What's Cooking 5.25-5-31

This is going to be a busy week for me (more on that later!) - so I'm keeping it simple with one shopping trip to one store and a simple menu plan.

I spent a whopping $98.89 at Earth Fare, our pricey whole foods store, and includes food and alcohol for our party this Friday.

Not all of the food made it to the picture, though, because my husband and son put the party food in the basement before I noticed and I wasn't going to bring it back up again.

"Keep It Simple" is my motto this week.



Here's What's Cooking:

Monday:
Memorial Day Parties
2 of Them!
The Joys of Summer Begin!

Tuesday:
I'll be at my mom's all day to declutter and organize her home. (Did you know this is one of my passions?)
I'm bringin' home some of mom's home cookin'.

Wednesday: (Market Day again!)
First Late Night at the Pool! And they have gas grills! It's gonna be smokin'hot!
Hickory Nut Gap Farm Bratwursts
Homemade Whole Wheat Rolls
Grilled Peppers and Onions
Green Salad

Thursday:
Whole Wheat Pizza (Homemade dough and sauce)
with Spinach and Pepperoni
Green Salad

Friday:
Margaritas with a Mission
We're hosting a party! (More about the mission later!)
Margaritas and Mexican beer
Tamales (Chicken with Green Salsa, Vegetarian, and some for the kiddos without chile)
Mexican Black Beans
Chips and Salsa

Saturday:
Leftovers

Sunday:
Whole Wheat Pancakes
Turkey Sausage
Grapefruit

Chicken Love

I'm in the hospital today for a 24-hour call shift and it is busy, so I am going to leave you mostly with pictures that tell a wonderful story.

Here's what I have time to write: I love our chickens.

We live in a fairly urban area where you are more likely to hear the booming of a car's stereo, or the buzzing of a scooter, than something more bucolic, like the sounds of happy chickens.

Chickens are amazing! They magically convert veggie scraps to, wonder of all wonders, food! (And a *whole* lot of compost!)

Their excited clucking when I bring them treats will get me out of bed on even the coldest and rainiest mornings.

They practically crow when they lay eggs - you can hear them from a block away! - with what sounds like a combination of delight and surprise. And the other girls chime right in with what sounds like the most appreciative praise.

And I'm not the only one who loves our chickens:










I don't think these pictures really do our biddy beauties justice, because it was a little crazy in the hen house with all those little ones around. I feel lucky to have been able to capture just a bit of the sweet story.

This week I'm rejoicing in chicken love.

Food Waste for the Week

I didn't manage to get in a post on our food waste last week. We had a portion of a green pepper go bad, but I didn't have time to document it. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

I am happy to report, though, that there is no waste this week!

And I'm even happier to report that the kohlrabi curse has been broken! I feel a bit like the fellow in Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham who grumpily maintained that he did not like green eggs and ham - only to learn on the last page that he did "SO like them" that he would eat them with a mouse, and he would eat them in a house...

Okay, so you know I have a 4-year-old son, right? This book gets a lot of play in our home.

But the point is we do SO like them! We cut up the greens and put them in with the kale for our spaghetti on Thursday and we've been eating the root portion, peeled and sliced or diced in our salads.

They do taste very much like the peeled stalk of broccoli, but a little sweeter - like a mix between broccoli stalk and jicama.

Try them! Try them! You will see!

Full Sun Farm 2nd Week!

Here's what we got:

Lettuce, Green Leaf or Red Leaf
Spinach, 1/2 lb.
Sugar Snap Peas, 1 pint
Kohlrabi
Bok Choy
Red Russian Kale
Garlic Scapes
Strawberries, 1 pint


What? No Swiss Chard? We got a beautiful and tasty bunch of Rainbow Chard last week and I was really hoping to make Alice Waters' Gratin. Such are the vagaries of the farmers' market - what is plentiful one week is absent the next.

If you read my blog last year you know that kohlrabi was the bane of my market experience. We get it for many weeks at the beginning and end of the growing season - it seems you can always count on the dreaded kohlrabi!




So what is my problem with kohlrabi? It's so freaky looking!

Actually, I realize at the present moment it doesn't look so freaky, but the root portion is really tough and reminds me of an almost non-nutritive and practically inedible tuber found in Haiti that is mashed into a paste and forms a staple of the diet.

Now, I've never been to Haiti, but the stories I've heard obviously made quite an impression!

In the past, before the food waste challenge, I would chop it up and feed it to our chickens and they seemed happy enough.

This year, though, I'm determined to find out more about this odd root vegetable and ways to prepare it. To that end I finally asked my farmers about it and they, as always, were very helpful.

Here's what they had to say:

It is a Brassica, and is therefore related to broccoli and kale, both of which it slightly resembles.

Think of the greens as tender kale leaves, and prepare them as such. The bulb from which the leaves grow can be thought of as a swollen broccoli stem, but its taste is sweeter, and more refreshing. (My note: Huh! You don't say!)

If this is your first experience with kohlrabi, don't cook any until you have tried it raw; peel the bulb and cut it into sticks or coins for easy eating. If you're ready to cook, kohlrabi can be steamed whole or halved, and is also easy to dice and saute or stir-fry. To use the entire plant in one dish, try this easy recipe:

1 lb. kohlrabi, including greens
1/2 lb. onions, chopped small
olive oil
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated cheese
salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Peel kohlrabi and cut into small chunks. Saute in oil with onion until onion is golden. Add kohlrabi greens, cut into ribbons, and continue cooking until wilted.

