I picked up my last CSA box on Tuesday Unfortunately, the farm is too far away for Nathan and I to continue picking up vegetables. Luckily, my friend Jen, gladly is taking over our subscription and she and her boyfriend Anthony will take full advantage of yummy late summer and fall veggies. I hope she’ll post some of her recipe creations on her blog (hint, hint Jen!)

Well with my last veggies, I passed a few off to Ganny because I have had little time lately to cook. She took the corn, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, beets, and potatoes and made this wonderful meal last night….

See why I’m going to miss this so much?

Here’s the inspiration for the dish…plus here….

And these are the stars of the dish straight from my CSA box:

I made my own tomato sauce, complete with basil and my sister’s homemade “spaghetti sauce seasoning:”

The one thing I forgot to do was remove the tomato skins before making the sauce…So out they came (actually rather easily) in the midst of cooking…

I made the sauce a couple of days in advance and it was ready to go the night I began preparing the “bakeless bake”

Here are the steps:

1. Add frozen peppers (or any vegetable you’d like)

2. Add fresh spinach

3. Add pasta…I used spaghetti because it was what I had available!

4. Add the sauce (use jarred if you wish)

5. And top with cheese!

Here’s the final dish out of the oven….

and in my bowl

Definite comfort food in need of some tweaking…Maybe I should stick with lasagna?! Have a great day!

I made a great bakeless pasta bake (oxymoron right?!) last night based on Ashley’s recipe.  Kath recently made it too, and it looked so easy that I knew I had to try it.  I did, it worked, and tasted good.  Not sure the recipe is a keeper…lasagna is MUCH more satisfying but it was a great experiment that provided a healthy and easy dinner.  I’ll be sharing pictures with you later this weekend…

In the meantime, remember the photo shoot I did?  Here are a few more picture’s on the florist’s website.  It’s under “wedding design” and then “eco inspiration shoot.”  Enjoy!

Still in need to sleep

But I miss you guys! And wanted to do a post for everyone. Usually I feel really great after writing a post so I’m hoping this activity does the trick

All is fine here…Just a bit of Monday tiredness…not the blues, just tired.

I thought I’d share a couple update pictures of our new rental house. We are slowly but surely getting the house organized (after many trips to Lowes and Walmart!). Remember the ugly couches?

Now they are pretty Not gorgeous but pretty on a budget!

And that empty master bedroom?

A new bed, mattress, duvet cover, and throw pillows! Nathan and I had a really old bedroom set that was bought cheap and had done it’s duty and then some. We sold it before we left for the Peace Corps and needed to buy new furniture. Never fun to spend lots of money but I think we did pretty well and only bought a bed. We’ll use a dresser from my parent’s home and have an old table to use as a beside table. Making do! As for the duvet cover, I registered for a very pretty floral one before our wedding. Needless to say, Nathan was never a big fan. So I caved this weekend at Target…We now have a boring brown But I got girly pillows!

We had a fun weekend setting up house. I fixed some edamame (baby soy beans in the pod) as a snack and want to share the pictures with you. I had only ever bought edamame frozen and had never seen fresh pods. But we received some in our CSA box. They were really furry!

I washed them well and decided to steam them. Again, it was fun to unpack boxes and find my kitchen goodies. Here is one of my beautiful copper pots (a wedding gift from my in-laws!):

And a handy steamer:

You just place a small amount of water in the pan and place the steamer inside, making sure the water doesn’t rise above the steamer. And you steam away until the veggies are done!

I had several beans in the process to make sure they were coming along well I also added a little salt for flavor…The perfect snack to keep us going…Now only if we were done with the unpacking

Did you know “parfait” means “perfect” in French??

I think those French are on to something!

I received raspberries in my latest CSA box, and my grandmother generously shared a few of her fresh peaches from South Carolina.  So what did I have for breakfast?  Perfection

Greek yogurt layered with berries and peaches…topped with cinnamon honey.  Yummy!

What did you have for breakfast?

While home this last weekend, I not only enjoyed a wonderful home-cooked meal, but I also was able to attend a great fundraiser. My dad’s best friend from childhood, Rick, lives near my parents with his wife Jean. She is an avid cook and gardener, and I’ve been lucky enough to indulge in several of her food creations. Jean started growing wild flowers in her backyard a few years ago and has been selling them at the local farmers market. I hear her flowers are inexpensive and sell quickly! Every year Jean also holds a fundraiser for a local animal rescue named Friends in Need Animal Rescue. Seeing how I love dogs and local goodies, this was the perfect activity for me. Asher came along, we donated money to a great cause, and we went home with lovely flowers.

