Downsizing your life with Veggies

My husband is quite the social media guru and very active on Twitter. I try to keep up with him, but I think I tweeted 2 things, and then didn't really know what to say. I want to get back into it, but would rather follow what others tweet about. Since he follows many different organizations, he responded to a recent post by Marketplace Radio in which they were looking for people who have "radically" downsized their lifestyle. Surprisingly enough, the person working on the piece was interested in our story. Yesterday we recorded a few questions in our apartment with a sound engineer, and now we wait to see if anything comes out of it. (I totally meant to take a photo of his little recorder, but totally forgot... fail!)

The interest in our "story" truly baffled me after we finished the interview yesterday. I find that most of what we do to save money and finish paying off our school/car loans is common sense. If they don't end up taking any of our audio for the piece, then I will post some of the questions that they asked us (most of them being touchy/"how do you feel" questions). This interview got me thinking about a book that I started reading earlier in the year by Randy Alcorn: Money, Possessions, and Eternity. The book is extremely condensed but does a wonderful job at reminding us to keep a heavenly perspective on where we spend our time, money, and resources. Since we cannot take our "stuff" with us when we die, we should question why we cherish and desire to have many possessions on this earth. We need to invest in the only thing in this life that will be in heaven: people. I totally recommend it, even though I have a few hundred pages to go. :)

In light of the interview, I thought it might be fun to post some of the ways we try to save around the kitchen. The last post I talked about eating more vegetables, so I'll start there. The past few summers, I have tried to grow our own tomatoes in pots on our balcony, but didn't have much success. This summer I added a greater variety so I wouldn't be disappointed if the tomato crop tanked: parsley, rosemary, beets, squash, radishes, peppers and tons of basil! I get so excited thinking of ways to incorporate all the produce along with some that our families give us when we go home.

Recently I made a Baked Vegetable dish inspired by Whole Living's Baked Tomatoes, Squash, and Potatoes Recipe but substituted some extra veggies on hand:
2 T of olive oil
1 onions thinly sliced
1 large tomato sliced 1/4 inch thick
1/2 large zucchini sliced (same as above)
2 Russet potatoes sliced
1 small eggplant sliced
Coarse salt and pepper
1 T of fresh rosemary
2 T of Parmesan cheese.

I modified the recipe a little and arranged the raw onion (rather than grilling it separately) on the bottom of the pan with the rest of the veggies on top of it. Season the top with S&P, rosemary, cheese, and olive oil drizzle. Putting the pan in a preheated 375 degree oven for 30 min covered and then 30 min uncovered, it comes out lovely. Healthy, Delicious, and Cheap! Paired with quinoa, it was perfect!