One of the things I love about the CSA boxes we’ve been getting is that they’re a mix of the known and unknown. That means that I can easily eat an apple or come up with a use for fresh basil–but I’m also forced to cook with ingredients that I wouldn’t necessarily pick up on my own. That means finding new recipes, which is sometimes frustrating but mostly fun.
So, what am I going to do with those beets?
Well, last week was a bear, wasn’t it?
Over the weekend, Baguette and Mr. Sandwich went to swim class and our regular playdate with Bestie, while I went to my alumni club’s annual lunch, which raises money for scholarships. I haven’t been able to go for the past several years–it’s been too long a time to leave Baguette–but this year we made it work.
On Sunday, I took Baguette over to see Mr. Sandwich’s parents, who had been out of town, and he went for a bike ride–something he hasn’t been able to do in a couple of months. So it was a weekend full of doing things we would like to do more often, which is pretty cool.
Yesterday, our second CSA box arrived, full of fresh fruits and vegetables. What was in this week’s box from Good Life Organics?
So last night, Baguette and I started out by snacking on some strawberries. Mr. Sandwich spiced up some chicken thighs and put them in the toaster/convection oven, and I cut up and boiled some potatoes. While the potatoes (and some garlic) cooked, I sliced up a zucchini and salted it. Then I sauteed it in coconut oil with more garlic (we love our garlic), adding lemon zest and lemon juice right at the end. I mashed the potatoes with the skins on and sprinkled the zucchini with parmesan. Presto, a fresh spring dinner!
Today, Baguette and I are taking more of the strawberries to eat during our respective days–me with my yogurt and granola for breakfast, and her with her macaroni and cheese (by the way, we’re trying some other brands in the hope of reducing food dyes) for lunch.
I’m trying to decide how to use the remaining zucchini–should I make a soup with my remaining meatballs and tortellini? Or should I slice it up for zucchini chips?
And if anyone has a great, easy recipe for chard, I’m all ears!
Baguette’s day care has become a delivery point for a CSA program. For those of you not familiar with CSA programs, they’re basically a way to get food from local farmers without all that aggravating hassle of going to the farmers’ market.
(We actually live quite close to a very nice farmers’ market. I used to go every week. Then Baguette started eating produce in the grocery store, and I can’t inflict that on farmers.)
This farm delivers every other week and offers a few different options. I opted to get 1/2 of a “Family Box”, because it seemed like a good way to test the waters . . . er . . . produce. After all, I don’t want to find yet another way to pay for food that we don’t eat. There’s too much of that going around already.
This week was our first delivery. What did we get?
All well and good, but what does that look like?
I started off by eating an apple, because that’s easy. It takes no creativity or skill to eat an apple.
Then I upped my game a bit to have a kale smoothie. Kale, apple juice, fresh lemon juice, and honey, with a few ice cubes.
It was pretty tasty, but I don’t think my blender is optimized for kale. I’d drink (well, really, guzzle, because I’m able to eat dinner at exactly the point in the evening when Baguette insists on me holding her) some of it and then after a moment realize that I now had a mouthful of minced kale. Which needed to be chewed.
Mr. Sandwich checked out the box o’ food and said, “Let’s have carrots and peas tomorrow night. I’ll make fish, if that’s okay.”
I think that’ll be just fine.
Mr. Sandwich had his second surgery today, to separate the graft. The surgeon tells us that it looks like the grafts took 100%, which is a relief. It’ll be more of a relief when his pain goes away, and his stitches come out.
While I was waiting to pick up his prescriptions, I had lunch at a nearby restaurant. The signage was a little confusing. Is it Amer’s Falafel? California Mediterranean Grill? Well, the menu clears this up: California Mediterranean Grill by Amer’s Falafel.
I had the falafel plate (hey, falafel is right there in the name of the place!), which came with a vast number of tiny balls of falafel and three sides.
The falafel was good, but the sides were the stars. The rice wasn’t particularly distinctive, but the avocado salad was delicious. What really stood out, though, was the hummus. Smooth, creamy, flavorful…this is the best hummus I’ve ever had. It was so good that I got a side order to go, so that I can have more over the weekend.
The good news is that there are lots of places to get Mediterranean food in this area, which means that I can compare versions of hummus. But Amer’s Falafel has set the bar pretty high.
Saturday morning I ran a bunch of errands. On my way home, I passed Mr. Sandwich on his way out for a long ride. I continued home and lounged around on the bed reading magazines (normally I lounge around on the couch to read magazines, but the carpet was still drying, and the couch had some extra stacks of things to be sorted, with nowhere else for them to go). Mr. Sandwich came back, and we headed up to Santa Clarita for dinner with friends. They grilled steaks and tater tots, and I made a tomato-avocado salad and roasted asparagus. After dinner we played board games and stayed up much too late talking.
On Sunday, we went to the real estate office and signed still more papers to raise our offer. After looking at (and eliminating) a few more houses, Mr. Sandwich and I decided that we couldn’t waste such an unusually clear summer day. We went on a long drive through Malibu, and then across town and along the spine of Mullholland Drive. The views into the valley were stunning (see earlier post for shaky video). And it was the perfect end to the weekend.