I Got My Hindsight Checked...It Was 20/20: Part Two

I should really have learned by now NOT to put in writing when I will be posting my next blog. If you read Part One, you know that this was supposed to be posted "tomorrow". Well, as you can see, "tomorrow" turned into six months later. 

I'm also learning that blogging regularly is not my strong suit...

Six months. 

So many things can happen in six months. 

I'm beginning to wonder if God planned for me to be a huge blogging procrastinator so that I'd have more time and experiences to reflect on and help shed light on a situation. 

I suppose I'll ask him someday.

I do think he planned for me to write this today. My life has been...a bit chaotic in the last two months, which I'll get to later, (Don't worry, it's a good chaotic!) and my quiet times have fallen by the way side. In all honesty, it's been months since I sat down with God and just had time with Him. For the last few days I kept feeling the nudge and finally today I answered. I woke up early, grabbed my Bible and Jesus Calling, made some coffee and took up residence in my "happy place". I opened up Jesus Calling to today's date and stopped short. 

At the top of the page I had written "D&C 2013".

It was like someone smacked me.

Oh my gosh, is that today?!

How did I miss that??

Did I really forget that two years ago today, I lost my baby?

Of course, I didn't forget. You can never forget something like that. But in the chaos, I didn't realize that these were the days two years ago that I found out my baby was gone. 

What kind of chaos would cause you to forget that, you ask?

This kind. :)

It is my great pleasure to introduce you to Bennett John Moring. 

He was born on May18, 2015 and, despite some hiccups, was perfect in every way.

So, as you can see, the last 8 weeks have been a good chaotic. An amazing chaotic. The best chaotic I could ever ask for. But in the chaos...I did forget what day it was.

I find it NO coincidence that God was telling me to come to him the last few days. And it is NO coincidence that today is the day I finally obeyed. He didn't want me to miss it. I also had decided to begin a Bible study by Angela Thomas called Stronger:Finding Hope In Fragile Places.

 I had started it in May of 2014 but never finished, and a visit with a friend yesterday reminded me of it so I decided to re-start it. 

It's all about God's awesome strength and learning to live in that strength. Again, it's NO coincidence that as I re-read Day One in the study, I was able to look back at the last two years and see how God's strength was what got me through it all. 

How can you NOT believe in God??

I left off last time at January of 2014, hoping for a better year. 

In February came the next marriage hurdle. It was our anniversary weekend and we were attending the Love and Respect Conference. Basically, through us learning and conversing with each other we found out we had more hard things to face and work through. It was a huge reality check for me. And we had just worked through the issue from October. Oy. But thankfully we were both committed to making our marriage work and we were able to heal and move on, despite not living together because of my husband's job. 

Once again, just when things were looking up, tragedy struck again. In April we found out that my husband's brother was having an affair. Devastating doesn't even begin to cover it. It tore our family apart. My sister-in-law had become my best friend and watching her go through all the pain and loss was so hard. And trying to understand what was going on with his brother was very hard and confusing. It was many, many months of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, not talking...it put pressure on other relationships in the family as well. Ultimately, he decided to stay with the other woman and they ended up getting divorced, which was so sad to watch. We kept praying they could reconcile, but it wasn't meant to be. All of our lives have been changed forever because of this and while it's been hard to accept, my husband and I had to make hard choices that were to the benefit of our little family unit. We still love both parties as family, but our priority has to be our marriage and children. If you want to read about my SIL's journey through divorce and being a single mom, check out her blog - Mommy Diaries.

I can definitely say that watching all of that happen over the last year has strengthened our marriage ten-fold. Now when he leaves his dirty socks on the floor or doesn't pick up after himself, I still get annoyed, but I'm not as quick to pick a fight over it. He is a hard working, loving man that does everything he can for me and his children...and that makes me fall in love with him over and over again.

At Hubby's surprise 30th birthday party!

And now, the story begins to look up.

(And all the people said AMEN!)

In August of 2014, my hubby found a job that is 10 minutes from our house. It was a stretch financially, but our one prayer had been for God to put our family back together and this job would accomplish that. So we accepted and just trusted God with the finances. Hubby moved back home and has thrived at his new job! 

Amazingly, in August I also got pregnant. 

Funny how that happens when you LIVE with your husband....

I'm not going to lie, it was pretty stressful until I hit about 20 weeks. I was always anxious at doctor appointments or with any little pain that came along. The morning sickness was pretty bad, too. But once we hit 20 weeks, we were pretty confident everything would be okay and we announced it to the world. 

