CSA Share #12 and SALSA!

 We received another giant load of tomatoes, onions, and more peppers of various kinds, so I thought that some salsa was in order.  Anja and I started chopping up all the veg this morning, and I realized that I didn't have any cilantro.  What is salsa without cilantro?  Since I was still in my jammies, I persuaded my darling husband to run up to the store to get some for me.  Never having purchased anything green in a grocery store before (except some questionable meat from the day-old rack), he was a little nervous about the venture.  I assured him that anyone working in the produce aisle would be able to assist him, so off he went.  He came home with cilantro- and even the organic kind!  I was pretty proud of him.  (Those of you who are familiar with the great baby food debacle of 2003 will understand why this was such a momentous occasion.)

I plan to make a tasty ratatouille with the rest of the tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini.

Here is the scrumptious mild salsa.  

CSA Share #11

Nellie took a picture of my share for me this week, since I was in Chicago on the pickup day.  Lots of tomato sandwiches have been happening around here.

I've made one batch of corn already, and will probably make the rest tomorrow.  The watermelon was super sweet!

CSA Pepper Delight!

Oh my goodness!  This dish is fabulously awesome, if I do say so myself!  I cut up some chicken tenderloin pieces and stir fried them in a little oil.  Then added chopped onion, green pepper, long red peppers, banana peppers, zucchini and a roma tomato and garlic.  For spices, I added some salt & pepper, chili powder, cumin and coriander.  I served it over quinoa.

CSA Share #10

Another super heavy watermelon, and some gorgeous, gorgeous rainbow chard.  Lovely looking little orange sweet peppers, mild banana peppers, more blackberries and lots of corn are the highlights this week.  And, I ate one of the little tomatoes as I was washing them off, and it literally tasted like candy, it was so sweet.  Mmmm, mmmm, good!  I think I might freeze the roma tomatoes and make sauce with them later.

CSA Share #9

We've been on the go to about a million places all week, so not much cooking was done at home this week.  We did manage to eat up a bunch of last week's produce, though.  Good thing Anja likes peaches!  We had the corn for lunch one day, too.  It was yummy.

Holly and Anja helped me do a little cooking yesterday, and I made two different types of slaw with the head of cabbage from last week- Asian style and country style. Both are pretty tasty.

Here is this week's farm share:

That watermelon was the heaviest watermelon I've ever held in my life.  The cantaloupe was pretty huge, too.  Both were good, according to the melon eaters in the house.  Got more corn and blackberries and another squash I can cook up for the baby girl.

CSA Share #8

Corn and hot peppers!  Some weird herb that I can't identify either by smell or sight.

Anybody know what this is?

New Scrapbooking Room!

I'm thrilled to be finished with the redecorating/reorganizing of my scrapbooking room!  Just in the nick of time for our German exchange student who will be arriving this evening!

Here are some before pics from shortly after I started dismantling the room.

This had been a little boy's room when we moved in 6 years ago.   I never changed the paint or the window treatments.

My brother helped me put up these wire shelves when we moved in to hold my scrapbooking stuff, but they were not sufficient.  I guess I acquired more stuff over the years, too.

The TV was always a thorn in my side.  It took up precious space and was inconvenient to view from the whole room.  I originally put it in there so that the kids could watch movies while I scrapbooked, and that plan did work out well when they were little.  Now they can watch movies in their own room, and they don't want to hang out with me 24/7 like before.

I wanted a guest bed in the room, so I bought this daybed frame shortly after we moved in.  It was the cheapest thing I could find at the time, but I never really liked it.  It was coming apart, too, so it was time for it to go.

I had small bookshelves in this corner with more scrapbooking stuff on them, but I had already taken them down when I realized I should take some "before" shots.

Here was my little personal corner.  I had all the important stuff within reach, so I could just swivel around and get it while working.  It worked for me for a while, but now I have too much stuff and it was difficult to unstack everything while I was working.

Since my life now revolves around Pinterest, I started gathering ideas and pinned them onto this board. I liked the look of the hot pink, bright orange, and lime green together, and since I already had some lime green things, I decided to go with those colors.  I loved the treatment they did to the shades in this picture, so I decided to try it.  I love how the room turned out.  It's fun and cheery and it will work out well for scrapbooking and guests.

Here's the new look:

I really like how the colors look together.  The second craft table is also stored under the bed.

My sister Nellie made me this most excellent duvet cover.  I got the new bed at Ikea, and finally made some scrapbook pages to put in those 3 frames that I've had forever.

I added a cord trim to the window treatments (different from Pinterest idea), and made a little valence from balsa wood and fabric, which I hot glued to a curtain rod.  Nellie's scrapbooking stuff is on this wall.  We can put the second table up next to mine and she can just swivel around to get to her stuff when she wants to join me.

To the right is the wall that the bed used to be on.  I got the Antonius shelves at Ikea, and they are perfect for my stuff. In this picture, I have the table pulled out like I would when I'm working.

In the corner, I hung the Ikea shoe bins that I had in my other little corner.  I'm keeping some paper, photos, and other supplies in them.  I also hung my Cricut mats on a hook.

View of my work area from the other side.

Here the table is pushed back against the wall to give more access in and out of the room when not crafting.

Nellie convinced me to paint the built in dresser green, and I'm so glad I listened.  It looks adorable.  My mom gave me her old small flat TV, and I ran the wires around the bottom of the closet to the plugs and cable, and it is awesome.  No more big clunky TV in the way.

Pretty soon my whole house will look like an Ikea catalog.  This bag holder and the storage cups are all from Ikea.

Got this idea from Pinterest.  Glued a cookie sheet to the bottom of a shelf and glued magnets to the bottom of the glitter glue bottles.  I think I need stronger magnets, though, because a slight bump will knock them down.

I hope our guests will enjoy staying in here, and I can't wait to invite some friends over to scrapbook with me in my new room!

CSA Share #7

Eddie whooped a happy whoop when I told him there was more cauliflower!

And we have fennel for real this time!  I'm going to juice one bulb, and make a salad out of the other.

More little red potatoes are exciting, and our first green pepper and pattypan squash!

Guess I'll have to make more Mexican Cheesy Rice with the green pepper, since Nellie was looking for some in the freezer the other day and we didn't have any more.

Maybe I'll get some avocados to stuff with all those little tomatoes . . .