What to do with all these veggies???

     As summer is in full swing, and sadly on the decline of "summer vacation" all these great gardens we have all been working on are bursting at the seams with wonderful treasures.  And somehow we have gotten some great reaping of our friends glorious gardens.  (We are still waiting for some of ours to ripen).  But the question is - what do I do with all these veggies???
     We have had tomatoes in our salads, tomato salad, salsa, squash made into homemade baby food, zucchini with dinner on the side, and added chives to anything that needs seasoning.  But I still had a lot left over, and I don't like when things go to waste.  So one evening I decided (with my mom's input) to make my version of succotash.  I have only had it once and never made it myself but really it is just a bunch of veggies cut up and cooked in such a way you want to eat more.
     So my ingredients were: Sweet onion, tomatoes, yellow squash, and zucchini.  It took me about 20 minutes to prep and make this yummy side dish and I had both little ladies eating it (still working on the husband to eat more veggies)

I sliced the onions so that they remained mostly in a circular shape and placed them in the pan with some olive oil and a bit of salt to "sweat" the onions and also get them cooking more since they take longer than my other veggies

sweet Vidalia onion

     Then I chopped up the remaining veggies in to chunks, about bite size pieces.  We had to cut them smaller for the children.

yellow squash and zucchini

     I added the squash and zucchini to the pan after the onions had been cooking for about 5 minutes.  They were not transparent yet but were much softer.  I kept the chopped tomatoes to the side because they will be added in at the end since they take the least amount of time for this dish.

cooking nicely for about 5-10 minutes

    As the three veggies were cooking nicely I added some salt pepper and seasonings that I know my family loves.  I made it more of an Italian flavor with the seasonings that I put into this.  I also wanted the squash and zucchini to be warm all the way thru but not get mushy.  I wanted more of a stir fry texture to this dish.

     Lastly I added the tomatoes to the pan, and by waiting to do so at the end it created a "sauce" for the whole dish.  You get the juices from the first three veggies to combine with the tomatoes and their natural juice.  As i mentioned earlier the tomatoes take the least amount of time to heat thru and this was great because it did not take away from the firmness and texture of the squash and zucchini.  

Finished dish

    And voila! My finished dish.  Healthy, yummy, and delicious!  And you can make this with your own spin, or whatever veggies you may have on hand.  I was glad we were able to use the veggies up and have a new side to our grilled pork tenderloin.

     Now off to find a Pesto recipe and tackle all this basil we have growing in the garden.

Recycle and reuse...up-cycling

     As you all know we have two little girls. And Anna Grace is an all out "girlie girl". She will play outside; loves to run bare foot, dig for squirmie wormies, and run races with boys however all must be done with a dress or shirt on and clip in her hair. Well we have a play room that has all sorts of goodies in it but not a ton of storage. So I went to Mimi's (my mom's) house and looked at what things I may still have there. Low and behold I found a bookshelves/nightstand thing that I had in my old room. You know the kind, white metal with brassy caps and screws. Very circa the early 1990's.
     So home it came with me, and boy was Mimi happy to get more stuff out of her house. And off to get some spray paint I went. Now I have been reading different blogs that I have found bc of Pinterest and found that Krylon has a great selection of paints for a variety of textiles. And the color choices are wonderful. So we purchased a great pink shade - as if we don't have enough pink in our house. And off to work I went.
     Now per the many blogs it has said not to worry about sanding the piece prior to painting. So I applied the first coat and it went on really well. The color wasn't quiet as vibrant as I wanted so we went on to apply coat two and that is where I ran into some problems. The second coat did not dry as smoothly as I would have liked and then it did a bubbling blister thing. So I did some research and found out that I had applied the second coat when the temperature was too hot outside. And I had let it dry in the sun which was another "no-no" in spray paint schooling. Note to self don't up-cycle an item outside during a heat wave. But at the end it turned out ok, this is just going in the playroom. It the shelve just has a bit of a textured finish in some parts.
     Next up is the vanity and bench seat; did I forget to mention it was a set?!?! Anna Grace said she can't wait to be able to put her make-up on and fix her hair in her own vanity area.

Before

After

15 days down...

