What does one cookie hurt? The food that you eat is all your body has to do the work it needs to do to keep you fit and healthy. The nutrients you put into your body not only build new cells everyday but you use up nutrients digesting the nutrient deficient foods that you consume. Simply put simple sugars use up energy turning into simply fat.
      What's a few chips anyway? Remember the old Lay's pototo chip commercial, "You can never eat just one." Low density, simple carbohydrates including chips, cookies, simple sugars, leave the body craving more. You really can't eat just one. The satiety mechanism is literally turned off and you crave, crave, crave without feeling full until it is too late. It's not a family gene folks it's a switch you turn on by the choices of food you make to put in you body.
    The food you put into your body is the only thing your body has to work with. Good food is the building blocks of healthy cells that make healthy bodies and make you feel full and satisfied. Fill your pantry, fill you refrigerator, and fill your body full of good, wholesome, satisfying food. Have a good diet!

Today I had a good diet. I felt satisfied. I felt full. I felt good about my choices.

Breakfast: A Juice Plus Complete Protein Shake
Mid Morning: A cup of hot green tea with mixed berries.
Lunch: A cucumber, avocado, and cream cheese spinach wrap and a bottle of Spring Water.
Afternoon snack: A half cup of Pistacio nuts (burns a few calories splitting open the shells)
Afternoon drink: a bottle of Spring water
Dinner: Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Onion, and a side salad with black olives and carrots.
After Dinner drink: A cup of hot Chamomile tea.

Recipe: Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Apple/Onion Bake

• 2 Pork Tenderloins
• salt, pepper
• 1 tblsl Thyme
• 2 Apples cored and sliced
• 1/2 large white onion sliced and diced
• 1 Cup apple or cranapple juice
• Grapeseed oil

Preheat onion to 425 degrees. 

1. Pat dry the pork and sprinkle with salt.
2. Heat grapeseed oil in the bottom of a cast iron skillet. 
3. Brown pork in skillet on all sides and remove. 
4. Add apples and onion to skillet and slightly brown
5. Add 1/2 cup of cranapple juice and bring to boil
6. rub pork with pepper and thyme
7. Place pork on top of apples/onion
8. Slide cast iron skillet into the oven and cook for 30-45 minutes. 
9. Remove from oven, let rest, and then slice into servings. 
10. Serve with Salad wedge, black olives, carrots, and Parmesan cheese. 

Tower Garden Week 5 and Week 6

Week 5



Week 6

NO REGRETS!!! The Tower Garden is absolutely one of the best investments I have ever made. As a bonus, I can take my garden with me if I ever move!! I am so thrilled with how well it has produced. Even though I started late in August, I have had quite an abundance of produce. I have had salads available every night and I even had some zuchinni and green beans.

Zucchini

Green Beans

    The dip down into the cold temperatures may have slowed down production on some of the flowering plants. I haven't seen any blooms on the tomato plants but I knew they are heat loving producers. The lettuce hasn't been phased by the cooler temperatures. Hoping to get a couple more weeks of warmth so I can harvest my Zucchini and beans before I bring the tower in for the winter next weekend. You never know what you are going to get in October and last Friday night we came really close to having Frost on the Pumpkin. So crossing my fingers... The Zucchini is not quite ready to pick so another week or two before another frosty night would be helpful.

    If you are interested in starting an indoor winter garden, check out my website at http://kbrixey.towergarden.com

You can contact me via email   r4c.ranch  at yahoo.com, if you have more questions or are ready to jump into indoor winter gardening!!!

The Broody Hen Dilemna

 

     This little gal really wants to hatch out babies. She is stealing all the other hen's eggs and laying on them. She doesn't want to come out of the nesting box even to eat or drink. Today I picked her up and made her come out but she wouldn't go out in the yard with the rest of the flock. She just laid down. I am pretty sure I heard her grumbling, "I don't want to go outside!"
     This is a classic broody hen. I have been reading a lot of blogs and forums about this type of behavior. Some feel you should just give her some eggs and let her hatch them out, others feel you should remove her from the flock and make sure she doesn't have access to any eggs. It's too late in the season for plan A, because it is almost winter and I am not going to try to make sure young chicks survive in the brutally cold winter we are suppose to get. Plan B, my guess, would fail as well since I have seen this hen trying to hatch out gravel on our driveway.
    For now, the plan is to try to make sure she is eating and drinking and to sneak all her eggs before she gets too used to them. In the spring, we will probably separate her and let her hatch out some chicks.

Week Four: Tower Garden

  

Week Four -- Wow!

