• Fresh & Healthy: Lunch Box Meals

    Lunch box goodies

    About once a week I pack a special treat for the girls.  This week in their little container I put two Hershey Bliss Milk Chocolate Meltaways and one of each color of M&M’s. The girls love getting these goodies and enjoy sharing with their friends as well. Here’s what they had today:

    • Peanut Butter & Homemade Strawberry Jam
    • Fresh Red & Green Peppers
    • Fresh Strawberries
    • Pita Chips or Quaker Granola Bar
    • Yogurt
    • Banana Muffin
    • Juice Bag or Container
    • 2 Hershey Bliss Chocolate Meltaways
    • 5 M&M’s

    Special treats in their lunch today

    Fresh fruit & veggies

  • Recipe: Fresh Garden Salsa

    Fresh yellow and red tomatoes from our garden

    As I was thinking about the upcoming Spring season I realized that it is almost time to start planning for the 2012 garden.  Yikes!  There are so many big events going on with our family between now and garden season, however, I don’t want to wait until the last minute to start planning either.

    I absolutely LOVED having a garden last year.  It was fun to grow, eat, and giveaway the food we had planted in the garden.    Recently, I took a few minutes to go back over my notes, photos, and information from last year’s garden to see which produce did well and what our family ate. During that time I came across my Fresh Garden Salsa recipe and pictures from when I made it in the Fall.   Just looking at the fresh vegetables got me excited about this upcoming year.  I hope the garden does well again because it was a blast giving away produce to family and friends!

    This recipe was created out of the items we had in the fridge and pantry at the time so feel free to alter it to match what you have in your kitchen as well.  My family enjoyed this recipe and ate it but cutting up the fresh vegetables did take a little more time than I originally planned.  The girls pitched in and helped so it made it a fun family event.

    Fresh Garden Salsa:

    • 4 cups fresh Tomatoes (used yellow & red tomatoes)
    • 2 cups fresh Peppers (used red & green peppers)
    • 1/2 cup Banana Peppers
    • 1 small Sweet Yellow Onion
    • 2 cloves of Garlic
    • 2 Jalapeno Peppers
    • 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
    • 1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
    • 1/2 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
    • 1 freshly squeezed Lemon (or Lime)
    • 1 can Corn
    • 1 can Black Beans

    Wash and dice up all the fresh vegetables.  Mix all the ingredients together and blend lightly.  Refrigerate for 2 hours or more (to allow the flavor to blend together) and serve with any type of corn chip.  If you would like a spicier salsa you can add additional jalapeno peppers or hot sauce to the salsa.

    Fresh Green and Red Peppers from our garden

    Fresh Banana Peppers from our garden

    Mixing up some fresh salsa

    Salsa is ready….now do we have any chips!?

  • Fresh & Healthy: Community Supported Agriculture (Week 15 & 16)

    I took a take a couple weeks off since our family schedule was so busy and we had out of town guests staying with us I forgot to get a picture snapped before eating the goodies.  It is week fifteen and sixteen receiving fresh produce from our CSA!  Our family has been enjoying a half of share of  fresh produce, local honey, eggs and more from a local farm.

    Week 15 & 16 of Fresh Goodies from our CSA!

    Fresh goodies from our Local CSA Farm!

    Items in our Basket this Week:

    •  1 bag Red & Green Okra
    • 1 bag Green, Yellow & Purple Beans
    • 2 Green Pepper
    • 1 Red and Green Pepper
    • 2 Red Tomatoes
    • 1 Orange Tomato
    • 1 Cucumber
    • 2 Summer Squash
    • 2 Zucchini
    • 1 bundle Radishes
    • 1 Dozen Fresh Eggs

    I am looking forward to eating these goodies this week!  Anyone have a great recipes for Radishes?  Thanks everyone for the delicious Recipes, keep them coming!!!  The CSA’s are gearing up to do their Fall Harvest soon, if you want to get involved this is a great time to contact them.

    To find out how you can be a part of a local CSA check out this post – Fresh & Healthy:  Community Supported Farms