I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Lifeby Barbara Kingsolver. I was completely inspired. So much so that I brought home a bag of bell peppers from my dads house. I hate bell peppers just about as much, if not more, than cheese. (If you’re curious, a list of everything I hate is here!) My husband loves roasted red bell peppers though. So even though the smell is completely vile to me, I roasted, peeled, and jarred about 3 1/2 pounds of peppers!

I also shredded, bagged, and froze a pile of zucchini for winter time zucchini bread. I made a couple of test loaves today and they were wonderful!

There is now also a gallon bag of clean, trimmed green beans in the freezer so my son can have some of grandpa’s green beans for dinner even in the winter!

I think Animal, Vegetable, Miracleshould be required reading. Of course not everyone can drop everything and begin farming. I couldn’t do it. But it made me want to do everything I can to reap the rewards of my, or my family’s, gardening year round.

And I must give credit where credit is due, the recipes for both the peppers and the zucchini bread came from Simply Recipes. They have a great site!