Thursday, July 8, 2010

Summer Vegetables

3 months since I last wrote a blog entry! In a nutshell, here is what I have been doing:
and... my new "hobby" this summer has been...COOKING UP THE FRESH VEGGIES FROM OUR CSA.

We bought a share in Grant Family Farms CSA, which provides us with a weekly (big!) box of organic vegetables and a loaf of artisan bread. This week, we will start receiving fruit. It has become a sort of game for me to use up all the vegetables each week, or else freeze something for later so none of it goes to waste. It seems that since I have seen the farm, and met some people who work there, that it is much more important to me to actually eat them up properly. We have gone from a family who eats out or eats takeout 2-3 times a week, to a family who eats more than one green vegetable per meal, and we are dining out now more like once every two weeks.

Check out my mad cooking skills:

That's a Lasagna with farm-fresh spinach and whole-wheat pasta. I based it on a recipe from Rodale's Natural Food cookbook. I made this one, and one to freeze for someday when the fresh spinach is not coming every week.

A funny thing happened that doesn't happen with a box of baby spinach from the grocery...a large, fat caterpillar crawled out of my bunch of spinach. I can tell you, when I got through with my triple-and quadruple-washing and detailed inspection of every single leaf, I am certain there were no more little friends hiding out in there!

On my agenda for tomorrow is Kale and White Bean Soup, or maybe turkey burgers with green salad including fresh english peas (shelled by my children) and kohlrabi, which I've never even seen before yesterday, and certainly never tasted. If I find a fabulous way to cook it up, I'll give you a recipe link.

Knitting updates tomorrow. I am on a quest to "finish or frog" with the Stash and Burn podcast girls.

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