May 11, 2011 by Christine
A five-minute summary of my life.
- My house is full of spiders
- My counter is full of dishes
- Charlotte has been really hard to put to bed lately
- I have to read and be able to speak about 20 pages of academic literature before tomorrow
- Submitting final grades for the semester has had some unforeseen issues
- Car issues
- Laundry piled up
- I had to pull a tick off my kid yesterday.
- General extreme house messiness and dirtiness.
Happy Things:
- My tiny little container garden is flourishing.
- Presentation thing at school went well yesterday
- Micah brought Charlotte to yesterday's presentation thing just to support me. This was a really big deal and almost made me cry.
- Spoiling my kiddo with ice cream sundaes on warm Summer evenings.
- I get to participate in a conference tomorrow and Friday with national figures in my field. Feeling really blessed professionally to have this opportunity.
- Excited about this week's CSA food. I'll get around to posting about it eventually.
- Loving my little family more every day.
- Grateful for a partner in life who supports me when I struggle and understands the unique demands of the academic work I'm doing.
- House guests Sarah, Jeremy, and Caden arriving in a week!
- Playing at Lowe's Home Improvement with my family.
Life is a little crazy right now, but good!
May 10, 2011 by Christine
Well... I've now officially cooked one week from that big beautiful bounty of veggies. Here is the detailed list of the veggies I bought. 
The meals didn't all go exactly as planned, but we still had a lot of fresh green stuff this week.
Some of my initial thoughts:
- Wow, that is a lot of greens for (mostly) 2 people to eat in a week.
- I don't normally eat enough veggies.
- I'm not sure what to do with turnips.
- The thing about the greens again. Lots of salads this summer?
Here are the meals I tried this week.
Pierogies with green onion, mushroom, and parmesan in butter, beets and greens
The pierogies were fine, but nothing too special. The beets and greens recipe was good. Tasty, not overpowering. Biggest problem? Peeling the beets took forever.
Tuna salad sandwiches with lettuce and tomato, asparagus, turnip casserole
The tuna salad sandwiches were awesome.... toasted bread from the farmer's market, tuna salad from the Belted Goat (looked like it had dill and red onion), plenty of greens and tomatoes. The asparagus was just fine. I did it my favorite way- steamed, then drizzled with olive oil and lemon, topped with freshly ground salt and pepper. Then there was the turnip casserole, which I modified quite a bit, using both kohlrabi and turnip. I liked it ok. Micah disliked it. Charlotte said "hot" as her face turned red and started to break out in hives. I wish I was joking.
Finally, the Vegetable Samosas with Mint Chutney. I really loved this recipe. Micah liked it, too. Great way to use cilantro, mint, old carrots... just a yummy recipe. A little time-intensive, but good.
We had frozen pizza with salads a couple of nights. Nothing too exciting, just a tasty salad quickly when we were both busy. I'm saving the wilted turnip greens for tomorrow's lunch. I've done wilted spinach with feta and dried fruit before, so I anticipate that recipe being good
So, for this week...
The hit..... Vegetable Samosas with Mint Chutney.
The miss... turnip casserole that gave my daughter an allergic reaction.
We're in for more farm goodness tonight!
May 6, 2011 by Christine
A few pictures to show off what Charlotte has been doing between her parents' crazy busy schedules.
Can you tell what this is? Why, yes, it's a sunflower mask! I love this idea- so easy and Charlotte ADORES it. Look how proud she is.
May 4, 2011 by Christine
The First Farmer's Market Edition. So many green things, so little time.
Breakfast:
I didn't buy any real breakfast food at the market. I guess we'll stick to oatmeal/ 7-grain hot cereal this week.
Lunch/Dinner:
This week I'm not going to differentiate between the two. School will be finished for the semester this Friday... meaning the schedule that we've fallen into since January is getting turned around. So... these are just meals.
- Pierogies with green onion, mushroom, and parmesan in butter, beets and greens
- Burgers with lettuce and tomato, turnip casserole, side salads
- Fish (TBD when I visit the market Saturday) with asparagus, rice
- Vegetable Samosas with Mint Chutney
- Grilled cheese, chef's salads with greens, boiled eggs, tomato, cheese.
- Macaroni and cheese, wilted turnip greens with feta and cherries
Dessert/Snacks:
- Sliced raw kohlrabi
- Strawberry-Almond Cream Tart (If we have people over.)
May 3, 2011 by Christine
I went to my first Farmer's Market of the season tonight and might have gone a little overboard......
May 1, 2011 by Christine
In the coming weeks you can expect some changes to the weekly meal planning posts around here.&nbs...
April 29, 2011 by Christine
Okay, just a random assortment of pics from the last month. Wendy's Charlotte ate all the...
April 27, 2011 by Christine
Just a quickie to share a small family weekend adventure... Darlin' loves her cows! ...
April 25, 2011 by Christine
Gotta love food that is delicious AND good for you! I would like to incorporate quinoa (pronounced...
April 24, 2011 by Christine
I didn't cook much last week. I don't plan to cook much this week. And it's not just because I hat...
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