Burgers!

 I got busy in the kitchen yesterday making two different burgers. First one I made was Salmon burgers

These turned out really good! I used the Epicure West Coast Burger seasoning, and used the burger press to form my patties, and they turned out great! It made 6 patties, and I froze a few for another time. I also made some vegetarian patties

This is from the Joyous Health Cookbook. These too, turned out really good! It made 5 patties, although I probably could have had 6 of them, had I not made them quite as thick. I froze 4 of them and had one for lunch. I topped it with some guacamole and left over garden salad that I had, not much, just enough to top it, since I also had some potatoes with that. It was really good!

Burgers are great to eat, and now I have two options, although these patties are great to just have them like that as a healthy protein option with your meal also.

Friday we had my dad and his girlfriend over for a BBQ, to celebrate father's day, and we didn't give him his birthday gift yet, so it was nice seeing them and spending some time together. We cooked up a chicken on the BBQ, my hubby spatchcocked it, and put some BBQ sauce, as well as the chicken and rib rub from Epicure. We also did sliced potatoes and onions in foil and also cooked on the BBQ, with a nice garden salad. It was a delicious supper! Dessert was a platter, of fresh strawberries that I got from the stand near my place, there's a farm close by that grow a lot of strawberries. They are small but very tasty! I also added cherries, and brownie cookies that I got from the Chocolate Cover Katie site. They turned out really good! I also put together my own little dessert with some help from Epicure again. I used their chocolate mud pie mix, all I had to do was boil a can of coconut milk with the powder mix, and then take it off the heat and add yogurt, either non-dairy or regular yogurt, which I used Greek Yogurt. I completely forgot to get coconut yogurt, but thankfully I had some Greek yogurt to use, which I had bought to make the guacamole. Once the yogurt is mixed in, you put it in the fridge to set. I thought it was going to be more like whip cream type of texture but it was more like a jello type texture. I mixed it and put them into small chocolate cups that I bought. And then in a pan I roasted some slivered almonds, which I crushed them up more, and then added a bit of maple syrup and topped the cups with those, and a small slice of the strawberry

They turned out really good! and don't they look cute! It was a really nice evening and yesterday we went for a 45 minute bike ride since it was nice out. It was warm out there but it was still a nice ride. This morning I made a really delicious veggie omelette, with mushroom, spinach, green onion and some parsley. The spinach and parsley is from my garden. I also added a little cheese, and it was really tasty! I enjoyed the omelette with a kiwi.

I already chatted with my dad this morning to wish him a happy Father's Day. I hope all dads out there have a wonderful day!

Garden and biking

 Since my last blog post, my garden has grown and it's doing really well

I used quite a bit of basil for a pasta I made and there's still a lot there, the very tall one in the back of my veggie garden, that's the jalapeno. I have 2 really good size jalapeno's so far and one that's like a medium size. My bell pepper, I have one that's small but it's growing. Nothing yet with my cucumbers, or tomatoes and I had to trim back my kale and spinach, especially the kale cause it was starting to take over! I only have green blueberries so far, so still some time to go before we can try them. Lettuce is really good as well, which we used some in a BLT, using a huge tomato that we got from my mother in law. The BLT was more tasty cause of the fresh tomato and lettuce that we used.

We are off this week, and we haven't done to much so far, just a few things at home, and had a few appointments to go to, which we did get our first vaccine shot. So today since it was beautiful outside, we decided to go for a bike ride, considering we got our bikes tuned up, so it was time to take them out again. We tried a new trail that he new about but we have never been down, well I went down a small part of it when I did my nighttime run 8 years ago. It was a really nice trail! They even had a few spots to do workouts, like monkey bars. We were gone about an hour, and it was great!

We decided to take this week off cause it was my hubby's birthday and he didn't want to work the week of his birthday. I asked him what he wanted to have for supper and we had this

Chicken nachos! They were so good!! I made the guacamole, and he helped me put it together.