    It's week four and I am absolutely amazed at how great the Tower Garden is producing and for what little effort I have had to put forth. Wow! Check out my red leaf lettuce... it came back after we picked it off for our first salad. And look closely at our vining plant--- we have a blossom! I really thought it was too late in the season to expect them to blossom. It's either zucchini or watermelon. Can't wait to find out which one!

Our blossoming watermelon!

    This week's chores: We do have a little work to do this week. The water needs to be filled and we will be checking the ph and adding nutrients in proportion to the amount of water we added. In addition, we will be trimming back some of the roots that are forming in the reservoir tank. The only ones we have to worry about are the ones growing near the water pump. So we'll carefully trim those back just before we fill the tank.
    This weekend we will be enjoying lots of fresh salad and greens. I have new recipe for sauteed greens that I can't wait to try with my fresh Tower Garden greens. Simply heat up some grapeseed oil in a skillet, add in your greens, sprinkle with balsamic vinegar, fresh ground garlic, salt, and pepper, and stir in the skillet until the greens are wilted and covered with the oil and vinegar mix. Then serve. It's so yummy.

   WEEK FOUR CHORES:

1. Trim back roots from around the water pump. 
2. Add water to fill reservoir to 3 inches from top. 
3. Check Ph and add ph up/down as needed. 
4. Add nutrient solution in proportions to water added to reservoir. 

   For more information check out:  http://kbrixey.towergarden.com

   Questions?  email me at  r4c.ranch@yahoo.com 

   

  

Our First Harvest from the Tower Garden!

Harvesting the Salad Pods

    It might have been a little early to start picking leaves off the salad pods but as the outdoor growing season is coming to an end, we decided to indulge. The weather has really cooled off, holding in the lower 60's to upper 50's, and it is still unclear whether it will warm back up before it plummets down to the first freeze. Since the weather is staying pretty cool, the timer has been reset to 15 minutes on and 30 minutes off.
    The lettuce seems to love the cooler temperatures but the fruiting plants have slowed down a bit. Tomato plants love the heat so it is still too close to call if they will be fruitful before the freeze or not.  If you have been following the blog, you already know we got a late start on our tower garden. Although we had it assembled in mid July, we had a few trips planned in July and August that set us back several weeks and so here it is mid September and we are only three weeks in.

Fresh Picked Salads

    The good news is we went from seedling to plate in three weeks and that,  I have to say, is very exciting. We pulled two salad plates off the Tower Garden with a mix of red leaf lettuce and the spring mix greens that we had in two of the pods. It will be interesting to see how they grow back especially this late in the season. Our dinner salads, above, were made to order. I like mine with rinsed three bean salad and my son likes his plain with a drizzle of Italian Dressing. They were both delicious. It's hard to beat that picked to plate freshness!

http://kbrixey.towergarden.com

Week Three: Watching Tower Garden Grow

Week Three Tower Garden

      I get to make a salad today! It is amazing how much the Tower Garden has grown in just three short weeks. I think I have already said this but "This is the easiest garden I have ever had."
      The only chores this week, other than watching the garden grow, is checking the water. Today, I  opened the fill plate  to check the water level and it was fine. I also took a small sample of the water out and checked the PH, which was still holding somewhere between 6.0 and 6.5.
     The weather has turned cooler this week so if it stays cooler, I will be changing the settings on the water pump timer to only run once every thirty minutes instead of every fifteen minutes. That is as simple as moving a few slide settings on the timer that the tower garden is plugged into.
   

 

PH about 6.3

  Tower Garden Chores

1. Listen for the water pump to make sure the pods are getting moisture (daily)
2. Check the Water Level once a week (twice a week if really hot outside)
3. Check PH once a week  (add PH Up or Down, if necessary)
4. Top off the water level when necessary (Add nutrients whenever you add water)

   "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how." Mark 4:26-27 

  

   Garden Chores You Won't Be Doing

1. Tilling the soil
2. Weeding
3. Watering
4. Checking for soil borne diseases and pests
5. Spraying your plants with ---cides: insecticides, pesticides, herbicides, etc. 

      While most backyard gardens are nearing the end of their growing season, it's almost time to move our Tower Garden indoors for the winter. Now is a great time to get  your Tower Garden setup and get your indoor Winter Garden growing. You can successfully grow lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, and cauliflower indoors under grow lights in your tower garden.
     If you have been watching my Tower Garden grow and would like to find out more about how you can get into Tower Gardening yourself, please check out my website at http://kbrixey.towergarden.com
   I'll be blogging more about the winter garden in a few weeks. So keep reading and let me know if you have any questions, I would love to share with you all the great things I am learning about the Tower Garden.
 

   Grow Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Flowers!!!!