More CSA Cooking!

Things I need to work on:

1. Cleaning

2. Laundry

3. Working out

4. My food photography skillz ... or lack thereof.

I am seriously almost embarrassed to post these photos. Food bloggers seem to have the most amazing food photographs ... so perhaps my new goal will be to work on that! I think the first stop towards achieving beautiful food photographs is to use natural light.

Whoops.

Well, here is tonight's dinner, somewhat courtesy of my CSA:

It consisted of eggs, Laughing Cow light swiss cheese wedges, caramelized onions and mushrooms, and wilted beet greens. On the side: a piece of that soggy sesame bread we got (don't worry, it's not soggy anymore) toasted with some Maranatha almond butter.

It looks incredibly ... brown and boring and stuff. But in reality, it was delicious!!!! Pinky swear.

I also roasted the beets and now they are marinating overnight with some onions in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, sea salt, and a drizzle of honey.

Here is the worst photo ever of my bowl of beets. It's so dark!

I picked up some organic strawberries today and they looked so perfect that we had to eat some right away. So, for dessert: vanilla bean ice cream with strawberries, drizzled with this chocolate balsamic vinegar. Which was absolutely incredibly amazing.

Mmmmm.

Tomorrow for lunch: greens with the marinated beets and some feta. CSAs RULE!

CSA Week 1: Kale. And Kale. And some other stuff.

I seem to have lost some of my food photography skillz since last summer ... I will try to work on making my veggies prettier. :)

Matt and I drove to pick up our very first CSA share of the season on Friday, and I was so very excited! Except that it was pouring rain. And our (cardboard) box of food sits outside in someone's driveway for pickup. And when I got there, I saw that there was a loaf of bread inside. In a paper bag. A very, very wet loaf of bread. But hey, there it is! You can almost see it. This week, we received:

-Kale! Some really curly small-leaf kale. I forgot to take a photo of it before I made it into kale chips (recipe below) - which are in that plastic bag in the last photo.

-More kale! A different kind of kale. I forgot to get it out of the fridge for the photo, so just imagine MORE KALE.

-A half loaf of soggy sesame seed bread. Okay, it didn't end up being very soggy, and tasted very good heated up with some almond butter. Yums.

-BEETS!!!! Yes, I really am that excited about the darn beets. I used to think I hated beets ... then I got some in last year's CSA, learned how to roast them, and realized that they are one of my new favorite things. These beets are pretty weeny, but I am looking forward to roasting them tomorrow and having them with some salad. Yums.

-Greens - beautiful, beautiful salad greens. Seriously - don't they look fresh and delicious? I cannot wait to make myself a good salad Monday for dinner while Matt is at a decades-long group meeting for grad school.

Last year, the CSA share started kind of weak, with only salad stuff and other greens, and gained momentum as the growing season progressed. I am really looking forward to all of this deliciousness!

I got lots of kale last year, and never really knew what to do with it. Unfortunately, a lot of it went bad before I figured out what to do. But not this year! I am determined to not let ANY of this produce go bad. I had heard about kale chips last summer, but just never got around to making them. But since I had not one, but TWO giant bunches of kale, I decided to give it a shot yesterday. I went with a recipe from Smitten Kitchen:

Kale Chips

Ingredients:

kale (duh)

extra virgin olive oil (I used spray evoo because that's all I had on hand - worked great)

sea salt

aaaand of course I added a little garlic as well

Preheat oven to 300.

Wash and dry kale in a salad spinner to get out all the moisture (I had done this the night before, so the kale was nice and dry already). Cut or rip into bite-size pieces, removing the thick stems. Toss in olive oil, sea salt and whatever other herbs/spices you would like, and lay on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Or not. I am out of parchment paper so I didn't use any, but I guess that would have been easier for clean-up.

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until crispy. Mine were perfect at 15 minutes - and wow, I was really surprised about how fantastic they are. They really satisfy the salty chip craving - only it's kale! Which is amazingly good for you, and has a ton of health benefits. I am hooked, and I'll definitely be using the pounds and pounds of kale we get this spring to make kale chips!

Day 2!

Hey, look! I'm here again! For the second night in a row! Weird, right?

To be honest, I've got nothing. I just finished writing two posts for FF and now it's bedtime. But I am really trying to get back in the habit of blogging - I remember when I used to just LOVE sitting down to blog and I want to get that feeling back! - so I am going to leave you with a photo of my two main men:

Oscar LOVES to be picked up. Duh.

Guess what happens tomorrow? Week One of our 2011 CSA share! This season, I hope to actually blog about our CSA every week ... you know, like I did last year. Ha. Ha ha. Okay, so that didn't really happen. But I'm certainly going to try. Wish me luck!

Tap tap tap

...is this thing on?

I seriously don't know why I never want to blog on here anymore. Well, actually, I do. It's because I blog six days a week over at Fantabulously Frugal, and then I don't feel like blogging over here.

But, stuff is happening. Matt's been home almost 6 months! Which is insanity.

Oh, and I got a second job! Yes, job #2. Because one just isn't enough, right? I am working for a home health company as their social worker, doing in-home assessments and stuff. I got hired a few weeks ago but still haven't had a visit to do, so I can't say much about that, I guess.

In other news ... I am just trying to make it to SUMMER! When my schedule goes back to working part-time. And sleeping in. I have been so exhausted lately ... and this is that tough stretch of school between spring break and summer when there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. My kiddos at school have been acting up ... I've had 6 students in court in the last 8 days. Ridiculous.

And ... I just remembered another reason why I haven't blogged over here for awhile - I don't have anything to say! I need to try to get back in the habit of blogging ... how does one do that, exactly? Any suggestions?