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Friday, April 30, 2010

WOOL SOAKERS ARE TAKING OVER

Upcycled Sweaters Become Cute Wool Soakers



I've been on a mission to make wool soakers for the past few weeks. I recycle old wool sweaters to make the best diaper covers! Wool is fabulous: natural, breathable, highly absorbent. Oh, and did I mention these soakers are super cute? I usually buy the sweaters at goodwill, or at Resweater.com. But remember my post about the free church yard sale that goes on every month or so? Well, last Saturday, I was driving by and saw it out of the corner of my eye. Baby T was asleep in the back seat so I had some time to kill. I swerved into the church parking lot and started rifling through the piles of clothes on the ground while a group of pre-teens took a liking to Baby T.

I guess spring is the time for purging your wool sweaters. I found thirteen wool sweaters. THIRTEEN! For free. One of the church volunteers kept coming up to me to give me additional grocery bags for my findings. At one point, I told her, "Thanks! I didn't expect to find so much." She said, "Thank the Lord."

In any case, I was incredibly grateful. I felt like I struck gold. I drove home with a multicolored sheepfest in my backseat.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

FRESH ORGANIC DELICIOUSNESS (Week 4)

Recipes from our CSA Box


Kale Chips



Wash and dry kale well. Spray with olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Grill large kale leaves in one layer on metal cookie sheets in 450 degree oven until crisp. This will take approximately 10 minutes (flip halfway). You will have to make a few different batches, since only 3 or 4 kale pieces fit on a cookie sheet at one time. Remove from oven, and cut the leaves off of the stems with a sharp knife.

Sweet Potato Chips
Slice sweet potatoes thinly. (I used the slicer blade on my food processor). Spray a cookie sheet with olive oil and spread sweet potatoes on cookie sheet. Rub around in the olive oil and flip each sweet potato disc over. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake in 450 degree oven for about 15 minutes, flipping halfway. Be sure not to let them burn. **A friend of mine gave me a tip: if you turn off the oven and leave the chips in, they will become very crispy. I didn't have time for this, but they were still great. Baby T really liked them too. Not so much the kale chips though, which got stuck on his tongue and made him gag and make some pretty funny faces.

VEGGIE CHRISTMAS (Week 4)

Ooh, we have a lot of variety in our box this week! I love getting greens, but I also like getting different veggies that I can cook with or add to my salads. This week's box contained the following surprises:

(these are my best guesses, since it hasn't been updated yet on the website)
Spinach
A large box of strawberries
Green Onions
Kale
a small ziploc of sugar snap peas (I think that's what they are)
1 zucchini

This is my menu for the week:

Thursday: Pizza bagels with kale chips and sweet potato chips
Friday: Dinner at Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's
Saturday: Grilled eye roast with rice and salad (I'm going to cook extra rice to use for stir fry on Monday)
Sunday: Dinner at Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop's
Monday: Stir fry with zucchini and sugar snap peas (adapted from this stir fry recipe except last time I had to add a lot more spices, like curry), leftover eye roast, and brown rice
Tuesday: Pasta with wilted spinach, olive oil, and pasta sauce

I had some goat cheese from Nature's Way Goat Farm, so for lunches I made salad with leftover chicken, goat cheese, craisins, and honey vinaigrette. Yummy.

And for my salad, I'm adding my own radishes. Yup, from my very own garden. I don't know why it's so satisfying to grow your own food, or why it's so unbelievable when you pull up a radish and it looks like--a radish--but sure enough...

Saturday, April 24, 2010

VEGGIE CHRISTMAS (WEEK 3)

Our CSA box this week was exciting, because we got…. STRAWBERRIES! This is always exciting. It’s a small package, but I was able to add strawberries to my morning oatmeal for 3 breakfasts in a row. Organic strawberries are amazing. Dark red and juicy, not orangey and tart like some that you might find at the regular grocery store.

We also received:
Spinach
Salad mix
Garlic leek
Mizuna
Bok choy
Radish

I’m not as smart as you may think. I had to go to Black River Organic Farm’s website to find out what the Mizuna was. And I didn’t realize the garlic leek was a garlic leek. I just thought it was your standard leek.

So I bet you’re all wondering what on earth you’re going to do with the mizuna. Or what the heck it even is. Well, according to Wikipedia, it is a Japanese green with a slightly peppery flavor, similar to but less so than arugula. On the Wikipedia page there was a beautiful picture of a mizuma and daikon salad. This got me thinking: I know that daikon is a radish, and I was wondering what I would do with my radishes this week.

