Zucchini and Carrot Ribbons

While at my parents', I stumbled across a little cookbook called “101 Essential Tips: Cooking with Vegetables.” It mentioned an interesting way to prepare zucchini and carrots that I’ve never heard of before: cutting the veggies into long fine strands or ribbons with a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler. I was intrigued! I didn’t follow the recipe, except in making the zucchini and carrot “ribbons”. I thought the results were quite tasty!

Zucchini & Carrot Ribbons

• 3-4 Large Carrots
• 2 Medium Zucchini
• Salt & Pepper
• Butter
• Dill, fresh or dried

1. Cut carrots and zucchini into strands with the vegetable peeler.
2. Pour ½ in. water into pan and get to a rolling boil.
3. Add carrot ribbons. Cover and cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add zucchini and cook another 1-2 minutes. (Don’t cook the zucchini too long, it will get soggy fast!)
5. When done, remove from heat and drain.
6. Top with butter and seasonings, and serve! It should serve about 4.

Honey, we're home!

It's been a long time in coming, but FINALLY we're calling northern Minnesota HOME!

After a week at my parents' in Iowa and a family reunion for my side at the end of June/beg. of July, we made the trip up to our new home on July 5th (Jeff's and my 8th anniversary!). We started unpacking that week into the log cabin we're renting, then traveled down to Jeff's grandma's house for a mini-reunion on Saturday. And Sunday, Jeff officially became a Pastor, and me, a pastor's wife, and my boys, rotten PK's... haha!

Now hopefully things will settle down... well, at least we will stop living out of suitcases.

So now I'll post some pictures to tell the story of the past month!

June 20-Seminary graduation.

June 20-Father's Day

June 21-Judah discovered cousin Johnny's bike. He's smiling. Need I say more?

June 22-Andrew is 8 months!

June 25-Visiting Great Grandma Ginny in Iowa.

June 25-Do you think Judah likes raspberries?

June 29-Andrew likes standing up next to things. Still needing help at this point. He likes to walk if you hold his hands. Will straighten his arms and legs while on the ground. Fast crawler.

July 1-Bathtime fun with Andrew!

July 1-Riding the mini-loader with Grandpa Allan. Super cool!

July 4-Independence Day. Picking apples with Grandma Linda was an exciting event.

July 5-"Making do" without our kitchen stuff. Yes, that plate is a lid.

July 6-While we were moving in, Andrew was perfecting his ability to pull himself to standing. This is the wood-burning stove we'll be using during the winter months. Don't worry, I plan to use gates to make this inaccessible to little hands when in use!

July 9-We found this ninja outfit while unpacking. I had wrapped it up for a Christmas present, then hid it and forgot about it. So it was Christmas in July! Nevermind that he's waaaay too big for it now.

July 10-A hot humid day was a perfect chance to fill up water balloons. A huge water fight ensued! I think the adults had more fun than the kids. ;-)

July 11-Jeff's installation and ordination day.

All the cousins

July 12-We were celebrating my 29th birthday while my folks visited (birthday is the 16th). It's messy, but this shows you a little of what the interior of the house looks like.

July 12-This picture is blurry, but I thought it was cute. I am taking the picture through the spaces in the steps that he was CLIMBING! He climbed all the way to the top with his daddy behind him. He thought he was big stuff!

Some recent pictures of the house after it's been (mostly) put in order. We had a little extra incentive to get things put away when we were told that the house was going to be shown by the realtor on Mon, July 19th! (For those that don't know, we're just renting this place till we can find another place a little more in our price range... but already we love it here. Jeff says we might want to buy it just because then we wouldn't have to move again, ugh!)

View of garden out front door
View out of sliding door
Wood burning stove!

Inside views from front door, you can see the stairs up into the loft.

There's the massive table that's been in storage all year! Now we have some space for it.

Up next, a long overdue recipe...

Almost there...

Happy Independence Day, everyone! Tomorrow, July 5th, is significant for two reasons.

First, it marks the 8th wedding anniversary of my husband and me! I'm feeling more and more ancient, especially since I went to a family reunion this past weekend, and saw all the kids that used to be little... and now they're all big!

Second, we will FINALLY be getting up north to our new home and our new life. We should be arriving up there sometime tomorrow, and getting unloaded on Tuesday July 6th. I've been waiting for this moment for more than a month now.

This past week has been spent at the Iowa Grandparents' farm. I hope to publish pictures later. The keywords for Judah this week have been "six-wheeler", "mini-loader", and "swing tire" (aka tire swing!). I also want to do a post on a cool way to prepare zucchini that I stumbled across in a random cookbook while I was helping my mom sort through stuff this past week. But my posts will most likely be fewer and further between, as we're not planning to get Internet, at least not right away, to help save on expenses. But the local library in the next town has Internet access, and I plan on going to town at least once a week for story time at the library, so hopefully I will be able to blog during those times. Oh... and I hope to post pictures of our new places, which is a for real LOG CABIN! Don't worry, it doesn't have an outdoor plumbing. We won't be roughin' it in the least. ;-)

Till next time...