     Well I am at the half way point of the photo challenge, and i can honestly say that it hasn't been too bad.  There are some days that I take 30+ pictures and others that i take about 10 if I am lucky.  Too bad the iPhone didn't have better cameras in them.  (Ha)  But I have loved discovering Instagram too, it makes some of the quick no camera photos pretty nice.
     But seriously this challenge has been a positive.  I think more about the photos that I am taking; from the ones of my sweet girls to the ones of nature and our garden.  I do feel like I need to broaden my subjects that I capture in a photo but I am getting there...baby steps.  I will say that I have begun to realize how to change what the subject is and what needs to be faded out more in the photo.  And then in editing some of my pictures I have kicked myself in the rear that I did not get the picture more crisp and less grainy/blurred.  I have really liked not using the flash on the camera - thank you ISO setting and playing around with that.  It is amazing what you can try to get with the natural light and changing things on the camera.  But I am so novice on all this I know there is huge room for improvement.
     I am still trying to give the aperture settings a whirl.  I love how the professionals can get the subject to be super clear and backgrounds blurred.  I have read, re-read, and re-read the information the the Momtographie class gave me and I think that I may need to invest in a different lens to capture that look in the photos that I am trying to achieve.  And I also have problems with getting the camera to capture fast enough when I alter certain settings in this aperture change.  I am not giving up, rather just stumped at the moment.  Has anyone out there ever used a 35mm lens on these cameras?  Or what about the portrait ones?  I am almost more afraid to buy the new lens than I am to try it.  I am foreseeing a trip to Murphy's camera store in the near future.
    Well stay tuned, I have 16 days to go and if it is successful I may do another month.  Who knows I may end up doing this the full 365 Challenge.  And maybe it will be with a new lens or the tried and true one that came with my camera.  Now if only certain subjects would hold still...

new accessory for the "fancy" camera

Some of you know I took the photography class to use my "fancy" camera better, and at that class we were given get information on the camera, editing sites and places to find things to personalize our camera.  I got home and decided to check out some of the sites that Beryl had given us and I came across a wonderful site on Etsy.  The Poppy Shoppe.  It is great!  Rachel is the owner and has a large selection of patterns to choose from for camera strap covers - the item that was in my search goal that day.  I love the fact that you can "cover" the basic black strap and make it more you.  As a mommy with two little ones, you tend to have that camera around your neck more often than you thought.  I dabble in sewing but honestly I just don't have the extra time to make something for myself; plus having never made one of these I could foresee this 1 hour project taking me 4 hours and in the end cursing that I should have bought it online.

The Poppy Shoppe quality is fantastic and her shipping was reasonable and fast!  Rachel does this out of her home and is located in North Carolina.  I purchased an average length strap cover - the ones you see if you visit her site.  And it covers the ENTIRE basic strap (you know the one that makes you feel like a giant billboard for the camera brand you have) and then some.  You only see the part the you loop thru the actual camera, maybe about 3 inches on either side depending on how short you make that part of the strap.  And don't think that you are left out if you don't have a "fancy" DSLR camera - Rachel makes adorable straps for the point and shoot camera too!  As a picky shopper I am super pleased with my new purchase!  Did I mention that Rachel can do custom orders too???  Just send her an email and she can answer any question you may have.


If you get a chance check out Rachel's site on Etsy -> shopthepoppyshoppe or on Facebook -> the Poppy Shoppe.    

New camera strap from The Poppy Shoppe

My photo challenge

As some of you know I recently took a momtographie photography class taught by Beryl Young. She is a wonderful photography from VA, DC area. Beryl taught us mommies how to use that great fancy camera(DSLR) that most of us have and most of us don't know how to use except on the pre-programmed settings.  This class was FULL of information and so many details that my brain was on over load.
One of the things that Beryl was telling us was that she had some past students decide that they were going to do a 365 photo challenge. That's right folks one photo a day for 365 days. She said it was pretty amazing how these former students were making progress and when you look at Beryl's facebook page some of them have shared their pictures. You can see a difference in one woman's from photo from day 10 to that of day 165.
So I decided I am going to try a photo challenge. But with a twist. I am going to start out slow, baby steps if you may. Instead of a 365 challenge I am going for a 30 day challenge. And if I can tackle that successfully then I will continue on. 30 more days at a time. The best thing about this challenge is that I will be getting more shots of those 2 sweet girls of mine AND I will hopefully master this DSLR camera a bit better. I figure if I take it day by day, I just may be able to figure out the aperture and ISO and shutter speed settings. Not to mention play around with some editing, Beryl gave us a name of a great site she uses and likes - Picmonkey.com. You can do all sorts of editing! Something else to distract me in the evening after the girls go to bed.
Stay tuned, you never what photos may turn up!

30 day photo challenge

Day 31

Day 30

Day 29

Day 28

Day 27

Day 26

Day 25

Day 24

day 23

day 22

day 21

day 20

day 19

day 18

day 17

day 16

day 15

Day 14

Day 13

Day 12

Day 11

Day 10

Day 9

Day 8

Day 7

Day 6

Day 5

Day 4

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1