See below for my weekly menu and click on the links to view the recipes. Keep in mind I’m going to a couple of barbecues this weekend, so I won’t need to make dinner every night. I still have lettuce salads most days for lunch and add whatever’s on hand. They have “healthy” snacks for us at work, so I usually add some cheese and almonds. Or apples and craisins.

Wednesday: We didn’t go to dollar taco night this week, because we had so much filling leftover from the stuffed zucchini from last week. (Since I added ground beef to it, it made a lot.) We used it to make soft tacos. I made my own salsa again, but left out the onion and added tiny pieces of chopped up leeks. Making your own salsa tastes so much better than the jarred kind! I’m a fan.

Thursday: Still had leftover filling from the stuffed zukes and leftover sauce from the lettuce wraps on Monday, so we had spaghetti with the filling and the sauce over it. It was actually delicious. A little Asian, a little spicy, and very tasty.

Friday: Perfect Grilled Chicken with grilled leeks and grilled potatoes.
Saturday: No cooking today, wahoo!
Sunday: Roasted chicken, Spring salad with mizuna, radish and roasted peppers.
Monday: Bok choy gratin, leftover spring salad if there is any
Tuesday: Sausage, spinach, potato and sweet potato hash

So my farmer's market shopping list looks like this:
lots of peppers (ended up not finding them...not in season. I'll have to buy at the grocery store)
goat cheese
sweet potatoes
ask about local chicken/beef (pretty good deals for local meat. On the list for next week's farmer's market!)

And I have to be honest, I got most of these recipes online. I wasn't feeling very creative this week. In my research, I came across this amazing website that seems like it's going to offer a lot of good ideas for future CSA box recipes, too. Score!

FRESH ORGANIC DELICIOUSNESS (Week 3)

Recipes from our CSA Box


Perfect Grilled Chicken
There's really not much to this. To grill a perfect chicken breast, the trick is to cut it in half. Just chop it down the middle so you have 2 chunks of breast. It cooks the chicken more evenly and quickly so that the edges don't dry out. You can marinate the chicken first--that always helps. I usually buy my chicken fresh, then freeze it in the marinade. As it thaws out, it soaks up the marinade so it's really juicy once cooked. It cooks on a hot grill for about 4 minutes per side.

Grilled Leeks

I got this idea from this website. It was amazing. I just cut in half lengthwise, chopped off the tops and discarded them, brushed with olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and grilled the leeks for about 5 minutes. Then I chopped them up and added them to the roasted potatoes. This will definitely be my go to recipe for leeks!

Perfect Grilled Chicken, Grilled Leeks, and Grilled Potatoes
Spring Salad with Mizuna, Radish, and Roasted Peppers

This recipe is adapted from this recipe from an amazing blog I stumbled across. On the blog, the recipe is for a fall salad. But I'm making it a spring salad. Why not?

Ingredients (serves 2 ~ 4)


* 1 bag of mizuna
* 1 bunch radishes, sliced
* 4~5 roasted peppers, thinly sliced **See below for roasting instructions
* goat cheese
* Balsamic vinegar and olive oil

Preparation

Tear mizuna into 2 inch sizes and put a bed of it on a large plate. You can also cut it but when you tear greens you create more fragmented area that soak up the flavor of dressing or sauce. Sprinkle the sliced radishes on the middle of the bed of mizuna. Top with roasted peppers, and crumbled goat cheese and drizzle balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

HOW TO ROAST PEPPERS

You can cut peppers in half and remove seeds or roast them whole. I usually roast them whole. Preheat broiler on high and cook peppers facedown on a baking sheet 15~20 minutes. I just set my kitchen timer to check them every 5 minutes. If cooking them whole, I rotate them periodically. When the skin is evenly blackened, remove from oven and put into a ziplock bag. Close the bag and it will steam inside. Supposedly this helps the skin come off. When they are cool enough to handle, peel off the skin. Cut the flesh away from the inner seeds, and use as you wish.

Bok Choy Gratin

Adapted from this recipe on Epicurious.com

Ingredients
· 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fine dry bread crumbs
· 2 1/2 lb bok choy (not baby), tough stem ends trimmed
· ½ onion, finely chopped
· 1 clove garlic, minced
· 5 tablespoons salted butter
· 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
· 1 1/4 cups 2% milk
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
· 2 oz cheddar cheese, coarsely grated (1/2 cup)
· 1/2 oz finely grated parmesan (1/4 cup)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 425°F. Lightly butter a 2-quart gratin dish and dust with 2 tablespoons bread crumbs.

