Month: June 2008

Week’s Eats

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

mpm8.jpg

After several days of eating out, I am glad to be cooking at home again! Here’s my plan for this week:

Sunday, June 29
@ my parents for most of the day
pizza for dinner

Monday, June 30
B: Cheerios, milk, fruit
L: Running errands, grab something out
D: Chicken parm, spaghetti, salad

Tuesday, July 1
B: Waffles & sausage or yogurt & granola
L: Hot dogs, chips, sliced raw veggies
D: Grilled London Broil, “kohl-slaw,” (bumped kohlrabi slaw from last week) baked beans

Wednesday, July 2
B: Cereal, milk, fruit
L: Grilled cheese sandwiches, fruit salad
D: Roasted chicken, some sort of vegetable, dilled potato salad

Thursday, July 3
B: Eggs and bacon
L: Soup and salads
T: Quesadillas (cheese for the boys, chicken for us), black bean salad

Friday, July 4:
B: Zucchini muffins (from freezer) with cream cheese, fruit
4th of July!!! BBQ at my MIL’s

Saturday, July 5:
B: Cereal, milk, fruit or yogurt & granola
L: Leftovers/fend for yourself
D: Pizza night (Cheese or pepperoni/black olive for the boys; Buffalo chicken or BBQ chicken/bacon for us)

For more menu ideas, visit Heavenly Homemakers, who is taking over for Organizing Junkie while she is away.

Quick Hello

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

We’re back from spending the weekend at my parents and everyone is just exhausted! It was a lovely time, though. Dinner at The Federal was awesome (more on that later). Drew and I walked around the campuses of our alma maters (Amherst College and UMass, respectively). Enjoyed some fun time with the fam. And now we’re back home. More on everything later! I also am super excited about the box of old canning jars my dad got for me. I have so many ideas swirling around in my head for them… they’re such a versitile decorative item and putting anything in the from seashells to silk flowers makes them look so cool. Tomorrow I’ll wash them out and play around, but tonight we are going to be putting the boys to bed and just crashing!

CSA Distribution #5

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

CSA distribution - Week 5

Tuesdays seem to come so fast! Yesterday’s might be the prettiest share yet, though. We brought home two heads of lettuce, three turnips, two heads of broccoli, six stems of basil, five garlic scapes, a bunch of scallions, one zucchini, one kohlrabi, pick-your-own peas, and a flower bouquet. I didn’t take any bok choi or Chinese cabbage. No sense in it if it’s not going to get eaten. We also bought a dozen organic eggs because they were so yummy last week.

Obviously, this is a super-easy share to use up. I’m going to actually make zucchini muffins (inspired by Dara) today with the zucchini from this week and last’s week’s share. I’m not feeling so much like fish tonight, so I am thinking of making a veggie-ranch pizza for dinner with the broccoli. We’ll see. Lettuce for salads, turnips for salads, scallions and basil for everything!!! I’ll make slaw with the kohlrabi. My parents will get to enjoy a good bit of this as I’m bringing some up to them this weekend: lettuce, peas, broccoli, and maybe some scapes. Good eats!

Week’s Eats

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

mpm8.jpg

OK, here we go! It’s Monday, and I’m trying to get back on track with life. Last week was like a mini vacation after selling the store. Lots of fun and relaxing and eating out, but obviously that doesn’t last forever. It’s been challenging participating in MPM because we pick up our farm share on Tuesdays, and I never quite know what I’m going to get. I try to guess by reading the farm interns’ blogs, but I’m not always right 😉 I’ve given up on the weird greens and instead offered them to the outdoor critters. I’m sure they will enjoy them. There’s no point in forcing myself to eat something I hate. We always get way more lettuce than we can handle, so I’d rather focus on eating salads full of veggies I enjoy, you know? At any rate, this is what we will tentatively be eating.

