Tomato sadness and growing basil

Our basil did fairly well in our Earthbox this summer, though we had some yellowing and something is eating some of it. I've gotten quite a big of pesto, dried some basil in our dehydrator, used some in tomato basil soup, and put some on our pizza, so I'm pretty happy that I've gotten my money's worth. I'm feeling pretty good about how much I've used considering this is the summer of neglect when it comes to gardening (due to being pregnant). You don't even want to see my regular garden, but Nate took a picture of it the other day, so here it is:



Pretty sad, I know. No edible plants left in there, just crab grass and vines and such. It will be quite a job to unearth it and next summer I'll definitely be mulching with something. Not sure what the best thing to mulch with is.

The tomatoes are not doing so well this year. I'm not sure if it is blossom end rot or blight, but we are not getting much. It's sad. I'm going to give it a try again next year and see if we can do better. I need someone to tell me whether it's blight or not, though, so I know if I should start over with new dirt next year. I hate to do that, since I already haven't gotten anywhere near my money's worth for what I paid for the box. Oh, and many of our tomatoes have been splitting too. Sigh.

Feeding a large group

I'm trying to keep track of what I've been making for dinners since we started a community group with our church. We meet once a week and provide the main dish. Others bring side dishes, drinks, and sometimes dessert.

In no particular order:

Texas Chicken Enchiladas
Pasta with classic pesto (love the classic pesto recipe in The New Best Recipe... I use walnuts instead of pine nuts)
Pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce (tomato-meat sauce)
Breakfast for dinner (my favorite!--we do it once a month)--I mostly make egg casseroles, but I want to do french toast casserole too
Ham and potato soup
Appetizers for dinner (I made two appetizers--deviled eggs and spinach-artichoke dip--and every else brought one)

We have yet to try:

Chili
Lasagna
Lentil and sausage soup/stew

Protein Bars and Doughnuts

Two recipes to share:

First, the protein bars. I tweak them a little bit.

I don't have a Blendtec blender (yet!) or a powerful food processor, so I skip the dried fruit and make them in the stand mixer.

I also used almond meal (ground up almonds) from Trader Joe's.

I used flax meal, Bob's Red Mill brand, which I keep in our fridge.

I use salted peanut butter (I've used the Smucker's Natural brand the past two times) and omit the sea salt.

I also used the honey and the chocolate chips.

They are yummy and the girls like them too. Nate is not a huge fan, but that means more for us. :)

Second, the baked doughnuts.



I had to cut this recipe in half because it would have made way too many for us to consume in one sitting. Even cut in half, we saved a couple for later. They were still pretty good. I think we'll do these for Christmas instead of cinnamon rolls.

The girls had fun cutting the dough into shapes and, of course, eating them!





Just a note, these are messy to eat. Mostly because of the sugar on the outside. We had sugar all over the floor. Just a warning. :)