And we are at it again! Time for another LONG BORING email from me! I do hope some of you find this info helpful and not tedious!

How was your last week? We got back from visiting my sister and things are relatively back to normal! I worked all weekend and then again Monday and Tuesday, so now today I’m feeling like I’m starting to get back to normal. I think I just finished unpacking or putting away the last things from vaca and we have been home SINCE FRIDAY!

For those of you who know me, that is NOT like me! Usually I unpack EVERYTHING the minute we walk in the door. I even do laundry on vacation before leaving so that I can unpack a suitcase full of clean clothing and not have loads of laundry to done upon arrival at home.

This time it was SO different and it’s been driving me crazy seeing all the piles of STUFF that was yet to be put away. And since it was everywhere I was SO unmotivated to get it finished… probably due in part to the fact that I worked 4 of the last 5 days and am beat!

BUT! It’s now all put away and I can start working on my other tasks that have fallen behind! But y’all don’t want to hear any more about that! On to our produce for the week and ideas of how to eat it!

Poblano Peppers – These peppers do have a little bit of heat but are definitely the more mild of the hot peppers. Also, if I remember correctly they are much hotter when eaten raw, but once they are cooked they mellow out a lot. One of my favorites is a roasted poblano pepper and pineapple dipping sauce or homemade chicken nuggets! It’s sweet and spicy wrapped into one! The recipe took a little time, but it was SO worth it! We all liked it so much we threatened each other we were going to wake up early and eat it before the rest of the family was up!

Roma Tomatos – The ones we got in our box weren’t quite ripe yet so I’ll keep them in a basket on the counter and they will ripen soon enough! As we enter into tomato season there will be tomatos coming out my ears including the 7 or 8 plants I have in my own yard! When I’m overloaded and am afraid some of them might go bad I like to make some tomato sauce or tomato paste and freeze it.

I do it the quick and simple way and throw the whole tomato, core, peal, seeds, EVERYTHING into my [amazon_link id=”B008H4SLV6″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]VitaMix[/amazon_link] and blend it til it’s well pureed. Then I simmer on the stove for about 8 hours to reduce it and get a good thick robust flavor. I do add lots of other stuff in if I’m making spaghetti sauce, but I like to leave it plain if I’m going to freeze it so that I can use it for pizza sauce or in other recipes. If you keep simmering until it’s thick and pasty it becomes tomato paste. I’ll warn you though.. it takes A LOT of tomatoes! When it’s done cooking I measure it out in TBSP amounts and freeze in freezer paper for easy use in recipes.

Corn: This is a treat for us! I try my hardest to purchase only organic corn since I want to avoid all GMOs! AND… organic corn is NOT cheap! I would say I usually purchase it only once a summer! When the kids saw me pulling it out of the box they were jumping for joy and Tonchi says, “Can I have a whole ear to myself?” Since I usually cut them in half! “Yes, dear, you may!’ I usually just quickly blanch them and cover with a generous pat of butter and salt for those who can have dairy. The non-dairy peeps in my house use coconut oil and salt. Another favorite, though, is grilled corn with fresh lime squeezed over it and sprinkled with chili powder! Spicy, hot, smokey, YUM!

Lettuce – I’m starting to forget what recipes I’ve shared and which ones I haven’t so forgive me if I’ve repeated some. We don’t each much bread around here, and we use a lot o lettuce instead. It’s so yummy to use it as a wrap for a hamburger, or a boat to hold egg salad or tuna salad or chicken salad. It’s light and fresh, adds crunch and lets you taste all of the salad being eaten!

Onions – These too rarely go bad in our house. I feel like we easily eat a whole one a day. Almost anything I cook has onions in it and if the recipe doesn’t call for it, I add it anyway. We just LOVE them… cooked that is. Hubby and I don’t really like them very much raw, but cooked is a whole ‘nother ball game! I’m planning on using some root veggies that have migrated to the back of the veggie drawer with some garlic and onion and sausage and broil it til the veggies are soft. This is one of mama’s favorite meals cause it’s one dish and SO yummy and easy to make… I can even have little hands help cut up the veggies!

Yellow Squash – I have to start off saying I love the Eat Drink Paleo blog. Her recipes are amazing the photos are beautiful and the artwork awesome! I’ve never had a recipe from her that I don’t like. I just found this list of 22 ways to cook zucchini squash (can easily sub the yellow squash for the zucchini) and they all look out of this world! My mouth was actually watering just looking at the photos and reading the descriptions! Check it out and let me know which ones you try!

Blueberries – These NEVER go bad in our house! They are eaten, and savored by all and sometimes even snuck from the fridge or stollen from anothers plate! Usually each summer I like to go blueberry picking and freeze them for use in pancakes, muffins and smoothies through the winter, but these in the CSA box are disappearing before I can even think about putting some away in the freezer!

So there you have it! Enjoy another week of summer bliss!