CSA Box Ideas: Peppers!

I don’t know about you, but we have gotten a TON of peppers lately – green, red, hot, sweet, short, long, and so on! There is no way that our family of four could possibly eat the number of peppers we get each week, so I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them.

Did you know that you can freeze peppers? Yes! So, it’s really simple. Put aside the number of peppers you think your family can eat when your box arrives, and quickly freeze the rest. From what I’ve read online, you can freeze a pepper any way you like. No need to blanch or cook. Just rinse and cut how you think you’ll use it. I’ve frozen a dozen or so green peppers just cut in half so we can do stuffed peppers this winter. I’ve frozen several bags of diced green peppers as well as some bags of longer slices. You can also freeze those jalepenos whole and used them during the winter. We get 6 or so jalepenos in our box and can probably only eat one or two, so the rest go directly to the freezer.

It only took me a few minutes to fill all the bags in this picture because there is no cooking involved. I actually ordered extra green peppers in my box last week so that I could freeze them. My farmers can get them to me (picked that morning with minimal pesticides used) for $0.50 per pepper. When you go to Harris Teeter and need a few peppers for a pizza or stir fry they will set you back $2-$4 PER PEPPER! And they were grown in some south American country, picked weeks ago, ripened on a truck and who knows what kind of chemicals were sprayed on them.

For those peppers you don’t freeze, just get creative! We have been putting them in all sorts of dishes. Brett made a vegetarian lasagna a few weeks ago and just used whatever we had in the fridge: green peppers, corn, onions, zucchini. I gave him a funny look when he told me what was going in it: corn? And green peppers? In lasagna? What? But, seriously, it was one of the best lasagnas I have ever eaten.

Tonight we are sautéing green peppers and onions along with Italian sausage and serving them over parmesean grits! So good and so simple. And it will make 2 or 3 of your green peppers disappear.

Bon appetit!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I just finished a great novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith. I came across it on someone’s blog and decided to pick it up from the library. It was such a wonderfully written, powerful and insightful book. I highly recommend it. It tells the story of a young girl growing up in Brooklyn in the early 1900s and of her family’s struggle to survive and rise above the poverty of working class immigrants through education.

There are so many good quotes in the book, but since I was borrowing the book from the library I didn’t really highlight or flag any of them. Here is one quote I did find. It’s the young protagonist pondering the meaning of happiness. Her conclusion is so encouraging for all of us to remember how simple, how free, and how attainable happiness is!

“People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains – a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone – just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.”

Summer Time!

We have been spending a LOT of time at our wonderful neighborhood pool this summer. The kids and I go almost every day before lunch and have a nice swim. Sydney has had swim lessons there, too, and is really improving at swimming. Pierce loves to jump in the pool and has no fear! On the weekends Brett gets to join us and it is much more fun that way. This pool is only about a block from our house and it (along with the clubhouse, playground and soccer field) was one of the major attractions for us to this neighborhood. So much fun!

We also broke out the slip n slide last weekend for some fun sliding! Isn't childhood marvelous?

Hello Sunshine!

Good morning (or good evening) from our 10 foot tall sunflower! Magnificent!

The Great Playroom Clean-out

Our play room has gotten out of hand over the last year or so with all the toys and knick knacks. I sent the kids to my parents’ house for a short week at “Camp Cromer” and took advantage of the time alone to tackle that playroom! We spend a lot of time in that room and really love being there, but it has gotten TOO full of toys and TOO difficult to clean, so I decided to try out a toy rotation system. I took today to divide most of the toys into three batches. Two of the three were boxed and put in storage and the other was placed in the newly cleaned-up and organized room. I left a number of the kids’ favorite and most frequently used toys completely out of the rotation system, so that they will always be available to play with. I gave a few things to goodwill and threw a few things away. Mostly, the toys they have are nice and great quality, but there are just so many that many of them get ignored or forgotten. I’m hoping that by rotating out the toys every month or two, the kids will find renewed interest in some of them and be more likely to play with all their toys, rather than just the ones on top. I’m also hoping it will make the daily task of picking up the playroom a little easier!

For other moms out there considering tackling a similar task, here’s how it went down today! I worked on this from 9 am to 3 pm (6 hours), but that included a one hour trip to Target to buy the plastic storage bins and a lunch break. It did NOT however include any interruptions whatsoever. I was working in a completely silent house – very unusual! But, honestly this is NOT a task you could accomplish with children around. I divided all the toys, puzzles, games, dress-up into three piles, trying to keep one of each kind of item in each pile for variety. Then I visually sized up my piles and went to Target to get very large storage bins. I paid $20 per bin, which to me is a LOT, but, honestly it was an investment in my sanity. I like that they are see-through so I can quickly see what toys are in each bin and I also liked that they were perfectly rectangular, so easy to fill neatly. I labeled each bin with a list of what was inside just in case we really “need” to find a specific toy. I also stored a few items that were too large for boxes.

