Natural Treatments for Black Spot (on Roses)

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

One of the first things I did when I moved into this home was purchase several rose bushes to plant in the garden. Now, at the time, I was extremely inexperienced with gardening and had no experience with roses, but just decided to dive right in. The house already had several climbing rose bushes and a few other plants and I figured, what the heck, how hard can it be??

Ha ha ha ha... well, several years later I am still inexperienced but I know enough to know that growing roses can be a bit challenging. In my experience, they prefer morning sun, thrive with plenty of water (soak the ground, not the plant), and do their best in well-drained soil. I formerly selected my roses based on how pretty the blooms looked. But, that transitioned to include fragrance and then finally disease resistance.

Very fragrant, small purple roses after pruning away diseased leaves

Hamburger Skillet (Easy & Flexible)

I have a confession... my husband and son love hamburger helper. LOVE IT. Before I married my husband, it was one of his regular meals. Now, when I am away for work sometimes I will come back and see the boxes in my cabinets. I have a fit. They thinks it's scrumptious.

I have never eaten the stuff. I think it sounds terrible - I mean you can't hardly get much more processed than hamburger helper.

So anyway, all that being said, and with love for my family and a desire for this journey to be easy for them (and a reason to throw away that last box of hamburger helper peeking out from behind jars of pickles) I thought I would try to make something reminiscent of hamburger helper without all the nastiness in the box version.

Creole Shrimp

It's that time of month again when I peruse the pages of my recent Cooking Light magazine and re-vamp one of their recipes for my dinner table. I really enjoy this magazine for the new ideas it inspires, but don't necessarily agree with several of their ideas of "healthy" foods  (often their elimination of butter or healthy fats of any kind as well as subsitutions with low fat or no fat milk and their use of "fake" foods like margarine). However, these types of ingredients are easy to replace with more nourishing options.

In their latest issue, the June 2013 magazine, I found a wonderful shrimp recipe that my family thoroughly enjoyed. In fact, it was so good, it will likely be on the regular rotation and I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did. Here is the link to the original recipe. I've changed it up a bit below.

Quinoa-Bean Salad

You will really enjoy this versatile dish, which makes enough for lunches during the week and a dinner side dish too.

 

Dover Sole Francese

It turns out that there is not a lot of variety in recipes for sole that are easily found online. So, when I found this recipe I was eager to give it a try. The family loved it and asked me to please oh please oh please save the recipe and make again. The original recipe is from Food.com, but I've changed it up a bit.

Lemon Butter Sole

Dover sole is a wonderful fish for those of you "on the fence" fish people or children who are not super crazy about a strong fishy fish. It has a light flavor, like tilapia or trout, but I think even more mild. It is also a very thin filet, which means very minimal defrosting time for those of you, like me, who often have to throw together a last minute meal.

Stout Mac and Cheese

Every month, I am excited to receive the new issue of Cooking Light magazine for the new dinner ideas I find after perusing the pages of this magazine. I usually have to "real foodify" the recipes, but that's ok by me! My family enjoys the new ideas that wind up on our table. This recipe is one from the April 2013 issue, which I've switched up a bit.