One of my goals this summer is to eat more natural foods, such as fresh foods from the Farmer’s Market and store bought foods made with natural ingredients. Lucky for me, Jay is excited about this goal, too, and the kids are even willingly going along for the ride. This built in support makes it even easier to make progress on my goal.

As a general rule of thumb, I find that the easiest goals to achieve are the ones that have the most compelling benefits. In other words, when your goals touch on more than one thing that is important to you—it gives you added incentive for making the changes necessary to make your goals happen. And that’s one of the things that makes me super excited about the goal to eat more naturally—this one goal supports many things that I believe in.

For example, eating more natural foods means shopping at our local Farmer’s Market. This means we’re eating locally grown food and supporting local farmers—like the super nice people at 2 Acre Farm. This farm (and family) is so inspiring. First, the food grown on this farm is certified naturally grown. Second, they have a great blog. And third, they grow really interesting and yummy foods…like these dragon tongue snap beans.

Dragon tongue snap beans

Have you ever seen a prettier bean? And what’s better—these beans were really delicious, too. We sprinkled some olive oil, kosher salt, and oregano on top of them, and then Jay cooked them on the grill. Yum, yum, yum. Who knew eating naturally would taste (and look) so good?

Another great find at this stand was this jar of zesty sweet relish.

Sweet relish

Aside from supporting my goal of eating more naturally, this relish supports my dream of eating homemade pickles. (You may recall that a couple of years ago I attempted to make my own pickles…and, well, that didn’t go so well.) So ever since then I’ve been on the hunt for better pickle recipes and more natural store-bought pickles and relishes. So when I saw this homemade zesty sweet relish, I knew I had to give it a try. And just like the beans, it was yum, yum, yum.

But this has led me to a new healthier eating challenge:  what do you put relish on besides hamburgers and hot dogs? We’re also trying to cut back on meat, so now I just have to figure out what else to use this relish for—any ideas?

Pasta sauce The summer is an easier time of year to eat more naturally and healthier. But, what will we do when summer ends? First, I’m going to try to preserve some of the farm fresh goodness by attempting to do some canning. Undaunted by the great pickle debacle of 2008, yesterday Jay and I made up a (really (really) small) batch of pasta sauce using some of the herbs and tomatoes from our own garden as well as some tomatoes from the Farmer’s Market. I’d also love to make some salsa and some corn relish. And if I’m feeling super brave, maybe I’ll try pickles one more time. (Wish me luck!) And then, we’ll take it from there. Little bits (or in this case, bites) of progress are another great way to make a goal happen.

What goals have you been working on this summer? I’d love to hear about your summer goals. And if you have any canning tips or recipes…well…I’d love those, too!