Food, Glorious FOOD!

Aww, summer.  I love you so.  But alas, you have come to a sudden end.  Okay, so summer doesn't officially end until later this month, but the start of each school year cuts all my summer spare time down to nothing.  Hence the lack of blogging these last few weeks.

I really had fun this summer.  There always seemed to be something to keep me busy, which is nice.  I also had lots of time to work on my cooking skills.  Many new recipes were tried these last couple of months, and most turned out to be quite tasty! 

The main reason for my new cooking adventures is probably the produce co-op we've been participating in.  We get a good mix of fruits and veggies that we wouldn't normally try.  I love it!

Eggplant parmesan - yum!  Who knew eggplant could be so delicious?

Pluot cake.  (Pluots are a plum/apricot hybrid)

Okay, these pluots sat in our fridge for over a week, until finally I found a recipe to use them in.  Then, as I started preparing the pluots to go in the cake, I realized how tasty they are fresh.  For a minute I worried that I would be ruining them by putting them all in a cake, but the end result was great.

Thanks to my family, I've also done some major bottling lately.  I worked with some of my extended family to bottle 35 jars of pickles at my uncle's house ...

...and my parents, brother and sister-in-law all bottled between 35-40 jars of salsa at our house.

During the big salsa canning party, I whipped up a batch of fresh salsa to enjoy with lunch.

Oh, and Michael and Spencer were a LOT of help that day too, as you can see.

Michael found some FIFA demo for PS3, and apparently it was tons of fun.  I tried to play a game or two with them, but didn't really catch the fever I guess.

Unfortunately, I've fallen back into a bit of a cooking rut now that school has started up again.  It just seems easier after a long day of work to come home and revert back to a quick and easy recipe that I've made a bunch of times before.  Like tonight, it was just chicken and mashed potatoes.  We have some corn on the cob from Spencer's parents which would have gone really well with tonight's dinner, but did I cook them? No.  Oh well, there's always tomorrow.