Hey guys! Happy 09-09-09!  Still around. Database crashed and I wasn’t able to get to it until last night. Sorry about that!!

We had a jam packed weekend full of fun!

We took Tristan bowling and I even wore Clark for part of it. Don’t worry, I played it safe… & Tristan had a ball… LOL!

And as a last consolation for the summer and because our  membership is going to expire at the end of the month; we went to the zoo!

We BBQ’d yesterday at my in laws. I made a nice spinach salad and the neighbors actually made a raw dish! I was so impressed. It was a zucchini salad with lemon zest and sun dried tomatoes. Yum, yum!

This summer I’ve tried a few raw dishes and some new cooked ones. Our garden didn’t do as well as we’d hoped. This is the first year in five years that we’ve planted a garden and have not had much of a harvest. The insane high temps killed most of our plants or slowed their growth. We normally have tons and tons of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and peppers.  We hardly had any harvest of what we planted.  It was a bit discouraging but also part of gardening and the challenges you face. We’re determined to research some of the challenges through winter in hopes of a more successful garden next year. Hopefully, we  master composting by then and are able to provide the much needed nutrients we were possibly lacking and time of all things.  Thankfully, my mother in laws garden was flourishing because we’ve been eating some of her bounty.

We’re planning to plant quinoa, beets, calendula and cabbage, lettuce in a day or so. We’re not going to call it a winter garden because who knows what it will do… We’ve never tried to grow anything in the winter. We may plant a few other things but for now it’s just small and experimental. We’re also going to get our worm bin ready again – we killed the last batch of worms…so much to learn, I tell ya! We also have a composting bin that we managed to screw up too! I know it seems overwhelming but it’s all about- Live and learn right!!!

The two trips we took this summer were fantastic and rejuvenating. I feel really lucky that I was able to share some of my favorite places in nature with my two boys! With September here I feel SUPER productive vibes and have already begun to make lists of what I want to accomplish + goals. I’m feeling pretty revved about the fall/winter. I’m digging out the sewing machine so I can start upcycling again. I’m also going to make some changes here- so be on the lookout for that and please, bear with me!  I’m going to add a blogroll, an About page and a few other additions to spruce things up some. It’s all been on the back burner and I’m now I’m ready to take it on. Little by little that is.

I’ve had a lot of thoughts about what I want to do as far as keeping the theme environmental and mixing in the natural parenting…I’m not sure yet- but will keep you informed. Natural parenting topics may strictly be written at Eco Child’s Play. I have wrote a recently wrote about our favorite, soaked blender pancakes! Yum to the tum!

A couple weeks back, I received a book called Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko. After listening to the Raw Mom’s summit and trying out first hand what raw dishes are like. I want to start reading about going raw! I’m very excited to start reading the book this week. I’ve tried my best to keep up with our green smoothie routine and incorporate more raw meals over the summer. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes this winter since some raw meals are uncooked. I’m especially excited to try all the soup recipes. I’m a huge soup fanatic!

I’m looking into getting the Sun-Sational  raw baby food recipe e- book. Clark is going to be eating soon and I want to explore some options. I’m planning to do a self lead eating process with Clark and will not be giving him rice cereal like I did with Tristan. From what I’ve read it’s unnecessary and contributes to starchy food preferences. I come from a long line of starchy eaters and so does my husband…it’s hard to say whether Tristan’s starchy eating habits are purely from rice cereal. I hesitated with Tristan but because he was my first I decided to go ahead with it. Since then I’ve done some more reading on it and have come to believe it’s not necessary. The main reason it’s proclaimed necessary is for iron deficiency. They’re plenty of fruits and veggies that contain iron. Of course, you don’t want to overdo it…main point- other alternatives- another post…LOL!

While on the subject of food…

Here is a quick round up of this summer’s BEST dishes (according to yours truly):

Raw Marinara Pasta

Spanish Breakfast Scramble

Raw Taco Wraps

Zucchini Cakes – we added green onion and carrot to Ree’s recipe!

And our favorite:

Raw Peach Cobbler!

1/4 cup pitted dates, packed
1/4 cup pecans
1/2 teaspoon coconut oil
2 peaches, sliced

Place all ingredients into your food processor, and process into small pieces. Be careful not to over process into  butter. You want a crumble texture.

Arrange peach slices on your plate, and sprinkle with crumble crust mixture.  It’s so delish!

This week I’m going to try:

Raw Banana Soft Serve

Mmm!!! and…

Another way to use up  zucchini; * remember you can also add shredded zucchini in salads*

Zucchini Soup

UPDATE: Forget to mention I’d like to give this awesome  “Peas in a Pop” recipe a go. My son is a huge pea fanatic. What a great idea!

We had to go to the natural foods store for more Chamomilla tonight. We’ve already gone through a whole bottle for Clark. While there I picked up a flier in regards to a Raw Living Session will be taking place in a couple weeks that I’m planning to attend. Definitely something to look forward to.

As I am finishing this post, I’ve frequently checked in with twitter and in closing I happen to stumble across a tweet from

@salisburydowns Bananas. Chocolate. BBQ. « http://bit.ly/2z1qhr (via @Bridget_CooKs) = heaven on a hotplate!

Whoa, I had to add it! Now, that’s a dozy or would that be ooey and gooey??!!

Either way, we’re all about banana’s and chocolate!!!

I hope you had a great Labor Day wknd!  

What was your favorite dish this summer?