Photo and Card by Heather @ Moreygirl.com

Fast forward to May of this year and this little guy showed up!

That was another trying experience...but I'll share that another day.

 I've learned a lot over the last couple years. You always say that family is the most important thing, but after going through major life trials like a miscarriage, family separation, marriage troubles, and a hurtful divorce in the family, it truly makes you rethink your priorities.

I know for a fact that I could not have gotten through it without Jesus Christ. I dove into my Bible and soaked up everything I could. I made devotions a priority because I needed them to be able to face the day. I wrote down every verse that I thought would help me and then I worked on memorizing them. When I would start to feel anxious or angry or depressed (and I don't use that word lightly) I would recite a verse over and over in my head:

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer."  Romans 12:12  

 One time, I started having an anxiety attack over something that had happened. I grabbed my journal and fell to my knees right there and just started reading out loud every verse I had written down. Over and over until I felt like I could breath again. I cried it out, said a prayer asking God to help me, dried my tears, got up and went back to my day.

I couldn't have gotten through it without God. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. God has a purpose for everything...good or bad. Sometimes we get to find out that reason and sometimes we don't. But no matter what He is in control. 

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song."  Psalm 28:7

We all have trials. We all have pain. But we don't have to suffer alone.

"For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you."  Isaiah 41:13 (this is one of my favorites)

He hears your cries just like he hears mine. And I use present tense because I'm not out of the woods. There is a saying that if you aren't in a storm, you are either coming out of one or going into one. Right now I'm coming out...but I know there will be more down the road. Of course I would never choose to have the bad experiences I've had, but I do choose to learn from them. I have been repeatedly assured that no matter what comes my way, I can count on my Savior to help me through it. 

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."  James 1:2-3

My world. <3

I Got My Hindsight Checked...It Was 20/20: Part One

 

Via Pinterest

According to my blog, I posted a whopping 6 posts last year. 

I can hear you now "Wow!...Overachiever!...She's really got her act together!"
Hahahaha, I know! I'm so awesome! (Insert sarcastic eye-roll here)

Blogs are great for many reasons: you can share knowledge of things you learn, teach skills, share life experiences. But personally, writing a blog is also great for being able to look back at your past and remember. Before starting this post, I went back and read my first blog for 2014. If you would like to read it, click here. I briefly stated that 2013 was a very rough year and I had learned to lean on God to help carry me through the hard times. I also said I had hope for the new year, that things would start to look up. 

Well, as they say...hindsight is 20/20.

Unfortunately, things did not look up. In fact, the hits just kept coming. 2014 was almost equally as bad a year as 2013. I don't regret having hope last January, because without hope, where would we be? I have Jesus, so I will always have hope. But sometimes God has different plans for our lives than we do.

It's taken me until now to be able to sit down and write about all of these things...but I'm ready.

So let's do this. 

 In July of 2013 I had a miscarriage. It was a very thought-out, prayed-over, and planned pregnancy, so when we lost it, it was devastating. I was 16 weeks when I started having some complications and we found out the baby was gone. The baby measured only about 12 weeks, so for 4 weeks I walked around not knowing what had happened. I struggled so much with God over that. Why would he let me go four weeks thinking everything was ok, making plans, announcing it to almost everyone...when it was already gone? I had a lot of anger over the fact that I waited and prayed over even getting pregnant for a long time and truly felt like it was the right thing...how could I have been so wrong? I ended up needing to have a D&C. That was an awful experience...sitting in a waiting room forever...then a hospital room...I remember waking up afterwards in recovery and there was a baby crying in another part of the room. It just kept crying and all I wanted was for it to shut up. It was like torture. That summer is pretty much a blur. I spent most of my days sitting on my front porch either staring out the window or scrolling through Pinterest. I had taught myself to crochet right before the hospital visit, so I threw myself into crocheting anything. Somehow I made it through the summer and school was about to start so I willed myself to start functioning again.

This was my summer "happy place" and still is my favorite place to sit and read or do devotions.

In August, my husband found a new job in a new town about an hour and half away from where we were currently living. He had been looking for a new job for a couple years so when this job presented itself we couldn't say no. It was a great opportunity so we put our house up for sale. He moved to the new town and was staying with friends, while the kids and I stayed behind to sell the house. We ended up living apart for 10 months.

Longest. 10. Months. EVER.

