The Urban Farm

Greg Peterson runs his Urban Farm in 

Phoenix, AZ.  It is also his home.  His Saturday tours are fabulous and affordable.

The front yard.

Greg.

Me.

Snowden.

Peach tree.

Vegetables in the front yard.

Yard decorations.

Peach tree trunk.

Greens.

Loofah vine that they call "a volunteer" because its original seeds must have shown up in the irrigation water.

Dried loofah.

Peach tree leaves.

Chicken coup.

The chickens.

Couldn't figure out the purpose of this lot.

Grape vine in the back yard.

Back yard fence,

Herbs in a pot.

A quat tree.

The front yard.

He had about 50 people on this tour.

It was a fantastic experience. It was a cool, delightful morning and I left inspired.

Will be ordering an orange tree for my yard.

Made with mint

This was a creative session.

A yet to be named kid beverage made with lots of ingredients and mint leaves.

More Pizza

Snowden's pizza version. Thick crust.

Grilling 101

Snowden is building her cooking skills repertoire.

When I see this happen I think about how one day she will cook for herself and her family and friends. And I'll get to say "I knew her when".

She's already cooking for us - an unintended reward for parents.
:-)

Science and food

Fish is such a staple of Portuguese food.

Snowden will eat seafood. Grasshopper prefers to study it.

This ended up being squid in tomato sauce.

The coconut girl

Grasshopper's request from Lee Lee's supermarket was a coconut. She has had them before, but she recently had it at school as well as part of a lesson on how the conquistadors survived in the places they found.

She set about cracking the thing.

The milk was collected.

She calls this "the meat"

Snowden helps

She is less passionate about the coconut, but loves a challenge.

Monkeys at the beach

The batter is the yellow cupcake batter, a standard in many of the cupcakes in this book.

This was a solo effort on Snowden's part. The girl worked hard and only enlisted me to help spread the icing on the cupcakes.

The sand is made from previously smashed up graham crackers.
Yum.

Making bread

This gift from my sister sat in the pantry unused for years. But no more, the girls and I are on our way to becoming creative bread makers, or padeiras, as we say in Portuguese.

I had to find the manual online.

We used recipes from this book.

This was the simplest recipe - white bread.

It turned out really well. It is delicious.

It was a really fun way for Snowden and Grasshopper to spend a day off from school. I'm ready for more.

Asparagus

One more cooking lesson for the youngens. TJ wanted to serve asparagus to our guests and off we went in search of some, placed the in water for plumpness and then cooked them.

The cold bath to stop the cooking method.

In the butter with garlic sauce.

It was simply divine, and check out the nutritional value.

Fall Food

Love is warm baked sweet potatoes or yams (I haven't yet registered the difference). Add some regular potatoes for the youngens, and some Brussels sprouts and the smell permeates the house, prompting Snowden to announce that it smells like Thanksgiving.

TJ does the BBQuing. The boneless chicken thighs were marinated overnight in garlic vinegar.

But the trick to a fantastic taste, is to use these in the grill. We have determined that this is a MUST thing to do. The taste is simply incredible. Who knew wood chips were so good.

Potatoes

Little hands peel the potatoes and while at it, express a bit of creativity.

The potato people.

The beginnings of potato salad.

Cupcakes with a twist

Snowden loves to bake. We work well together. We take turns reading the recipe out loud.

She mixes and I measure, or she gathers the ingredients and I read.

We tried adding a cream cheese filling and used that Tupperwear gadget for the first time.

Same filling on the outside.

Almost there.

They are lemony tasting and yummy for those who like the texture of cream cheese.