{pretty, happy, funny, real}

It has been a stormy Thursday, so good for the farmers and gardens.  Our house has weathered 130 years of storms. 
I am closing in on a full year since working full time, outside the home.  There are things I miss and things I don't, but seeing what a sponge my little boy is makes me think hard.

A relative regifted me this quilt when I graduated from Notre Dame.  The bright blue never went with any of my bedroom schemes, so I used it inside a duvet or with the plain backing side up- a matelasse  sort of effect.  I wa originally going to rebind it, but realized I had enough scraps to appliqué over the blue.  I have about 30 hours of work to finish it.

I am also expanding what was a twin hand pieced duvet into a queen.  

It's slow going- I haven't done much sewing since I learned to knit in 2008.

We made pizza on the grill this week.  Everyone had their own pizza, which also made them easier to turn and saved me from the simultaneity of someone moaning about olives and somebody eating them.  Win, win, win!

CSA: Week Three

Grape tomatoes

Regular tomatoes

Spinach

Kohlrabi

Beets

Onions (red and walla walla)

Broccoli

(Plus a bonus mint plant and farm eggs!)

Grape tomatoes: stuffed with herbed cream cheese

Tomatoes: Pearl Couscous with Tomatoes from American Masala

Onions: used in cooking

Broccoli and kohlrabi: cooked poriyal style 

Beets: roasted on the grill, served with blue cheese

Spinach: tossed in pasta carbonara

CSA: Week Two

 

Week two had a lot of green: cabbage, sugar snap peas, snow peas, leaf lettuce, and cherry tomatoes.

How this week's produce was used: 

Cabbage: Slow cooker cabbage rolls.  I did brown the pork first for better flavor.

Leaf lettuce: Side salads again.

Sugar snap peas: Eaten raw.  

Tomatoes: Another recipe from Suvir Saran, this time from Masala Farm: Pasta with popped tomatoes. The butcher was out of slab bacon so I subbed hard salami.Through a little couponing I was able to get a packet of fresh pasta for 60 cents, and that really made the meal.

Snow peas: They were a little hard for my toddler to manage whole last week. This week, I plan to blanch them and serve with home made hummus.

CSA: Week One

 

Our town's CSA started up last week.  As you can see, we received spring onions, cauliflower, leaf lettuce, strawberries, snow peas, and spinach.  Not bad for a county that had snow in May!

How I used the produce:

Spring onions: Aside from Vidalias, there is a dearth of onions in the grocery store until the new crop comes in.  I've been using the spring onions wherever one would use regular onions.

Cauliflower: Roasted with cardamom, mustard seeds, and red pepper flakes, from Suvir Saran's American Masala.  If you don't like cauliflower, try it roasted before you give up on it. 

Leaf lettuce: As side salads, dressed with a little lemon and olive oil.

Snow peas and spinach: A rustic pasta primavera.  I dropped the pods into the pasta water just before I drained it and put the spinach in the bottom of the colander.  Then I tossed the whole mixture with olive oil and grated Parmesan cheese.

Strawberries: Freezer jam.  I enjoy hot water bath canning, but I haven't been happy with my last few batches of strawberry jam.  The extra 10-15 minutes of cooking saps the ruby color and translucence. Freezer jam it is!