Veggies out my ears!

Hello again, everyone. Yes, I know, I've been away for almost a month. But I tell you the truth, I have been really busy! I have missed blogging, and I mean to start up more faithfully again.

So what's up in my life? Well, school is still going well, but I won't bore you with the details. But what I love is that I only have to do school four days a week and even for those four days I'm done by early afternoon.

Something that's been keeping me really busy lately is VEGETABLES! Yup, that's right. :) Our family purchased a food share with a local organic farm this summer, where we get to pick up a big load of vegetables and fruit every Thursday. We have learned so much about selecting the best produce, and cooking, storing, and preserving all of it. I feel like I'm so much more prepared to feed my future husband and children someday. :) So anyway. We've been getting a lot of veggies each week all summer, but lately we've been getting a TON because we get unlimited pick-your-own on some things, plus the final motherload of the harvest in everything else. It takes my mom and I all Friday and even into Saturday just to process it all!

Here is everything we got this week:
7 enormous head of cauliflower (I mean, this is a SCARY amount of cauliflower!)
5 ears of popcorn (really cool!)
15 kale leaves (which are pretty big!)
7 squash (or is it squashes?)
8 watermelons (thankfully they aren't too big!)
4 quarts of apple (so awesome! I'm thinking applesauce)
10 green bell peppers (I ate a whole one today just for a snack!)
2 Banana peppers (which are actually quite boring raw... I expected them to be sour.)
8 Sweet Italian peppers (They taste pretty much like normal peppers)
4 yellow bell peppers (I have nothing to say about these but I don't want them to be left out...)
3 jalapeno peppers (I can make delicious Mexican recipes!)
6 collard greens (which I'd never had before this year)
1 colossal head of cabbage (I hate cabbage...)
A bunch of potatoes, I don't know how many (We love potatoes... they're so versatile)
2 heads of garlic (We've been getting two a week all summer - that's a LOT!)
1 quart of onions (I love the flavor that onions add to pretty much anything!)
A couple of pounds of carrots (They're pretty bitter, but that's okay)
1 heaping quart of sweet potatoes (Yummy!)
Fresh dill (Good for potato salad!)
Fresh parsley (Nothing like fresh herbs!)
Cutting celery (It's like regular celery, but thinner, stronger flavored, and more herb-like)
1 bunch of green onions (A nice, mild flavor)
1 bunch of radishes (Mexicans eat them as a side to most any meal, and I like the habit =])

YIKES! Isn't that a scary amount of vegetable? To add to it all, we had a ton of tomatoes leftover from last week that just finished ripening, and some kale and peppers, too. So today we got done all of the kale, tomatoes, cauliflower, and leftover peppers. In addition to having delicious healthy food all summer, we now have a freezer full of healthy food to last us through the winter. I'm so blessed by this abundance!