Purple Supper

I love the way these purple potatoes look! They're quite tasty too. I dubbed this dish "Hannah Montana" because its the best of both worlds! We had mashed and scalloped potatoes in one! Paired with some pink salmon and bright green spinach pesto our meal was a color-lover's heaven.

HUGE Zucchini!!

I received a HUGE zucchini from my farm delivery this past week and was amazed! So, here's what I did with it. Come on over for supper.

A zucchini lasagna:
Scrape out the seeds of a halved zucchini. Make some sauce with meat or whatever you like. I like to make my own with half an onion, yellow pepper, crushed tomatoes, diced fire roasted tomatoes, hamburger and some secret ingredients!!




The Secret ingredient...use it if you figure it out!



I've layered in the sauce, ricotta mixture and leafy baby spinach.






These zucchini are usually available at farmer's markets for .50! They are too hard to slice and cook like normal but can be used in breads and baked things as well as this recipe that I've cooked up.

Ricotta mixture: One tub of ricotta, one egg, dried basil, oregano and garlic salt.

Sorry I don't measure, use your best judgment!!!

A couple of tips, bake on about 350 for 30-40 mins until zucchini is tender. Also, if layering in spinach, pack it in really tight because it will shrink as it cooks. Let me know what version you make!



The size of Moses' body!!!

Nature's bounty

I received my first delivery of veggies and fruit from the Farm of Plenty! I was so excited! I got a beautiful head of red lettuce, a bright yellow squash, a round zucchini, a quart bag of sugar snap peas, a pint of the brightest red ripe strawberries, some big red potatoes with all the dirt still on them, and two big bunches of radishes! Hooray for fresh from the farm, local veggies. {Caution: not responsible for drool on your computer when looking at this photo}

Photography: Baby Chandler

I had the chance to photograph this lovely new family. They have the sweetest baby girl, who on her debut photo shoot day was not a very happy girl. It may be due to the fact that we kept taking all her warm clothes off and poking and moving her around. Through it all she was a trooper and gave us some good ones! Congrats to the Flemming family!

Moses faces

Moses Post

I'm practicing my photography more and more. Which means I have more and more pictures to sort through. I feel like I'm growing though. These days I'm trying to use the manual setting and figure out how to use the histogram on my camera! I met with a photographer last week and she gave me some really great tips. So, I'm excited to see what I can do. Here are some shots of Moses playing with the ABC crayons.

Special Times

Elie is growing up right before my eyes! When we moved here she was only about four months old. Now she's starting to walk and forming words and asking "what's that?" I can't believe it. She is hilarious and knows it, she is sweet and knows exactly what she wants most of the time. I love watching you grow baby girl!



This is our special handshake! Elie crosses her fingers and reaches them out to me and I meet them with mine. Then we say "oh!"

The faces.

This is the face Elie makes when the light shines in her eyes to focus on her face. I LOVE IT!!!

A little kitchen work

One of my favorite parts of being a creative person is cooking!! It indulges all of the senses. It enables me to put effort into something and have near immediate gratification and even validation as a person who loves to make things and make people happy. Here are a few new things we cooked up this week in our kitchen:

I think that Minnesotans love rhubarb because it is the first-fruit of a summer veggie garden. I put this together when I realized my strawberries were trying to go bad. They were rescued and a wonderful treat came about:


Cupcakes are always a welcome treat here! Moses and I whipped these up during Elie's morning nap. Moses loves to cook with me and help stir. He separates the cupcake papers while I put all the ingredients together and get out the mixer. Then we bake and enjoy with some cold milk!

{A wonderful topping as an alternative for cupcakes: mix equal parts cinnamon and cocoa powder, sprinkle on before baking.}