Back from Colorado and overflowing with food!

I plan on posting about our wonderful vacation to Colorado over the next few days complete with my pictures, and then, when I get them, adding my brother's awesome pictures too.

It truly was an amazing trip and I can't believe how much we were able to fit in considering we were only gone from Thursday to Monday. We did bike riding, a cave tour, horse-back riding, a hot air balloon ride and more! But, like I said, I will have separate posts detailing that trip complete with pictures.

This post is actually about our garden. We have been getting lots of produce as we are well in the middle of summer, and coming back from being gone for an extended weekend meant that there was a lot to pick!


We are overflowing with tomatoes, got a ton of strawberries, and some cucumber, green beans, and green peppers as well. I have been really impressed with the red October variety of tomatoes that we have planted because they are truly living up to their reputation for lasting a long time. We had picked some tomatoes before the trip, and put them in the cupboard (both varieties) and then we went on the trip. Unfortunately many of the celebrity tomatoes didn't make it (they did make a nice mess though...) but the two red Octobers that were picked the same day were still firm and tasty!

Here are a few pictures of how our garden is looking currently. It isn't as pretty as it was when it started, but it is doing its job producing lots of vegetables and fruits for us... keep in mind the pictures were AFTER I picked the above produce.

You can compare this to the last time I posted about the garden, two months ago, by looking at my Garden Update post on May 10th.

I also went to stock up on some groceries today. In the few days before we left we were scrounging the cupboards/fridge to try to get rid of all of the extra food before our trip. So we definitely needed some food before our regular shopping trip, which for obvious reasons comes after our CSA box which we will get tomorrow.

I only needed some beans for tonight's fajita dinner (a dinner we picked because we had tortillas in the freezer, onion in the cupboard, and those beautiful fresh picked green bell peppers). I originally was going to go to Trader Joe's because it was close to my gym that I was going to in the morning anyways, but I decided to go to Sprouts (our regular store) instead because I remembered that they were having a bulk sale on all the things you scoop yourself, like beans.



I was texting Blake about this sale and he encouraged me to buy whatever bulk items that would save and we would use since they were on sale now, and that's another way we can save money. I think I might have gone a little overboard...


(4 kinds of beans, 3 kinds of grain, popcorn kernels and pasta)

The trip for beans ended up costing as much as our regular grocery trips, but I am confident that this will save us money in the long run because now when any recipe calls for beans or a whole grain... I probably already have it. :-)

We found that we love our healthy eating habits so much that they were actually missed on the trip. Since we got back we have been enjoying our healthy fresh vegetable and whole grain meals that were so hard to find on the trip.

This is an example of a typical summer lunch for me... yum! It's whole wheat pasta with fresh tomatoes from the garden, an avocado (from the store, typically from the CSA box), mozzarella cheese, and topped with basil from the garden.



I am officially behind on my cookie making project because I decided not to make one last week on Tuesday, so close to leaving on the trip, and its not looking good for me getting one out today either... but I might do one tomorrow, and then I'll just be one behind... but I am not sure that's going to happen lol.

The nice thing about self made goals is that there is no consequence for breaking them. Also, there is nothing saying that I can't continue making presidential cookies into the school year.