The pumpkins and watermelons are taking over. They’ve covered the stone path and wound their way up the rain gutters. And the tomatoes. Oh.My.Tomatoes!<\/p>\n When life gives you this many tomatoes…<\/p>\n …you make lots of caprese salad, bruschetta, and gazpacho! Just one bowl of this delicious cold soup makes you feel instantly healthier.<\/p>\n All I did was threw a bunch of tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, salt and pepper in the blender, and then stirred in some chunks of cucumbers, onions and more tomatoes, and then chill. Serve with some baguette toasts and it is a delicious hot weather dinner.<\/p>\n We also were pleasantly surprised when we lifted up a leaf in the garden and found this…<\/p>\n A nice, big, fat zucchini! Which made a few batches of really great muffins.<\/p>\n They were also very good. I’m working on finding a good muffin recipe since the girls really like breakfast muffins. This recipe has flaxseed in it, which is always good for…well, good for things. But the recipe has a lot of butter so I’m going to try it this week with some applesauce and see how that works. I’ll keep you posted once we hit the winning muffin.<\/p>\n Besides all this foodie stuff, Em finished up her book club – they went to the Huntington Garden and had lunch in the “Secret” children’s garden. Such a great group of girls – and little sisters!<\/p>\n The girls did a week of CATZ camp (which is essentially a bunch of fun conditioning\/training games to get them ready for fall sports and swimming) last week which wore them out. We had some very exhausted girls. Tomorrow we are hitting the beach for one last bit of sand between our toes before school is officially in and we have been breaking our new patio furniture in every chance we get. Breakfast tastes better outdoors. Everything tastes better when you eat it outside.<\/p>\n Clearly we have been pretty concentrated on food around here lately. Maybe it is because we all had physicals and eye exams and I found that I need to take better care of myself. I always felt like I was doing a decent job, but apparently I need to put a little bit more effort into it. Or maybe…I’m just getting old. I guess it could be that, too. My doctor put me on a vitamin cocktail to raise my white blood count and platelet level, and not even a day later, the optometrist told me I need glasses. Rough week for this 39-year old.<\/p>\n But I figure once the girls are back in school I can resume my workout schedule and maybe get into a better meal-planning groove as well.<\/p>\n Yes…three days. But who’s counting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So it has been pretty dark around our corner of the blogosphere lately, hasn’t it? We are still here, in case you might be wondering. Or maybe you haven’t even thought of us and our whereabouts because you have been … Continue reading ![\"DSC_0224\"](\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6067\/6068377886_76efb77b5f_b.jpg\")
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