Produced in the USA is important to this pig pen

We had one of my most favorite meals for dinner tonight.  It is one that is only good in the summer when the bulk of the ingredients are at their peak.  

We had BLTs, sweet corn, cucumbers with ranch dressing, and sliced peaches.

 

The beauty of this meal is that the bacon, cucumbers, and sweet corn were all homegrown.  The tomatoes and peaches were from our state.  And although, the bread and lettuce were not produced in our state, they were products of the USA.

 

You might not think this is a big deal, but as a farmer, it feels like each and every day someone is questioning how we raise our crops and livestock. If we don't put our trust in the American farmer and let them make decisions based on science vs. emotion, we may not be able to find food produced in the United States someday.

Just some food for thought, literally.

Fresh Strawberries at the pig pen

We love strawberries at this pig pen and nothing beats fresh strawberries from my mother-in-law's strawberry patch this time of year.  This weekend we got our first quart of strawberries from her strawberry patch and they were delicious. 

You really can use strawberries in several ways.  My mother-in-law made us a fresh strawberry pie earlier in the week and I have a great family recipe for a strawberry cake, but really I must admit you can't beat fresh sliced strawberries by themselves or with a little ice cream, shortcake, and/or cool whip. 

When using strawberries in any way, it is really important as it is with all fruits and vegetables that you wash and dry them really well prior to doing anything else with them.

After I washed our strawberries, I cut off the stems and sliced them into smaller pieces so they were easier to eat.

My husband and I both grew up with our families sprinkling sugar on top of the sliced strawberries to create an amazing syrup and make the strawberries just a little bit sweeter.  Sugar works quite well; however, it takes a little bit of time for it to breakdown and create the strawberry syrup which is why I prefer to use powdered sugar.

I love powdered sugar and it works amazing on strawberries.  Truly within minutes, it works to help create a syrup from the strawberries and makes them perfectly sweet. 

I just sprinkle a couple of tablespoons on top of the strawberries and add more later if needed.  You really can probably never add too much if you have a sweet tooth like me. 

I realize adding sugar of any kind may defeat the purpose of eating fruit, but it sure does make them yummy.

It's Pork for Dinner at this Pig Pen

During the months of April and May, we usually don't have many opportunities for a sit down family dinner; however, since it rained over the weekend, my husband, the farmer, isn't in the fields and was home for dinner tonight.  I had originally planned on tacos for dinner, but when I opened up the fridge in the garage I noticed that my husband already had a package of pork burgers and a pork tenderloin roast defrosting.  (This is an occupation hazard as my mother-in-law and I operate a small retail pork business out of my garage and my husband likes to visit our freezers... he thinks I don't know.) 

So at 5:30pm, I was staring at a defrosted pork tenderloin and didn't know what to do with it.  I decided that the tenderloin needed to marinate in something even if only for a few minutes... so I put it in a Ziploc bag and added some teriyaki sauce and then put the bag in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

While the tenderloin was marinating, I had to figure out some sides.  Thankfully, we had some potatoes and carrots on hand and I knew the kids would love preparing and eating what we like to call "potato packs."  To prepare a "potato pack,"  spray the bottom of a piece of aluminum foil AKA tin foil with cooking spray or spray butter, I prefer PAM. 

Then add cut up potatoes (I leave the skin on as it is easier), carrots ( I use whole and cut up baby carrots), and anything else you want.  Top it off with salt and pepper. 

  

Fold up the ends and you have a "potato pack" that is ready for the grill.

I thought that was going to be it, but then my husband asked if we could fix the asparagus that was in the fridge so I quickly got it out and started to prep it.  One of my all-time favorite cooking tips involves prepping asparagus.  I don't remember where I first heard it, but it is one I always follow much to my husband's dismay as he thinks we are wasting asparagus, but I know we aren't. 

Here is the tip in case you don't know it.  When prepping asparagus, hold one end of the asparagus in each of your hands and bend the asparagus to determine where it would naturally break.  Once that point is determined, snap the asparagus at that point and only prepare the asparagus from the fresh break.  Discard the original ends.  This allows you to prepare only the freshest part of the asparagus. 

These are the ends you discard.

This is the "new" end of the asparagus spear.

This small, easy step makes all the difference when preparing asparagus in my opinion.  We then keep it simple by drizzling olive oil on the asparagus and then sprinkling with salt and fresh ground black pepper. 

The real beauty of the meal tonight was that it could all be grilled, which is something my husband loves to do. He even went ahead and grilled the defrosted pork burgers so he is set when I have to travel for work later this week.

Considering, I had no idea what we were going to have for dinner at 5:30pm, when we all sat down for dinner a little over an hour later, I felt like we had a yummy, nutritious meal in front of us. 

We had a great family dinner, which are hard to come by during corn and soybean planting season.  And we even had dessert (vanilla ice cream with fresh California strawberries), but you will have to tune in later for my tip on making strawberries even sweeter.