The garden.

The garden is reaping a bountiful harvest this summer, and we are loving it.

One of my favorite things this summer, squash and zucchini. We have tried it grilled and broiled in the oven. I think I'm partial to the oven. Oh, and I made a low carb squash casserole, not so yummy, ha!

Now, this dish happened quite by accident. I love the Suddenly Salads you can buy from the grocery store, and they just happened to be on sale, really cheap. I was fixing it one night for supper and just totally messed up the dish. How? It's so simple to make. I think I was just not paying attention. I really wanted a pasta salad to go with our home grown cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, so I found a box of pasta, sprinkled some dry ranch dressing mix, added some evoo, and voila! It was so light and delicious!

Now, this is my husband's specialty. He is really into making and canning pepper jelly. We have a large variety of peppers growing in our garden. Once we had enough to pick, we got our jars ready for the jelly, so yum!

Here is everything mixed together and boiling just before putting in the jars. We used red food coloring, but I've also seen green used as well.

And there they are! Divine!

This is our first time to grow eggplant, and we were amazed at how many our one little plant produced. We since picked it again, too! For our first batch, we made eggplant lasagna, and it was great and so easy! Basically, the eggplant just takes the place of the noodles and the meat. Even my children ate it, ha! Now, David on the other hand, well let's just say he was thankful to have had a lunch meeting that day.

Here's a picture of one of our recent pickings. Underneath the tomatoes and cucumbers are purple hull peas. We picked some more today, and I think we might have enough for a batch. In addition, we picked and shucked our first mess of silver queen corn! I think we will be eating good this summer!