Julie's Garden Update

So Jodi gave her garden update on Monday, and today it’s my turn. For those of you who have followed you know this year was my first year gardening. I still don’t have a yard that I can garden in (it’s small and shaded – always) so this year I borrowed some of my mom’s garden area. There were some advantages to this. She is a master gardener so she could teach me stuff, she tended to it while I was out of town, and she felt bad for me if some of my stuff didn’t come up right and gave me some of hers. The drawbacks of doing this was that I couldn’t just go to my backyard to pick lettuce for dinner, or see the growth each day. I’m glad I did it so I could learn a lot. I just can’t wait to have my OWN garden but…. once upon a time I had no room for food storage either. It’s a process.

Today I thought it would be fun to share with you how I’m using various garden vegetables. It’s SO fun and delicious to eat the yummy foods!

Green Peppers: When I first starting buying my own food in college, green peppers were 25 cents. Now they can be close to $1. For some reason it’s the only food price I remember, so it always bugs me just a little to buy green peppers. I love having them to throw in omelets with tomatoes, and onions. I make pizza once a week (more about that later) and love to top it with some fresh green pepper. I also love putting it in salads and bean salsas.

Zucchini. Oh I LOVE zucchini. I wish I had the abundance of zucchini I have right now YEAR round. I use it in everything. Really – spaghetti sauce, pizza toppings, grilled, boiled, fried, zucchini bread and more. The best part of it I think is the pizza though. I’ve been doing this amazing garden fresh pizza lately. I do whole wheat crust, tomato sauce, a little mozzarella cheese, and then top it with TONS of little chunks of zucchini, tomatoes, green peppers, onions and a little Parmesan cheese. Oh its HEAVENLY and it feels so light and guilt-free.

Spaghetti Squash. I may love spaghetti squash as much as I love zucchini. My favorite recipe is chicken Parmesan with spaghetti squash. I did a post about that one here. Well great- now I’m starving.

Lettuce, carrots, tomatoes: Who doesn’t love having fresh salad on hand all the time. The tomatoes are just coming in so I’ll be talking about that more later. I’m excited to can them with my mom and use them all year!