Stretching Out

 Believe it or not, this is not a post about what you should do before and after a workout. However, you really should stretch on either side of a workout. 😉

Today was a day for me to stretch in several ways. 

The first...not my kids favorites, is stretching a meal. I have had this ginormous zucchini on the counter for awhile. I finally put it to work the past 2 nights: Last night I shredded it and added it to the crushed tomatoes I had canned earlier in the week that weren't quite enough to fill another quart jar.

Half of that zucchini shredded up and cooked into the tomatoes with seasoning nearly doubled the amount of sauce we added to our pasta. And what mom doesn't love "sneaking" extra veggies into a meal??

The remainder of the zucchini got shredded up tonight and supplemented our ground taco meat. 

Once the meat was browned, I added the shredded zucchini and cooked it until it tenderized a bit and released it's excess water. Then, I added our seasoning -I used this one from Penzey's Spices, as it doesn't have any weird ingredients that others have. Sometimes we like to use one of their other Southwest-style seasonings, but it was classic Taco Seasoning tonight. This all got cooked and simmered with the spices and served with the usual accoutrements: lettuce, salsa, sour cream, cheese, avocado, and tortillas. The zucchini didn't stretch the meat as far as it had the tomato sauce, but the lack of zucchini on my counter (unwasted) is going down as a win in my book. 

Next stretch is one out of my comfort zone, and definitely a brain stretch: I am putting together a website. Yikes!! 

I am really excited to share the final product with you! It will be an extension of this blog, with the option to make it really my own and opportunity to expand. 

While I am utilizing pre-built framework and themes for the website, there is a huge learning curve for this not-so-tech-savvy gal. It's a whole different world from this free blogging platform I have been working with, but I am enjoying the learning aspect and the experimentation. I am hoping to be able to move most of my posting from here into appropriate venues within the site, but not sure yet what that entails. We shall see! 

As soon as it is ready, I'll let you know!

Until then, keep checking back.