Cut bok choy stems and center ribs into 1/2-inch pieces and coarsely chop leaves. Cook stems and ribs in a large pot of boiling salted water until just tender, about 5 minutes, then add leaves and cook 30 seconds. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water until cool enough to handle. Squeeze out excess water by handfuls.

Cook onion in 1 tablespoon butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat, stirring, until softened, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and bok choy and cook, stirring, until greens are coated with butter and onion, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread bok choy in baking dish.

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, then add flour and cook roux, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add milk in a slow stream, whisking constantly, and bring to a boil, whisking. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring, 5 minutes. Add salt, and pepper, then stir in cheddar and 2 tablespoons parmesan and pour evenly over bok choy.

Toss remaining 1/4 cup bread crumbs with remaining 2 tablespoons parmesan in a small bowl and blend in remaining 2 tablespoons butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle mixture evenly over gratin and bake in upper third of oven until bubbly and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

**I’m going to add some potato to this dish to make it heartier. I’m just going to dice it up and add to the boiling water.

Sausage, Spinach, Potato and Sweet Potato Hash

Finally--a recipe I came up with myself.

Ingredients
Organic chicken and apple sausage from Costco (or you can use any sausage, or even bacon)
Bag/bunch fresh spinach
3 sweet potatoes, diced
2 potatoes, diced
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced

Preparation
Heat olive oil over medium heat in a heavy pan. Add onions and cook until slightly soft. Meanwhile, microwave sweet and regular potatoes for approximately 6 minutes until softened (or boil and drain). Add to onions in pan, along with garlic. Cook until potatoes are soft, browned, and cooked through. Add sausage and cook until browned (you can cook this separately to make sure all the edges of the sausage are browned. That's how I like my sausage). Add spinach last, and cook until wilted. Enjoy!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

THOSE MAGICAL MOMENTS

There are those moments in life that are so nostalgic that when you think back upon them they make you smile and tear up at the same time. In those moments, there is no future and there is no past, and you are contentedly nuzzled in the present. When you remember those moments, you’re filled with magic, and you get a knot in your gut knowing that you can never have them back, but you are fulfilled knowing that you were lucky to have experienced them.

• Waking up on Christmas morning at 9 years old, and running down the stairs with your sisters, delighted at the presents lined up by the fireplace.

• Playing hide and go seek at 10 years old, alone with your thoughts in your hiding spot, your heart pumping at the thought of being discovered, and your mind clear in this moment to yourself.

• The last day of school, when the sun is out, there is a fresh breeze, and you and your friends are scattering out the door with the entire summer ahead of you, knowing that tomorrow you will sleep late, run in the grass, and swim in the lake.

• Your first time traveling around Europe without your parents, awestruck at the world that’s right at your fingertips.

• Waking up in your tent on a camping trip in the spring, with the warm cocoon of your sleeping bag nestled against your body, the sun on the horizon and the smell of campfire lingering in the atmosphere, and a fresh chill in the air that cleanses your soul with one breath.

• Your first road trip—a car packed to the brim, a map in your hands, wind in your hair, songs, laughter, and aimless chatter for miles and miles, hours and hours.

• Moving into your new house. Nothing on the walls, no dust in the corners, fixtures sparkling. A blank canvas that is all yours on which to make your mark.

• Waking up after your first night with your first baby, exhausted, but filled with new life, marveling at the little person you helped create—you just can’t get enough of him—sun streaming into the room, a quiet retreat from the world where you could stay forever, just the three of you.


Sunday, April 18, 2010

A BEAUTIFUL SUNNY SUNDAY

Well, it was another beautiful weekend in North Carolina, and we all spent the day outside. It was fabulous. I took a break from all of the hard work and sewing I've been doing and played outside with Baby T while Big T went fishing. And ok, we weren't just relaxing--Baby T and I worked on my garden.

This is what an outdoor table looks like when you're trying to entertain an 11 month old and garden at the same time: bubbles, a woven wrap, some coffee, some water, and some plants.


The garden after transplanting some seedlings




One of our rain barrels (made by Big T!)
Our tractor

Baby T and I watering the plants


Baby T looking cute

And... winding down after a long day.
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