Veggie Delivery

I had every intention of planting a garden this year. Really, I did. A teeny, tiny garden. I planned on putting tomatoes, zucchini and bell peppers in the ground. I love the thrill of finding a vine ripened veggie just ready for picking.

Despite my good intentions, the tiny garden didn't materialize. I don't have a good excuse either.

What I do have is a fabulous friend who has a fabulous garden and best of all is the fact that she is sharing her bounty. See those beautiful veggies up there? Yep. Sarah, bless her pea pickin' heart, brought those by yesterday. My girl, Madison, answered the door and then she called me to tell me what Sarah left. She knew I would be thrilled. Oh, that girl knows me well.

One More Month

That's what we've got left of summer. Hard to believe, isn't it? Our high school junior starts school on August 14 and the 8th grader goes on the 17th.

I started the purchasing of school supplies 2 weeks ago with volleyball shoes for camp and the upcoming season. Made a couple of other purchases last night. Enrollment information arrived in the mail a few weeks ago. Emails have arrived with more enrollment materials, important dates and forms. Sports physical completed. Eye appointment completed. Dental appointments done.

This is my least favorite time of summer. I begin to feel pressured about not having completed all of the activities we had planned and the list of things to do before that first day of class seems to get longer instead of shorter.

In an effort to alleviate that pressure, my goal is to create a master of list of everything I need to do before classes start and break it down into manageable chunks of things I can do each week. We have a lot of fun activities on our calendar between now and August 7th and I want to be able to relax and enjoy them as much as possible.

How do you handle that back-to-school list of things to do?

Weekend at a Glance

If a picture is worth a thousand words, these photos speak volumes about the kind of weekend we had. The kind I'd like to repeat on a regular basis.

t-shirts happen

I spent my evening with this little fishy. And 307 others just like him!

Sometimes I wonder how I find myself in these situations. I sure didn't raise my hand and volunteer. Someone else volunteered me. Volunteered me to design, order, sort and box 308 t-shirts for our swim league. Why would someone volunteer me for this? Let me just say that I think it's an example of one's organizational skills working against them.

They arrived today. I came home to find 4 large boxes in my living room. And how fortunate for my entire family to be unavailable this evening for sorting, organizing and re-boxing them! Lawman's going to have to load them for me tomorrow night because I don't think I can lug those boxes down to the garage and into the truck.

I made short work of it though. Sometimes it is easier and quicker to do things by yourself.

I'll get to see lots of happy little faces on Friday when I hand these out at our league swim meet. After 10 years, one more season is almost behind me.

Summer Fare | Homemade Ice Cream

I know, I know. This is starting to sound old....the whole 'summer fare' routine. Sorry, but I've been hooked on food the last few days. I'll try to add some variety this week but first, let me explain the reason for my fascination with food.

Our calendar was so jam-packed between June 24 - July 2 that I didn't really cook an entire meal that entire time. By the time the holiday weekend got here I was feeling terrible and I knew why. Too much fast food, frozen food. Just junk.

So, I was on a mission to get our family back on track. And, I think I can say that I have succeeded.

Homemade ice cream is a given on a holiday weekend, isn't it? Well, we don't own an old hand crank ice cream maker but I do have a recipe for an incredible easy and delicious ice cream that is done in minutes. Literally. Unless you count the freezer time it needs to set up.

It requires a blender and 3 ingredients ~ 24 oz. frozen strawberries, 1/2 c. + 1 T sugar and 1 1/2 c. heavy cream. That's it. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

To prepare it, place the berries in the blender. Whisk the sugar into the cream. With the blender going, slowly add cream through the opening in the lid, stopping to stir the mixture 3 or 4 times so the ice cream is smooth, with small bits of berries. Transfer to a shallow pan and freeze to a scoopable texture, about 2 hours. Garnish with fresh berries or whipped cream if you like.

It's delish! Lawman has already placed requests for other flavors.....raspberry, peach, blueberry....the possibilities are endless.

Summer Fare | Garden Fresh Green Beans

Last week my friend, Sarah, gave me some green beans. Garden fresh green beans. From her garden. I was thrilled. Nothing tastes better than garden fresh produce.

Now I have to make a confession. I had never cooked fresh green beans before. So I turned to a reliable source of know how in my kitchen. This book.

Did you know that fresh green beans need to be boiled and not steamed? I didn't, until now.

I followed the basic recipe for prepping the beans and then selected the recipe for Green Beans with Bacon & Onion. Dee-lish! They were a perfect addition to our July 4th barbeque. They were so good that our oldest made a meal out of the leftovers all by themselves.

Summer Fare | Potato Salad

Potato salad. It's standard summer fare in my opinion. I made my first batch of the season last night.

My mother always had potato salad in our fridge in the summer. It was my dad's favorite. Still is. She used russet potatoes, chopped onion, dill pickle, chopped hard-boiled eggs and a dressing of mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper.

I've tried many variations of potato salad since I left home. Add yet another one to the list.

This recipe has great flavor (of course, I tasted it). The dijon mustard adds a bit of zip. And I'll just go ahead and say it, bacon makes everything better. I did deviate from the recipe just a bit as I added some chopped onion. I've also discovered that I like to mash the potatoes a bit. Doing that helps add some creaminess to the consistency.

I had a 3# bag of new red potatoes that needed to be used before they went bad so I decided to double the recipe. It will go great with the grilled chicken kabobs we'll be making over the holiday weekend.

See that jar with the lid in the photo? It's a salsa jar that I've saved. I have about 3 or 4 of them in my cabinet along with a variety of others in different shapes and sizes. I have this thing about jars. I don't know that I'd say I collect them but I sure do seem to hang on to quite a few of them. They're great for mixing marinades, dressings, sauces, etc. Just dump the ingredients in and shake away.