Here’s my dad posing with Asher by the event sign…

Truthfully Asher barely behaved himself…He was trying to pee on all the flowers Not cool when people want to cut them and take them home! Good thing I have unconditional love and patience for my boy

Here are a couple of pictures of the gorgeous gardens:

And my mom busy cutting…

Aren’t this two girls adorable? I love the red boots!

Jean had several art objects throughout the garden. I love these teacups.

And here are the flowers we went home with.

It seriously was such a fun activity and much more gratifying than buying flowers in a grocery store. Maybe I should starting growing flowers now too in addition to vegetables?!

I received several green tomatoes and a bag of okra in my latest CSA box.   I knew immediately what to do with them. Crack an egg, find the cornmeal in the pantry, pull out the salt and pepper…And wah-lah! Perfect fried green goodness.

Here’s the process:

And, yep, those are homemade biscuits in the background. Not a super balanced meal, but a tasty one

I’m off to pick up my next CSA box this evening…The summer is really flying by!

Speaking of summer, here is my mother’s Summer Squash Casserole recipe.  My maternal grandmother, who we call Lamb, made it for my mom often while she was growing up, but Lamb gives all the credit to one of her friends for the original idea.  My mom is a bit embarrassed that I’m sharing it with you as it uses processed foods.  She thinks you foodies out there won’t like it.  But I promise it is delish!  And with a few changes to suit your tastes and wants, you will really enjoy it too

1. Wash and slice the squash
2. Boil or steam 2 lbs. of squash until tender
3. Mash in 4 slices of American cheese to the hot squash
4. Add 2 eggs to the squash and cheese mixure and mix thoroughly
5. Add 1 tbsp of onion juice (I didn’t know this existed until today!  I guess you can buy it on the spice aisle?!)
6. Add the entire mixture to a casserole dish
7. Top with buttered bread crumbs or in my mom’s case, she added crushed Ritz crackers
8. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbling (approx. 50 for a deep casserole or 30 min. for a shallow dish)
9. Enjoy!

Complete deliciousness!  It was just what I needed…a yummy, local, homecooked meal without having to do any of the cooking   And really, how often do I buy steak?  Never…too expensive for my purse!  But it was such a treat.  Thanks Mom and Dad!

My mom is sending me the squash casserole recipe…stay tuned!  Have a great day…It was hot and humid all weekend and now rainy and chilly.  Not sure which one is worse.  What is the weather where you are today?!

In most of my recent CSA boxes, I’ve been getting lots of beets. I love beets…especially already cooked ones on salads But to cook them myself?? Well, that was a definite first this summer. They are quite messy and can stain your hands, the cutting board, and the bowl. But I did a lot of research online and persevered. The easiest recipe I found was to trim the beets and put them in a bowl of water. You then put the bowl in the microwave covered with plastic wrap. After about 10 minutes the beets are cooked! You can play around with the time but you want to cook them until you can easily stick a fork in them. After that you can do with them as you wish…add them to a salad or eat them plain. Or what else? Do you have any recipes to share?

One recipe that I found was to make brownies…WITH the beets. Pretty cool, huh? I remember a friend making them for a picnic many years ago and when I Googled the idea, tons of recipes came up. Well, I found this one and went with it!

The recipe instructs you to grate the beets…Which was actually easy to do, although messy!

The color’s great right?

Here are the dry ingredients…

And the final batter poured into the pan.

They turned out really moist and easy to cut from the pan. I asked everyone who tried them to guess the secret ingredient and no one could. This one you could definitely give your kids and fool them

I’m headed to my parents’ house this weekend and hope to get some rest…and maybe a little shopping in  

Hope you have a great weekend!

And here are my ingredients:

And of course another picture of the zucchini from Henry…

I had to grate the zucchini and only had a tiny grater. It ended up working fine (no chucks here!) but maybe it was a bit too fine?? I felt like I was making a meal for children and trying to hide the veggies

Everything coming together…

And the BEST ingredient: chocolate chips! What’s a muffin without chocolate??

And the final product!

These were pretty yummy…you could definitely taste the zucchini so I’m not sure how many kids would have been fooled but they made a perfect breakfast and snack this past weekend.

What are you currently making with zucchini?