Visiting Daddy on a weekend and being silly. :)

Enter another period of questioning God and not understanding why. Why did he make this job SO perfect and everything seem like it was falling into place...except that our house wouldn't sell? Why couldn't there have been a job in our area? Why make us move? For 10 months I watched other people sell houses, build houses, move to new ones and we were stuck. In the midst of that 10 months of not living together, we had some larger hurdles to overcome in our marriage. It's not easy being happily married and not living in the same household! In October of 2013, on a Tuesday, we hit our first major hurdle. About 30 minutes after this hurdle presented itself, I found out my best friend's father had died suddenly and tragically. It was a terrible day I'll never forget. 

Before you get too depressed reading this, I will say even though it didn't seem like it, God was there. Before all of these bad things had happened, I had made plans with my other best friend to go to a Beth Moore conference. (If you haven't heard of her, click the link and be amazed by this ministry. That woman is truly touched by God.) The conference was the weekend after that Tuesday, which I truly believe was NOT a coincidence. Directly following the conference were the services for my friend's dad. I attended that conference a very broken woman, unsure of how to get past my struggles and be strong for my friend who was going through a devastating period in her life. I had a night of insomnia where I laid in a hotel room begging God to just give me sleep. I had nothing else, why would he take my rest from me too? Why?? What did I do to you, Lord?? That night I completely surrendered to Him. I had nothing and I was no one without Him. I had absolutely no clue what the future held and I was done trying to figure it out. I gave my journey in life over to him. 

The next day at the conference, something amazing happened. I sat there listening to the amazing teachings of Beth Moore, ugly-cried my way through the worship time, and still felt unmoved. During a break, I silently sat next to my friend. Just sitting. All the seats around us cleared out as other women went to stretch their legs or use the restroom. As I sat there, a woman walked down the row in front of me, stopped and turned to me. I wish I could tell you verbatim what she said...but I was so in shock that I hardly knew what was happening. She proceeded to tell me that all morning she had felt like God was telling her to come talk to me. She didn't know why or what I was dealing with, but she knew she was supposed to tell me that God heard my prayers and that he had an amazing journey for me. She told me that he loved me and he heard me. I just started bawling...and so did my friend. I hugged this stranger so tight and just cried and said thank you and I never saw her again.

10,000 women learning and worshiping together with Beth Moore.

It wasn't the answers I was looking for. It wasn't a detailed map of my future. But it WAS a clear message that told me He was still with me and he was listening to me. It was exactly what I needed. It gave me the strength to put aside my own personal struggles for the next three days as I helped my friend and her family through the terrible loss they had suffered. 

 Now we are at January 2014 and the post I reference at the beginning. See why I was ready for that year to be over? And why I was clinging to the hope of a better year? It was all I had!

It was an extremely hard year and I swear on my life that Jesus is the only one that got me through it. It had been almost a decade since I had been in a place of complete dependence on Him. And that is not an easy place to go back to. 

Hopefully this isn't too dismal and "Debbie-downer" for anyone reading this. If it is, then your life must be pretty awesome to not have trials that truly test who you are as a person and a Christian. 

I decided to break this into a two-part blog post since there is so much to get through. I pray that if you are struggling through a rough time in life, these posts might give you some hope to hold on to for tomorrow. It took me a year and a half to be able to write down that I had a miscarriage...but I finally did it. And tomorrow's post will probably be harder to write. But I want people to know they are not alone, and if anything, tell just one person that Jesus is there for you. 

I hope you'll come back for "the rest of the story."

Flying Solo

Have you ever let your fear of something control you? No matter how small?

For example, I have always wanted to get a pixie haircut. They always look so cute on everyone I see. But I have yet to do it because I'm afraid I'm the one it will look terrible on.

Obviously, that is a very small fear. And not a big deal. As humans, it's our nature to doubt, question, and be afraid of things that are unknown because that's what a sinful world looks like. But as a Christian, we have a rock that we can stand on and break those fears down. Whether as small as getting a haircut or as big as moving your family across the country, Jesus is and always will be our strength. Says so right here:

 "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song." Psalm 28:7

Today the fear that is messing with me is that in two days I'm trying something for the first time alone. And all I can do is think about all the things that could go wrong.

2 days and counting. 

I have 2 more days until I fly solo for the first time at a vendor fair.

Last year, I shared my experience with being a vendor at my first vendor fair in Just a Girl and a Card Table, merely months after learning how to crochet in the first place.

It really was a great experience that was largely due to the amazing people that helped me out in many ways. 

This summer, I was having fun making all kinds of new things: blankets, baby items, coffee cozies. You would be amazed at the things you can make by crocheting. Seriously.

