Adventures in Mommyhood

It must be September... I am taking more pictures of food these days than of my children. I have been enjoying the preservation of the fruits of my labor so much these days.  With 10 tomato plants, and some decent tomato-growing weather this year, I finally have tomatoes to actually stockpile AND eat my daily BLT. I started out just blanching, peeling and freezing the meatier varieties (Romas and Early Girls), but the last week or so I have made 2 batches of tomato sauce using my Bradley and Big Beef tomatoes.  I estimated I have used about 24 pounds of them and got ~200oz of tomato sauce plus some juice.  Judging by what I picked tonight and what is still out on the plants, I think I will be making at least a couple more batches.  This is good news, because crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce is probably one of the top 20 things on my grocery list.  We eat a LOT of chili, spaghetti sauce and beans and rice.  I planted 4 green pepper plants at my lot at our church th

Healthy zucchini carrot pineapple muffins These are absolutely delicious.  Moist, wholesome, and really yummy.  I made some modifications to a recipe I found on allrecipes.com, by using 1/2 whole wheat flour, and cutting the fat and sugar in half.    Here  is the original recipe, if you want to take a look (the orignal amounts are for 4 dozen muffins) 1.25 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup sugar 1.5 tsp baking powder 1.5 tsp baking soda 1.5 tsp cinnamon .75 tsp salt 1/2 cup vegetable oil  3 eggs .5 cup applesauce 1.5 cups zucchini 1/2 cup shredded carrots 10oz crushed pineapple, drained 1.5 tsp vanilla extract Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease 2 muffin pans, or use paper liners. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center, and pour in the oil, applesauce, eggs, zucchini, pineapple and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Fill muffin cups 2