Breakfasts:

Cereal & milk, yogurt and granola, waffles & sausage, or eggs & Canadian bacon

Lunches:

Big salads, tuna “wraps” using lettuce, leftovers

Dinners:

Mo: Chicken picatta, pasta salad with olives and red onions, steamed broccoli (from CSA)
Tu: Spaghetti & meatballs, tossed salad (greens from CSA)
We: Baked stuffed sole, sauteed zucchini, peas, and squash (from CSA)
Th: Dinner salads or something equally light. We’re celebrating Jake’s last day of school at the Pizza Hut lunch buffet (gift card from credit card points!), so we probably won’t be too hungry
Fr: Dinner at The Federal with Mike & Kathy (can’t wait for this!!!)
Sa: ??? Either eating out or at my parents’
Su: Hamburgers, slaw (possibly getting kohlrabi in tomorrow’s share, we’ll see), baked beans

If nothing else, it’s a guideline, right? For more menu plan ideas, visit Organizing Junkie.

I Can’t Like Everything, I Guess

Posted on by — 9 Comments ↓

I consider myself a relatively adventurous eater in that I will try almost anything once. I don’t promise to like it, of course, but I’ll try it. I’m also not all that picky. Pickier than my husband, yes, but in general I feel that I do okay. However, I have to come clean and admit that I am really not into the Chinese cabbage and bok choi from our farm share. I like the bok choi stalks — the crunchy white parts. The texture and taste actually reminds me a bit of water chestnuts. But the leafy part? Not so much. And the Chinese cabbage? Not at all. The flavor is so much stronger than I expected raw, and I didn’t like the texture in the stir-fry I made for lunch. I feel guilty, like I should like these things because they’re so beautiful and healthful. But the fact is, I just don’t like them one bit. Drew isn’t so crazy either.

So I don’t know what to do with them now. I might leave a few stalks out for the bunny that has been hanging out around the house and see if he might enjoy them. I hate wasting food, but I guess on the bright side, if we end up not eating them, at least they’ll be feeding our compost bin which will provide great fertilizer for our plants. What are some things you feel like you should like, but you just don’t?

I Missed It *Again*!

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

Even though I know who won the current season of “Top Chef,” I still want to catch the last episode and I keep missing it. Last night was no exception. I saw that Bravo was running a bunch of the episodes and then I got distracted by something else and forgot to tune in when the last episode re-ran. I’ve really enjoyed this season a lot. One of the reasons was because a woman I worked with at the Dorset Theatre Festival years ago had a cameo on it! Did you see the Second City episode? The girl that read off everything at the end is my friend Amanda! It was really cool seeing her on television. I’ve also enjoyed learning about Chicago restaurants. I was there many years ago, briefly, for a trade show and I’ve always wanted to go back. Someday I’ll be able to pull out the Chicago travel guides and plan a trip, but not now. At any rate, hopefully I’ll see the finale at some point! I’m curious how it all plays out. I’ve avoided reading any Top Chef-related blogs because I don’t want to know all the details, LOL!

CSA Distribution #4

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

CSA Distribution #3

If it’s Tuesday, you know what that means… CSA day! Yesterday was a gorgeous day and there were tons of people picking up early like we were. Pick-up on Tuesdays is from 4-6, and I usually go right around 4. The past few weeks there haven’t been too many people yet but yesterday it was actually crowded! Very cool. I did see Nate, who writes From the Ground Up, but unlike last week when it was quiet and I was able to chat with Erin, this week there was a lot going on, so I didn’t want to bother anyone – I just let him get on with his work. But anyway, hi! 🙂

This week we got two enormous (and I mean ENORMOUS) heads of lettuce, a head of ENORMOUS Chinese cabbage, a huge head of bok choi, one zucchini, one squash, 5 garlic scapes, pick-your-own peas, 5 heads of broccoli, and 3/4-lb spinach (which I actually passed on this week because I am just spinached-out). The pick-your-own peas was a lot of fun and Jake discovered that he loves (and I mean loves) peapods! How could you not, though? They’re so sweet and yummy. We also bought a dozen eggs from Thunderhill Farm. I don’t remember seeing them there before, but I hope they continue to be sold because it’s convenient and man, those eggs were delicious this morning! They’re over in Stanfordville too so I might need to check them out for poultry.

