The Food Nanny

Buying a new recipe book is an act of faith. You pick up the cookbook and turning the pages see yummy looking food and think, "I could make that." You imagine your family sitting down to the table and eating like it could be their last meal and exclaiming what a fantastic cook you are. Well, I bought a new cook book and have high hopes that that is exactly what will happen.

BYU TV has a show called The Food Nanny. The host, Liz Edmunds, goes into peoples homes and helps them cook a meal for their family. She says her goal is to "bring families home for dinner." She plans meals around "theme nights", Monday is comfort food, Tuesday is Italian night and so forth.

You can check out her website at www.thefoodnanny.com and find example menu plans and templates for the two-week menu plan and the shopping list, and check out her show on BYU-TV. We all need some inspiration now and then to cook our families dinner each day and then sit down together at the dinner table.

Triathlon

On Friday, August 20th several women in our stake, along with some of their friends, gathered for our FIRST annual "Wild Woman Triathlon". Ranee Berg (Hilltop) and Brenda Snizek (Skyview) organized it, figured out the course, put it together.

Can you believe how many amazing women participated?

There were also plenty of family members there to cheer everyone on.

Everyone met at Lake Elmo for the first leg of the triathlon. Friday was an extremely
hot day--temperatures were near 100. Lake Elmo was pretty warm, too.

The swim was about 400 yards.

Can you see the boats? They held members of the stake there to help swimmers stay on course, rescue swimmers, or give help to any women who needed it. You will be glad to know no one needed rescuing-- everyone made it out of the lake alive!

When the sisters got out of the water, their bikes were waiting for the next part.

Off they went--they left Lake Elmo, crossed Main, and joined the bike trail on Mary Street.

There were all kinds of bikes-from professional road bikes to more ordinary everyday bikes, and there were all levels of skill among the bike riders.

The biking segment was just short of 16 miles long. Wow!

The trail crosses Wicks Lane and eventually leads back to Lake Elmo.

Next was running.

The women ran 2+ times around Lake Elmo.

By now these sisters had been swimming, biking, and moving for well over an hour in the hot sun.

Our sisters are really tough!

The running part of the triathlon was about 3.1 miles.

It was pretty exciting to see our sisters finish the triathlon!

We want to make this triathlon a yearly event. Come join us, you've got a whole year to prepare!

If you don't feel you can do the entire triathlon, come next year and do the parts you want to. You can do one leg of the triathlon, two legs, or parts of each if you don't think you can do it all. It was lots of fun and a great feeling of achievement for those who took part.

Web site for canning info

Canning food can be a lot of work! But there is something very satisfying about canning food for your family. Last week I picked sour cherries from a tree in my daughters back yard. The limbs were hanging with beautiful, plump, ripe cherries. They were begging to be picked! In just a couple hours we had picked as many as we could reach. A good friend has one of those fancy steam juicers and she spent the day juicing the cherries. I used the juice to make delicious cherry jelly and had plenty of cherries for a couple pies and then canned a couple quarts to use for cobbler. I found a good website with canning instructions and thought you might like to look at it. Go to www.pickyourown.org

At the Stake Relief Society Harvest Seminar Jody Gorham talked about some of her canning success and failures, (we all have had some of each). One idea she shared was that you can just wash off a ripe red tomato and put it in a freezer bag in the freezer. Then when you are making soup or chili or spagetti sauce just take it out of the freezer, run warm water over the tomato, peel off the skin and mix it in. I'm finding this is great when you have just a few tomatoes ripe but not enough to can.

So...try making some jelly, get on the internet and look up some new recipes, keep your eyes open for free food! It really is a lot of fun!

Salsa Recipe #2

Another Salsa Recipe! This one is by Robbin Stott.

Green Tomato Relish
12 Large green tomatoes
12 large tart apples
7 large onions
6 cups white sugar
5 cups vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon pepper
1 table spoon allspice
1/2 tablespoon cloves
2 tblespoons cinnamon

Chop and shred tomatoes. Add 1 tablespoon salt, and soak overnight.
Drain. Add chopped and shredded apples, chopped and shredded onions, sugar, vinegar, pepper, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.
Cook until done, approximately 60 minutes.
Seal hot. Makes about 12 pints.

School Supplies for Hearts & Hands

It is hard to believe but the start of the school year will soon be here. It is an exciting time for children as well as parents but the cost of school supplies can be a challenge for many families. This time of year many stores slash the cost of school supplies and this is your chance to not only buy for your own family but if possible to buy a little extra for the Hearts and Hands Service Day. The following is a list of items needed for the school kits.

1 backpack

24 pack crayons

markers

#2 pencil

erasers

scissors

glue sticks

spiral notebooks (3-4 for teens, 1 for child)

2-3 1-inch ring binders (for teens)

small bottle hand sanitizer

Any donation, no matter how small or large is very much appreciated and distributed to those most in need.

Salsa Recipe

A big THANK-YOU to all our presenters at last Saturdays Relief Society Activity. I learned something from each one of them And thank-you to all of you who attended. Sisters came from Forsyth and Hardin as well as our in-town units. And thank-you to those sisters who made salsa for our tasters table. I'm working on posting the recipes for you but right now have just one. It was made by Cheri Johnson and is Yummy! Thank you Cheri for sharing with us.

FRESH SALSA

Cheri Johnson

2 Cans diced tomatoes or equivalent amount of fresh tomatoes

2 Green Peppers chopped

1 Red Pepper chopped

2 Medium size sweet onion chopped

2 Jalapeno's chopped

1 bunch Cilantro chopped

2 Cups corn, frozen, canned or fresh

Chopped garlic to taste

Salt to taste

Ingredients can be as large or small as you want. If you want the salsa hotter leave the seeds in the jalapeno's. Combine all the ingredients and season to taste. It is best if it is refrigerated overnight or at least several hours.

A quick reminder! We will be tying quilts for Hearts and Hands this thursday, 6-9pm at the stake center. Bring a pot luck food item if you like, your friends and family and join us.

"All is Safely Gathered In"

We've waited all summer, survived hail storms and a tornado! Finally we are seeing the fruits of our labors. Which for me means a few peas, lettuce, beans appearing as if by magic and the first ripe red tomatoes. Now the work begins anew as we gather and preserve our gardens bounty.

This coming Saturday, August 7th is the Stake Relief Society Harvest Seminar. It starts at 10am at the Stake Center. We are going to meet in the multi-purpose room next to the kitchen. Some of the best gardeners and people in the know will be presenting ideas on harvesting and preserving your garden produce. Bring a paper and pencil and your questions and join us for an opportunity to learn from the "experts."