Next thing I want to make is some salmon burgers, and vegetarian patties. I got the burger press from Epicure, and a spice for the salmon burgers so I am going to try it out. Not sure which vegetarian patty I will make yet, but I will be looking at my recipes to decide. It is Father's Day this coming weekend so my dad will be coming over for a BBQ. I'm thinking beer can chicken with some potatoes and a salad.

My garden

 I'm long overdo for a new post, but I have been busy. So excited to have my garden again, but it's bigger then any other year cause I ended up purchasing a Vegpod. I saw commercials on it, and when I went to get my herbs, I saw blueberries, so I decided to get some plants of those too. I have never had to care for my own blueberries before, so I looked online and seems like rabbits and birds love them as well, so that made up my mind and I got a Vegpod. So with that purchase, I did another trip to get more vegetables to grow. Not sure how well they will turn out cause I'm new to this, but so far so good. Here's the start of my garden

The top photo starting at the back to the left are my blueberries, middle is lettuce then to the right is cucumbers. In the front on the left is sweet peppers, middle is tomatoes, then I have kale towards the middle and spinach in the front. Then for my herbs on the left at the top is basil, middle is rosemary and in the front parsley. The right at the top is chives then thyme.

My hubby also decided to get my wooden stand a bit more sturdy and two tiered, so here's what it looks like now

The pot on the step is last year's thyme, that decided to partial regrow. I took out most of the dead ones, and kept what was still alive. It's still doing really well. And I really love what he did to my wooden stand, the pots fit in better, cause they use to be side by side, and the pots were snug together, so at times it was hard to get them to go straight. 

Here's what my vegetable garden looks like as of yesterday, which I made a few changes.

The plant in the middle at the back, you can see a black thing holding it up, that is a jalapeno plant. I had kept it in the big pot I got it in, but realized I have room for it in my vegpod, I just had to shift my lettuce more to the middle and everything fits well. So as you can see it's growing quite nicely. I didn't take a new photo of my herbs but they have grown quite a bit as well. My basil is a little more then twice the size, so I am making some pasta for supper tonight and I'll for sure be adding some fresh basil, chives and parsley. Here's what my vegpod looks like, this was before I put anything it in.

I love how everything is protected, so no animals come by to eat my garden. Our neighbor next to us, had done a garden and they lost it all from animals coming in and eating it. I also fixed up my front garden to make it look really pretty.

The tiny flowers by the girl and guy in my garden haven't come out yet, but they are a redish flower that is suppose to bloom out. My flowers in the back yard have come out though and they look so pretty!

To the left of these flowers, I have a big bush of just green leaves right now, but huge white flowers come out of them. These come back each year and I'm happy about that. I did work on getting rid of a lot of weeds around there, so this looks cleaner now lol. 

In terms of cooking, I have made my own salsa, which turned out really good

This is the salsa over some salmon, it was very yummy! I also made a really healthy breakfast one morning

So two hard boiled eggs topped with some of my fresh chives, a little salt, pepper and paprika. I have some mashed up avocado, cucumber slices, raspberries and kiwi. It was very good! Another tasty breakfast

I did an scrambled up omelette with ham, spinach, onion and mushrooms with a little bit of feta cheese, and then some raspberries and cantaloupe. I have made a few without meat, cause I do try to not eat to much meat cause it aggravates my endo, causing me some pain.

We also had to get a new dishwasher cause our old one started leaking, and the cause of the leak was due to corrosion so it was just easier to get a new dishwasher. Glad we did cause it's so much quieter!! I am still working out as well, this past week has been a more low key workout, so all walking, but starting tomorrow I'm getting back into bigger workouts, with some running and weight exercises.

This weekend has been pretty quiet for us, other then de-weeding a lot of our back yard, which we had to stop cause it started to rain, along with thunder. It's a pretty hot and humid weekend so not doing quite as much outside. They are also calling for more rain this afternoon, so it's more of relaxing day today. I did also get my Epicure order not long ago. I got the burger press, so I can make my own veggie burgers. I also got a spice that goes into salmon burgers which I want to try. They will be good in a burger or just to have on it's own. I have to find the recipe and give them a try. Hope everyone is having a good weekend.