Meanwhile, grease a baking dish. Put cooked Kohlrabi mixture into dish, top with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake 10-15 minutes. If you want to incorporate more greens, dice the stems of this week's kale along with the kohlrabi, and cut the leaves into ribbons along with the kohlrabi greens.

I'll let you know how it turns out and if I've managed to shake the Kohlrabi Curse!

What's Cooking 5.18-5.24

As you saw from my post last Wednesday, my trip to the Farmers' Market yielded abundant greens. I added greens to our salads, soups, sandwiches, eggs, stir-fry, and juice and they were delicious!

This week I spent $45.14 at Amazing Savings and $30.82 at Green Life for a grand total of $75.96.

I bought 3 dozen organic/free-range eggs because they were on an amazing sale (Buy 2 for $1.29 and get 1 free) and we depleted the supply of our home-grown eggs over the weekend. I plan to do a lot of baking in the next week to use up this surplus and my husband and son are very excited by the prospect.

As you can see I bought very little vegetable produce this week, just a few to add to my juices before I get back to the market again this Wednesday. (Can't wait!)






Here's what we're eating this week: (See a theme? Lots and Lots of Greens!)

Monday: (My mom sent us home from dinner at her house with leftover chicken and we will be using it up in this delicious recipe)
Green Chili
Brown Rice
Green Salad

Tuesday: (Back in the hospital for 24 hours)
Leftovers

Wednesday: (Market Day, Hooray!)
Tofu Stir-Fry
with lots of greens in the mix!
Brown Rice

Thursday:
Garlic and Oil Spaghetti with Greens
Green Salad

Friday:
Pizza (with homemade crust and sauce)
Spinach and Pepperoni
Green Salad

Saturday:
Very Easy Vegetarian Sloppy Joes (we didn't have these last week because of a visit with my family)
Homemade Whole Wheat Rolls
Sweet Potato "Fries"
Spinach Salad

Sunday:
Asparagus-Ricotta Frittata
Roasted Potatoes and Garlic
Spinach Salad

The Dolce Far Niente

In Italian "dolce far niente" literally means "sweet doing nothing."

Isn't it delightful that a culture values pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness so much that they have a common expression for it?!

I try to make every Sunday a dolce-far-niente-kind-of-day, but the last few weeks have been quite full of activity. Full of wonderful doing, mind you, but doing none-the-less.

Today has been wonderfully unstructured. We didn't *have to* do anything or be anywhere.

We had friends over for a lovely brunch of local, free-range eggs and homemade cinnamon rolls. We took a walk in the rain. We played hide-and-seek. We read stories.

My husband and son are playing soccer in the rain at this very moment. I'm going to join them.

Today I'm rejoicing in the dolce far niente.

Your Most-Trusted Advisor

At the end of Sue Ludwig’s insightful essay about how our bodies desire and seek balance she asked, “What does your body teach you about balance?”

I consider my body my most-trusted advisor. I think it assimilates information from the Universe that I can’t understand fully at first. You see, I know the Universe wants my best life, but sometimes I don’t heed its advice – sometimes I’m convinced I don’t even hear it.

It’s like Oprah says: Life sends you messages - first it will put a pebble in your path, then a rock, and then a brick wall. If I don’t hear the plink of the pebble, the rock shows up - usually as a bodily symptom. I pay attention because I really want to avoid hitting that brick wall.

My one quibble with Sue’s essay is when she states that our bodies don’t do drama. I’ve noticed that if I ignore its message, mine is quite capable of drama. In fact, I’ve seen my body produce some Oscar-worthy performances.

I work as a nurse-midwife in a hospital. I consult with physicians when I am caring for a woman who is considered high-risk and occasionally I don’t agree with the physician’s plan for managing a particular case.

One night I told a doctor that I was disinclined to follow his plan and he responded by saying, “That’s why I’m here, to tell you what to do.” Those weren’t his exact words, but you get the point.

I knew the doctor’s plan was not going to cause harm and I didn’t want further conflict, so I followed his orders. Within a few hours I lost my voice. My throat hurt and I couldn’t speak above a whisper.

As soon as I got home I looked up laryngitis in my well-worn copy of Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life. I believe the book provides clues to understanding the messages underlying an illness. If you decipher these messages and, more importantly, act on them by changing your thinking, you will improve your life.

For laryngitis she writes that the probable cause is “So mad you can’t speak. Fear of speaking up. Resentment of authority.” I was struck by the truth of this: I was mad. I had been afraid to speak up to the doctor. And I resented that he didn’t seem to value my expertise.

The new thought pattern she offers is “I am free to ask for what I want. It is safe to express myself. I am at peace.” I drank it up like a healing balm and got my voice back quickly after that.

The affirmation also helped me gain insight into the fact that I don’t need to compel the doctors to agree with me or even to see my side. All I can do is use my best judgment and present a plan of care.

For me, being at peace means that my worth is not predicated on others valuing me. I value me.

Since that epiphany I’ve had other differences of opinion with my physician colleagues but I haven’t had that sense that my value as a practitioner was diminished. And I’ve never lost my voice again.

You don’t need a copy of Louise Hay’s book (although I highly recommend it!) because all you really need to know is that if you ignore the wisdom available to you, your body can create a painful drama.

The Universe wants you to know that you are worthy of love and respect and you can have a life filled with health and happiness – you just have to listen.

Do you think there is anything your body is trying to tell you at this moment?