Summer Heat and Way Too much Zucchini!

It is rather hot in the house today. The air conditioner doesn't seem to be cutting it. Due to my office being finally set up in the house, I have started getting my things together and finally getting some organization in place. One of the things I have been wanting to do especially with trying to earn my Domestic Goddess title is to plan out dinners a week in advance. I tried to take this to the next level with also trying to look up recipes to use up our garden crops. There must be a lot of people out there trying to get rid of their zucchini, because there are sooooo many "creative" zucchini recipes out there. From appetizers to desserts! This week we tried two new recipes Corn & Avocado salsa with beef wheat tacos, and Black Bean Chili with Fried Polenta squares. Wow, these were some great dishes and have been great leftovers as well. I added sliced zucchini to each of these dishes which worked out well too. I will put some links to these recipes below.

Today I dreaded cooking dinner. I wanted to stick to my schedule (at least for one week!) but I was so tempted to pick up the phone and just order out to avoid making the house hotter than it already is. On today's menu we have Ginger Garlic Chicken with eggplant, bell pepper and (you guessed it) zucchini! Half way thru cooking I decided that I wanted to add another starch (great idea when you are trying to stay cool right? cough) And started boiling a pot of Asian noodles. I came up with this idea for a dinner so I just kept throwing things in. The vegatables in the dish wasn't cooking quick enough for me, I was just dying in the kitchen of heat. So I added a cup of water to see if that would cook them down quicker. This just added a huge haze in the kitchen and made me even more miserable to be in the middle of. The noodles were done, rinsed and drained so I decided to throw them into the pot with the veggies and chicken. The dish ended up looking more like a soup than anything else. I took a spoonful and it was quite tasty. I called my husband to dinner, he took one look at it and said "Wow, that dish looks like it's a few key ingredients short of being able to go out for Halloween." I asked him to explain himself and he responded with "I'm just saying that it looks scary." ... ... ... ... ...

Soooooo, here I sit still fuming. Mind you, this is the man that said that he was going to make chili with garbonzo beans, refried beans, baked beans, grilln' beans, and tomato basil soup!
Since this incident this evening, he has told me how good this dish is and what a great cook I am...yep

We had a great few days. We went to the Ashland Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I just love going there. It says that it starts at 9am, but if you are not there by 8am you are missing out! Talking about a competitive market! Saturday night two of my best friends from high school came to visit. Christina had her daughter a month before I had mine. This was the first time the girls were able to get together and play. She is so cute! Poor Christina, this was the first time she had traveled this much with her daughter (who also started to get a cold) and she was about to loose it! We had to assure her that it is completely acceptable when traveling like that to be 2 hours late and to pack up an entire car for a two day stay. My parents live 3 hours away north and my husband's parents live 3 hours west. So we travel quite a bit at least in those directions. We are starting to get packing with a baby down to a science. I guess its all about practice and experience. Isn't her daughter adorable!?

Tomorrow the wind will bring us to Marblehead, Ohio. I have a photoshoot up there and figured to make it a family trip. Dave has the next two days off and we plan on camping and finding places around there. I will be taking pictures as we go and post our mini adventures when I get back!

Black Bean Chili
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Black-Bean-Chili/Detail.aspx
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Avocado and Corn Salsa
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Corn-and-Avocado-Salsa/Detail.aspx