In doing this task I realized how much stuff was in that room. I found 15 balls! 4 fireman hats! Two years worth of High Five magazines! And lots more.

The big question is: will my new task of rotating the toys every few months be more or less work that dealing with an overflowing playroom? I’m hoping less!

The piles:



The bins (the small red one in the middle is for seasonal items like Christmas and Easter):



All labeled and ready to go:



Any other suggestions for managing toy overload (keeping in mind that Brett and I bought almost none of this)?

CSA Box Ideas: Zucchini and other squash

Anyone with a garden or a CSA box probably has more zucchini (and other summer squash) than they know what to do with! Here are two ideas for using some of them:

Dinner idea: Hidden Zucchini Pasta

This one is for those with kids who don't always eat their vegetables!

• 1 box cut spaghetti (spaghetti past cut into 1" strips)


• 2 medium zucchini or other squash (we used a lighter green mediterranean squash because that's what we had on hand)


• pasta sauce of your choice (we used butter, shredded italian cheese and cream because our kids prefer it, but tomato sauce or pesto would also be great)

Rinse the squash and cut off the ends. Grate the squash like you would a block of cheese (by hand or in the food processor). Cook the pasta according to directions and add the grated zucchini with a few minutes left in the cooking time. Drain, cover with sauce, and serve.

Our kids, who do not care for squash, didn't mention the little green strips in their pasta, they just chowed right down. No one said a word. A tomato sauce would hide the zucchini better, but the cream sauce seemed to work just fine here! The cut spaghetti is much easier for the little ones to get on their forks and it also matches the length of the shredded zucchini perfectly. The adults were equally happy with this very simple and very quick dinner that made 2 of our squash disappear!

Freezing squash:

If you just can't get through all that squash (we never can), you can freeze it to add to winter soups, pastas, stir-frys, zucchini bread, or anything you can imagine. Just shred it with a cheese grater or food processor, press out some of the excess water in a strainer, measure by the cup and freeze in bags labeled with the number of cups of shredded zucchini. Push as much air out of the bag as possible, flatten the bag for the first freeze, then you can line the bags up vertically in your freezer and they take up less space.

Fourth of July Mountain Trip

We decided to meet Brett's dad and his wife Rose in the mountains for a four day weekend over the fourth of July. They have a 30' RV they use to camp in, and we have a 10' tent! So, we decided to give camping a try with two young kids. We were excited about the adventure and the escape from the heat, but not sure how it was all going to go down with a 5 year-old and a 2 year-old... Well, on the positive side, we really LOVED:

• getting to catch up with Ron and Rose


• the cooler weather (70s / 80s during the day and 60s at night)


• the sound of the running stream when sleeping at night


• the starry skies


• the "hikes" we did with the kids


• the s'mores! (every night!)


• the escape


• the magnificent views from the Blue Ridge Parkway


• the small-town fireworks

However, with two young ones who need a nap and who get cranky REALLY easily when they are tired... it was a lot of work for the parents. The packing was work, the driving was work, the setting up the tent was work, the food preparation was work, getting the kids to nap was work, the disciplining was work, the packing up to go home was work, the driving home was work, the unpacking was work, and the laundry was work! Man! I needed a vacation from my vacation! I loved being in the mountains, but, honestly I can say with confidence that I will not be participating in or preparing for any camping trips any time soon. I'm more of a cabin kind of girl!

These pictures are not really in order, but oh well. There's a lot of them!

S'more time!


Pierce cramming his mouth full of chocolate!



You know you want one of these!



The river on one of our "hiking" trips (0.3 miles each way!)

Breaking it down in front of our humble abode.

Happy Fourth of July!

Ron fixed baby back ribs for dinner on the fourth! Yummy!

Playing in another very shallow and wonderfully cool and clear river in Cherokee, NC.

Doing some serious hiking! The kids loved it!

Taking a break half-way through our hike (about one hour total walking time).

Sydney and Ron playing in the stream behind our campsite. Brett and Ron built a small, I mean monstrous and magnificent dam in the river that I'm sure they would like me to devote an entire blog post to, but I think this picture will suffice.

Pierce got in the stream and helped with the engineering efforts as well. Later, Brett saw a frightening snake in this stream, trapped him, then let him go! Gee, thanks! As you can imagine, the kids didn't go back in again!

Pierce and Ron working hard.

The kids were thrilled to play in the tent as soon as it was set up!

Fishing in the stream was fun, but didn't produce any dinner!

Yes, I dressed Pierce in a Polo Ralph Lauren 3-button shirt on a camping trip. Yes, he trashed it. Yes, the stains came out. Yes, I only paid $1.50 for it second hand, so I guess it didn't matter either way! And yes, he is so handsome in it!

That's all folks! No more camping pics for a long time I'm sorry to say!