All the fun baby things I made this summer. So...much....cuteness....

 

I knew that Spoon River Drive was coming, but I was scared of doing it alone so I just pushed it out of my mind. For quite a while, I used the excuse of not wanting to spend the money on it. But in reality, I was just super nervous to do it alone. 

I would have to get my own tent (which I don't have), tables (which I don't have), displays (which I don't have)....do you see a pattern here? I pretty much am still the Girl with a Card Table, just different merchandise this time. 

And all the doubts came flooding in. What if no one buys anything? What if I spend the money to do it and don't make it back? What if I look like a silly little girl with a card table???

Some of my half done projects that have been laying around for a while....

Finally, push came to shove and I decided to suck it up and do it.

That was three-ish weeks ago.

Slowly, things have fallen into place. Once again, my amazing friends come to the rescue. My friend, Heather, is lending me her canopy. I'm going to borrow tables from my church. My mom and husband found some display stuff at their jobs that I can borrow. And then I went to Dollar Tree and just had to get creative. 

In the meantime, I have been crocheting my fingers to little nubs. I'm probably going to end up with arthritis or carpal tunnel...but hey, no pain no gain, right???

I had to lay everything out on my bed today, to try and collect my sanity.

For the last couple weeks, I have been very excited about this. My mom is going to come hang with me (and help with the kids) both weekends and my sister (ex-in-law....? "Sister" is all that matters) is going to come up and help out one day, too. 

But I have to admit, with it being two days away...the doubts are rearing their ugly heads. What if it downpours like last year and everything gets wet? What if the wind blows the canopy over and all the stuff off the table? What if....what if no one likes my stuff???

What if??

Thankfully, I believe in Jesus. And it's moments like these, when my brain is bring ridiculous and worrisome over trivial things, that I turn to Him.

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own." Matthew 6:34

"For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." Isaiah 41:13

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3

Good grief, I'm ridiculous.

After all the things that I have been through in the last year and half of my life...I'm going to spend my time worrying about the weather? And if people will like my things? 

Time to put my big girl pants on, take hold of my God's steady hand, and commit this weekend and next to Him.

All packed up and ready to go. We'll see what happens!

If it rains? Oh well. If the tent blows over? I'll just pray it doesn't break because it's not mine. And if I sit there for four days and no one buys a thing? Then so be it. I'll make different stuff next time.

God has given me a gift in the ability to crochet and the fact that I enjoy it so. It may not be a gift that is going to win over hearts for the Lord, but it's a gift nonetheless and I'm not going to let fear stop me from using it. 

So today I will take a deep breath, switch a load of laundry, and get back to work organizing the chaos that is my living room right now. I will make what I can make, and just trust that it will be good enough. And instead of concentrating on all the things that could go wrong, I'm going to focus on all the things that could go right. Like having a lot of fun! Oh, and definitely getting to eat the BBQ Pork Nachos from Hickr'y Stick. And maybe a lemonade shake-up. 

Wish me luck! I look forward to giving you an account of this year's experience!

Oven-roasted Sausage and Potatoes

Ok, Sausage Fans. 

Here it is. The recipe. 

I would love to start this post off with how the weather is cooling off and it's starting to feel like fall. How I have my fall decorations out and the fall-scented candles burning. How I've made pumpkin dip and homemade applesauce from our trip to the orchard....

HOWEVER.....it's kind of hard to do when you live in the Midwest and it's 84 degrees on September 29! I had the AIR on yesterday! WHAT?!?

I digress.

I posted a picture of this recipe on my Facebook page when I made it for the first time. I had many people contact me about the recipe and comment on how good it looked. 

I would say this is one of the most popular recipes I've found so far.

 Right behind the Fiesta Salad.

My husband has been home for almost two months now and I have slowly gotten back into the swing of cooking throughout the week. Maybe just a night or two of noodles and cheese or frozen pizza. However, I have caught a break to some degree. Now that harvest has started, my husband doesn't come home until later, so I don't feel quite as much pressure to whip up a fabulous dinner. 

In all honesty, Chad is not hard to please. I think I could make grilled cheese and he'd still love it. He's very good at complimenting my cooking. I've trained him well...

This meal is extremely filling and equally delicious. I have made it twice now, the second time because my husband specifically requested it. The kids love it. I love it. 

Win for Mom!

The other nice thing about this recipe is that it's easy to throw together and easy to clean up.

Ok, let's do this. 

