What's in Your Fridge?

I've seen several posts about this lately.  There's whole blogs devoted to it.  Pictures of peoples' refrigerators.  Strange, but true.  You can check one out here.  Or here.  So, not to be left out, I decided it might be fun to take a picture of our fridge.  I've posted pictures of our freezer before, but never our fridge.

Now, keep in mind that this is grocery shopping day, so it's way more stocked and a little more organized than on other days of the week.  Well, maybe it's not THAT organized.  I'm trying to do better...

Since watching "Food, Inc." and reading Michael Pollan's book, "Food Rules", I've been really trying to buy more local and organic produce, whenever possible.  I found a lot of organic produce at the market today however, none of it was local.  I did buy organic tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, broccoli slaw and pears.  Most of this produce is coming from Mexico this time of year, although some was from California.

I have begun my small, veggie container garden in the house and already have some green beans!  I also planted yellow pear tomatoes and pickling cucumbers.  It's a little tough to plant too many things as I have limited space and sun!

I plan on hitting some farmer's markets soon.  I'm also sure that the local produce will be filtering in to the grocery stores soon as well.

I came home from the market to a kitchen full of unwashed dishes.  Our dishwasher has been doing some odd things the last couple of weeks.  At first, I thought it was just our very hard water.  I tried everything to clean the dishwasher out, but the dishes are still coming out like this:

Pretty yucky, huh?  So, needless to say, I've been handwashing.  Ack.  The repairman comes tomorrow, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this will be my last day of sore back and pruney hands!

After washing all the dishes, I decided to use some of the produce I purchased and make a pasta salad for dinner.

There are no measurements to this recipe, I just throw stuff in!  I love these kind of recipes!

Ancient Harvest Quinoa Garden Pagodas Gluten-Free Pasta, cooked according to package directions

Grape Tomatoes, sliced in half longways

Cucumbers, cubed

Black Olives (I forgot I bought the Jumbo size...wow...these babies are huge!)

Vermont Cheddar Cheese, cubed

Olive Oil/Vinegar Based Dressing, to taste  (I used Ken's Light Northern Italian w/ Basil and Romano, it's gluten-free!)

You could also throw some gluten-free meat, but I didn't this time. (Like cubed ham, turkey, chicken or Hormel Turkey Pepperoni, for instance)

Mix all ingredients together, chill and voila!

I will probably serve it with hot dogs and grape jello for dessert.  Yes, I know, Michael Pollan wouldn't approve.  Although, the last rule of  "Food Rules" is:

"Break the rules once in a while."

Gotta love a book like that!

P.S.  Have you signed the "Food Revolution Petition" yet?  If not, you should.  You can click on the link above left...

Have a great, gluten-free day!