Help, I'm being overtaken by vegetables!!

In the fridge, on the counter, in the pantry, in the freezer....vegetables....EVERYWHERE!

So I had to have a plan of attack. I was being overtaken. I can't eat them fast enough. I don't want to throw all of this great stuff out. Time for a marathon...

Here's how it works at my house...Katelyn stands at the sliding glass door and says, "Mama, outside." So she's a big girl now...so I let her outside to play for a bit (of course I can see everything from the kitchen window.) Without fail, the kid makes a beeline for the garden and this is what I see...EVERY TIME...

Looking, looking for the little red grape tomatoes (I taught her that she can't pick the green ones.)...and would you please take a look at these tomato plants...they're HUGE!

Finds one...pops it in her mouth...finds one pops it in her mouth....

Looking high...looking low. Finds one...pops it in her mouth.

This goes on for a few minutes until I holler..."Katelyn, honey, that's enough tomatoes. You're going to get a belly ache. Come over here please and play." Run run run across the lawn. "Mama look. Matoes." "Katelyn, were you eating tomatoes from the garden?" Katelyn responds sheepishly, "Noooo."...with a big smile on her face. It cracks me up everyday. And I've never seen a toddler with this kind of passion for tomatoes.

But even with Katelyn's ability to mow through some tomatoes on a daily basis...I still had tons from the farm and from the backyard...So I made spaghetti sauce and salsa the other day. I'll keep doing this for the rest of the summer. I'm hoping that I won't have to buy a jar of tomato sauce over the next six-nine months. Homemade is SO much better!!!

I got all of this done just in time to go out to the farm again and get this weeks haul. Good grief. But I did make a fabulous stir fry tonight with green onion, garlic, fresh parsley, red pepper, eggplant, golden zucchini, bok choy, left over chicken, curry, cumin, rice wine vinegar, and a splash of lemon juice...over brown rice with some feta on top... Super TASTY! I also made some pesto and froze it in ice cube trays. When they're frozen you just pop them all in a freezer bag and they're ready to go...I LOVE PESTO!

And because I had a pile of blackberries that needed to be used...I canned some blackberry jam tonight. Talk about yummy! We got fresh flowers today and among many other vegetables that I had already put away, we got some beautiful golden zucchini and yellow squash.

More salsa, spaghetti sauce and pesto is on the agenda for this weekend. I need to do some cabinet cleaning too. I'm stock piling for fall and winter...