Here's what you need:

Sausage - any kind (I use kielbasa - you can get it at Aldi!), potatoes (we like red, but you can use any kind), sweet peppers, onion, banana peppers, olive oil, rosemary, and creole seasoning.

First preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with tin foil and make sure the cookie sheet has a decent sized lip on it. (This helps with the easy clean-up.)

Time to slice and dice.
Slice the sausage into bite-sized slices. You can do it the fancy way (using a "bias"cut - or a diagonal cut) or just slice it. Either way, it all tastes the same and looks the same coming out. (ha!)

Then cut your potatoes into 1/2" chunks. I leave the skin on. 

Next, slice up the onion and peppers into long skinny strips. 

Nicely done. Moving on. 

Place all the ingredients on the cookie sheet. Drizzle the olive oil over them and then use your hands to toss them and get everything nicely coated. Come on! Time to get your hands dirty People

Next, sprinkle some salt and pepper and the spices (if you choose to use them) and then place the slices of banana peppers on top.

It's...so...*sniff*...pretty.

Time to pop that sucker in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. 

I feel like Homer Simpson looking at a donut...

So the first time I made this, I used the foil. The second time I forgot and just sprayed the sheet. I HIGHLY recommend using the foil. It makes clean-up much easier and I felt like the potatoes cooked better. They didn't get as burnt around the edges using the foil.

I also chose to use the seasoning. The first time...waaaaaaay too much rosemary. Ack. So I backed off a little with that the second time. And as for the creole seasoning....well, if you are anything like you are saying "What the heck is that?". I had to google it. It's basically just a mish-mosh of a bunch of different seasonings that you can use on pretty much anything: meat, potatoes, vegetables, soups, etc. 

Like many things, you can buy it or make it yourself. I just made it because that was easier and here is the recipe I used - Creole Seasoning.

  

P.S. this recipe makes A LOT of seasoning, so make some room in your spice cabinet...or maybe cut the recipe in half. In retrospect...I wish I had done that. 

Well, there it is. One of the best dinners I have come across to date. I hope you all enjoy it as much as my family does. 

And feel free to get creative! Try different seasonings or vegetables and let me know if you find another great combination!

Oven Roasted Sausage and Potatoes

Original Recipe from Piarecipes.com

• 1 bell pepper - sliced
• 1lb package of sausage - whatever kind you prefer
• 4-5 potatoes - whatever kind you prefer
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small jar banana peppers
• 1/2-1 onion, sliced
• salt & pepper
• 2 tsp dried rosemary (optional)
• 1 tsp creole seasoning (optional) 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line large cookie sheet with tin foil. Make sure to use a sheet with a "lip".
Slice sausage into thin slices.
Cut potatoes into 1/2" chunks.
Slice peppers and onion into long strips.
Place all ingredients on cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Toss with your hands to coat everything.
Add salt and pepper and seasoning, if you are using it.
Place banana peppers on top.
Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Recipe Roundup #1: Spaghetti Sauce, Cucumbers and Onions, and Zuchinni Bake

Over the last few weeks, I've been blessed by several friends giving me produce from their gardens. At one point I had zucchini, squash, red onions, tomatoes, green beans, corn, and blueberries. I decided to freeze the blueberries for later, but all the rest I found some recipes for.

So this post is a roundup of a few of the recipes I found to use up the veggies. I didn't alter any of them in any way so I thought it would be fun to just put them all in one place and add links to the original recipe. This way, I can still add in my experiences with making all of this. 

Ready? Here we go.

1. Crock-pot Spaghetti Sauce

Original Recipe: Iowa Girl Eats

 

 This sauce is pretty darn amazing.

Iowa Girl got it right!

The only thing required outside of the crock pot is to brown ground hamburger (or turkey).

When I made this, I chopped up my onion and cooked it with the meat. Our family can handle onions if they are cooked. The only other thing I did differently than Iowa Girl is I did not use a can of crushed tomatoes. I had a TON of fresh ones, so I chopped those up in to decent sized chunks and threw them in the crock pot. I still used the tomato sauce and paste, but I think the fresh tomatoes gave it a fresher taste. I wish I could tell you how many tomatoes I used...but I just eyeballed it.

After browning the meat and onion, you throw everything in the crock pot and let it cook on low.

So easy!

 

My crock pot cooks fast, so I cooked it on low for 3-4 hours. The first time I made this, I made it as written. It made about half a crock pot, which was perfect for one meal. So the second time I made it, I doubled the recipe, which filled the crock pot, and then I split it into two freezer bags. I laid the bags flat on a cookie sheet and placed them in our deep freeze. Now I have two batches of sauce that just need to thaw for a spaghetti dinner.