At any rate, there will of course be lots of salads with the lettuce. I think I’m going to make Dara’s Sweet Sesame Cabbage and Radish Slaw with the Chinese cabbage and I’m going to sautee the bok choi with garlic and olive oil and serve both with pork tenderloin later this week. I still have scapes from last week and thought I’d make a small batch of pesto, but Drew’s not so hot on that, so instead I’m going to make a compound butter with them to keep in the freezer for a very mild garlic bread. I might use more bok choi, cabbage, and peas for a stir-fry this weekend with leftover pork. I’ll make a quick zucchini-squash sautee with parmesan cheese (maybe add canned tomatoes too). And the broccoli will be eaten raw or steamed as a simple side dish.

By the way, I am finding so many great recipes in The Vegetarian Epicure. If you’re finding yourself stumped, see if your library has it! (Note to Dara: there are a bunch of chard recipes in there that sound great, including a crepe recipe!)

Well, I need to get crackin’ and cleaning. This afternoon D.’s dad and brother are visiting. His dad is up from Miami for a few days so that will be fun seeing him! I also would like to take down some of my spring decorations and make it a bit more summery. Have a delightful day!

Ah! So Much Accomplished!

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

library haul

You know those days when you somehow manage to get a ton of stuff done? Yeah, today was one of ’em. On a spur of the moment, Drew’s mom offered to take Noah for the day (Drew picked him up on the way home from work), so that meant I had the majority of the day all to myself. I decided to take advantage of this and use my time wisely and run a number or errands that I had been putting off. First thing, I scheduled a doctor’s appointment. I am way overdue, and was happy to get one with a doctor I really like! Then I headed to the library where I registered Jake for summer camp. The librarian also helped me fix my PIN number so now I can reserve books online 🙂 I founds some great books to check out including a wonderful vegetarian cookbook that should help me with ideas for CSA produce.

Next stop: Goodwill, where I dropped off a bunch of books and clothing donations. We’re slowly making our way through all the stuff we had “decluttered.” During the winter, I gave a bunch of baby stuff, including the boys’ old baby bedding to a donation our church was having, so that worked out really well! I also lucked out in the thrifting department. I’d been wanting one of these kinds of planters with the three small pots and the long catch tray, but the ones I’ve liked were all too pricey, but I found this one at Goodwill, brand-new-still-shrinkwrapped, for all of $5. Original pricetag, $19.99. I then picked up some herbs (sage, rosemary, and lemon thyme) at Walmart and couldn’t stop sniffing all afternoon.

herb garden

It was a good day 🙂

Spam totals for today

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I decided to take a good look at all the spam that finds its way into my e-mail in-box and for the sake of curiosity I categorized it. Here’s how it broke down:

2 e-mail messages about nuphedrine weight loss pills
2 e-mail messages about winning a Panasonic HD TV
3 e-mail messages about a “blue sexy pill” (what the heck is that?)
4 e-mail messages about payday loans
6 e-mail messages alerting me that I need to pickup my Walmart Gift Card
12 e-mail messages related to real estate of some sort

… And that’s when I got bored. Seriously, do people really respond to these things? Aren’t they clued in by now? I guess someone is responding because the volume of these solicitations hasn’t decreased. Luckily, I have a junk mail folder and rarely loook at this stuff unless I have nothing else to blog about! 😉

Lap Books

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

Although Jake’s last day of school isn’t until the 26th, I’m trying to get some activities together that we can do over the summer. One thing that I thought would be fun is doing a few lapbooks. I had never heard of these until I saw them mentioned on a blog by a homeschooling friend, and I couldn’t believe how cool they are! I wish I had known about them when I was really into paper crafts a few years ago, because they (can) use a lot of cool paper folding techniques. I think this will be a great way to get Jake to continue working on his reading and writing, plus incorporate his interests. For example, the last few times he went to the school library, he was checking out books about parrots and toucans, so I thought it might be cool to do a lapbook on rainforests for our first one. We’ll go to the library and check out some Amazon books, print out some pictures that we find online, and put together a really neat book that he’ll enjoy looking at because he made it himself! I was looking at photos of finished lapbooks on Flickr and he was really excited about them, so I think this is a project we’re both looking forward to. Have any of you ever done lapbooks with your kids?