Looking for ways to use Zucchini?

Chop it up with onions, garlic and what ever other veggies you may have on hand. Add some stewed tomatoes and italian seasonings and you have a great tasting pasta dish just waiting to happen! :)

I made way more that would be needed for one meal.

So I just divided it up. Put 2 thirds of it in the freezer so next time I need something quick, wala there it is!

With the third I kept in the pan I added cooked rigatoni pasta

Mixed it up, added a little more seasoning to taste and dinner is served!

Some green salad, garlic bread sticks and some parmesan if you like, and you can have an Olive Garden style dinner at home.

Here is my eating fresh summer salad of the day.

1. It is easy and doesn't take anytime to make
2. It is filling & 3. It tastes great

Baby green salad mix, garden tomatoes, cooked garbanzo beans, frozen peas thawed, (fresh from the garden would be great too) cauliflower, basil leaves and croutons.
Then just add a favorite dressing.
I used Olive Garden Italian dressing on mine. 

Of course when cooking with cherries the first step is getting them pitted. So it's time to get out the cherry pitter!

To make the sauce I used cornstarch and raw sugar. You could also use flour or some other kind of thickener. But the cornstarch was easy and what I had on hand. Then after mixing the sugar and cornstarch in with the fruit I also added water.
Adding the water after the cornstarch and sugar are mixed with the fruit is an easy way of keeping it from clumping up. You always want to mix your cornstarch with cold liquids.  

Then heat until your sauce comes to a boil. As the sauce heats and gets closer to a boil the milky color will go away as it starts to thicken up.
Now you could use it right then as a dessert sauce topping, or as a pie or crisp filling, or as I did. I had the cherries and needed to process them but was not ready to make a dessert. So I simply made the sauce and then put it in the cooler (refrigerator) so it would be ready when I  wanted to make a dessert that needed it.

Of course to start you want to make sure the fruit is cleaned well

Put freezer paper on a cookie sheet and or what ever kind of pan you want to use.

you don't want your berries to be to wet when you put them on the pan that you are going to freeze them in.

Here are some strawberries freezing in the freezer. I put them in uncovered, being that you are just leaving them there until they freeze and then you will be putting them in to bags or whatever kind of container it is that you want to keep them frozen in.

The reason for freezing them this way is that when you want to take just a few out to use them in something they will not be all stuck together making you have to thaw out the whole package even if you just wanted to use part of them.

Once the berries are frozen, pull them out of the freezer and using a flat spatula loosen the berries from the pan.

I put them from the pan into my FoodSaver bags, then I used the FoodSaver to seal them and pull the air out. That way they will keep good in the freezer.

Mung Bean Sprout & Veggie Humuse Wrap

I used organic spicy hummus

Start out with spreading hummus over the tortilla making one side thinner than the other. Then Start layering you toppings on the side that has the thicker hummus.

I used my fresh sprouted mung beans,

Baby Kale,

Mushrooms & Peppers

& Avocados to finish it off.

You can add a dressing or sauce to it or just leave it as is, it is good both ways.

Start rolling the wrap on the side that you layer the veggies on

I didn't have quite enough hummus to make a good seal so I had to spread on a little more 

the Hummus makes a good seal for keeping the wrap tight & closed

Makes a great quick, easy, healthy & tasty lunch!

So are  you needing to dice onions or tomatoes or most any other veg?
One pretty nifty kitchen gadget out there is The Vidalia Chop Wizard.
Now most of the time I don't go for gadgets, give me a knife thank you very much! But this was given to me and I have found it to actually works quite well. And if someone is like my hubby ;) that just can't for the life of him make any kind of even cuts with a knife, this is a good remedy to the problem and  hey if there is a gadget that gets your hubby to help out with the dinner prep it must be good! :)

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/vidalia-chop-wizard/1014556052?Keyword=vidalia+chop+wizard

now on the video for it, it shows putting hole onions and vegetables on it and coping them. and if you had a smaller onion that may work or if you were to cut it in half. but if you are wanting you dices to be nice and even or for things like tomatoes the beset way seems to be to first slice them and then put them on the Chop Wizard.

The onions on the left are small diced in the Chop Wizard and the onions on the right I did by hand with a chef knife.
So despite what the commercial on the Chop Wizard says about it being impossible to chop things by hand. It Can be done and on another post I will try to put up some dicing/chopping tips.
Because truth is, in a vegetarian kitchen you could get along just fin if all you had was a good sharp Chef Knife and a Paring Knife.

I love Avocados! But I don't love how fast they can turn brown!

But sometimes it can be hard to know for sure how to keep them from turning brown once you open them. If you are going to use the whole thing right at the time you open one then there is not a problem. but say I only want to use half and want to save the other half for later?

I have tried using lemon juice or tight plastic wrap to try to keep the air from getting to it, but yet they still turn brown way sooner than I would like them to! so what can you do?

To start with, Don't through the pit away!

Come to find out its all about the pit!

Keep the pit in with the avocado and it will keep it from turning brown !

As silly as it may sound it really does work!

This is at least 20 hours after I prepped the avocados and after they had been out of the refrigerator and served at dinner the night before and they are still more than perfectly usable!

this is one of the best tips I have found out about avocados! and never again will you be seeing me throwing away my avocado pits! :)

I love Avocados!

But sometimes it can be hard if you have never really used them much to know for sure how to keep them from turning brown once you open them, or even how to get those slippery pits out with out it going flying across the kitchen.  (yes that has happened to me! :)

So here is what I have found to work best when it comes to getting those slippery pits out.

Once you have your avocado sliced in half and opened. Take your knife (Best if you knife is nice and sharp) and holding the avocado in one hand and the knife  in  the other a few inches from the avocado, hit the knife into the pit making a deep enough slice that the knife will stay in the pit with out falling out if you let go of it.

Then with the knife still in the pit twist it away from you. this will turn and loosen the pit

Then simply lift the pit out of the avocado!

But don't just through it away!
(see tips on keeping avocados from turning brown.)