This sauce truly is delicious. The meat literally melts in your mouth and the flavor is full and wonderful. My favorite part is probably the added butter. Who would have thought of that? I think it just adds a little something to it. If you freeze the sauce, don't add the butter yet. Add it when you are reheating the sauce in a sauce pan to be used for dinner. 

Great sauce and great freezer meal!

2. Cucumbers and Onions

Original Recipe: ??????

So, apparently this has been around for ages. But I was not a cucumber, nor an onion fan, as a child. In fact, I'm still working on it as an adult. I don't mind onions (cooked), but I'm still not a huge fan of cucumbers. 

We've been spending a lot of time at our friend's farm this summer, and I've been introduced to good old farm cookin'. I love how she just throws it all together out of thin air. So every time we've had dinner at the farm, I've been taking mental notes.

This recipe is something she ALWAYS has in the fridge, and when I found out my husband loved it, I decided to give it a try. It's pretty easy and I'll admit, it's pretty tasty, too. (I even ate the onions! Look Ma, I'm all growed up!)

All it is is cucumbers and onions in a vinegar-sugar-water mixture. 

That's it!

I'm sure the majority of you are reading this thinking "duh!". But I didn't know about it, so I was excited and I wanted to share it for anyone else that is sheltered like myself. 

To make it you mix equal parts vinegar, sugar and water. 

So if you use 1 cup of vinegar, then you use 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar.

(Now, I never said this was a healthy recipe!)

You can eat it right away, but it's better to let them sit in the mixture for a few hours in the fridge so they can absorb the flavors and get nice and cold.

3. Sour Cream Cucumbers 

Original Recipe: Taste of Home 

Another quick cucumber and onion recipe if you are tired of the one above or, like me, just have a crap-ton of cucumbers to use up.

 It's very similar, but uses sour cream. In all honesty, I like the vinegar-sugar-water mixture better, but this one is still good. I wanted to share because everyone's palettes are different and some of you may really like this!

All you have to do for this recipe is whisk together the ingredients: sour cream, vinegar, sugar, and pepper. Then toss the cucumbers and onions in the mixture and refrigerate for four hours. 

I will say this, these didn't make the BEST leftovers, so this might be a good recipe for a church picnic or family cookout.

On Pinterest, I saw a similar recipe to this one, but it uses dill. I LOVE dill, so I think I will give that one a try, too. I'll let you know if it's any good!

4. Zucchini-Squash Bake 

Original Recipe: Kalyn's Kitchen

I had zucchini coming out my EARS. My friend was giving some away, and she stood on my porch and handed me a zucchini that was, I'm not kidding, bigger than my cat. 

This was the perfect recipe to use up some of that zucchini. That one...gigantic...zucchini.

My husband was gone for work for about 10 months. The day he moved back home, I made a completely homemade-from-scratch dinner just for him. (No, I'm not bragging...this was the first time I cooked in....well, 10 months.)

I used the spaghetti sauce I shared above, made some homemade bread sticks (another farm recipe!), and found this zucchini bake to put with it. 

I was in such a tizzy trying to throw all of this homemade stuff together and time it for right when he got home, I didn't even think it take pictures of anything...until we sat down to eat. So the only picture I have of the bake is on my plate. And it didn't stay there long. 

I'm hungry just looking at this. He's been home a month now....I'm think it's time for round two. 

I'll share the breadstick recipe another day. Homemade, easy, and they almost taste like Olive Garden's breadsticks!

 Mmmmmm breadsticks.....

Focus, Evie.

For this recipe you need the veggies, some olive oil, basil (fresh or dried), thyme, garlic powder, and cheese. You can also throw in green onions if you like. I didn't have any in the fridge so I didn't use them, but I would definitely like to try it next time. 

Toss the veggies in the olive oil and spice mixture, spread in a greased baking dish, and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 min. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 10 minutes to melt the cheese.

It went great with the spaghetti dinner and it made pretty good leftovers the next night. The webpage also has a printer friendly version, so it's really simple to print the recipe for your collection.

Well, that's it for now! I hope you like some of these! I made a few other recipes, but they either needed some modification or they were just so good they deserve their own post. So you'll see those pop up eventually. 

I've had a lot of fun find recipes to use up all these fresh veggies. Enough so that I plan to try a garden out next year. (This is big deal people. Green-thumb is NOT my middle name.)

Wish me luck!