Public Service Announcement

June 14, 2010

Generally speaking, on any given night I can be found lying on the couch, watching the home shopping network (judge away, it won't change me), and snacking on something fabulous like BBQ potato chips, or mini Three Musketeers bars, or BBQ chips crushed up and sprinkled on top of Three Musketeers bars.

Last night, when my husband slipped out of the house to watch the Celtics game with his brother, I had every intention of eating my regular snack. But let me tell you, the strangest thing happened. Behold:

That's right. I channeled my inner Dwight Schrute and I snacked on beets. Orange marinated beets with bleu cheese to be exact. I'm shocked to tell you that Dwight's really onto something, because oh my word, that crap was some good. But as tasty as they were, I feel like I can't encourage anyone else to eat beets until I leave you with the following Public Service Announcement:

Beets will turn your pee maroon. You will think that you are dying. Unless you have a pre-existing condition, you are probably not.

Now go eat your beets.

In keeping with the theme of beets and bleu cheese, today's lunch was left over pasta topped with sauteed beet greens and bleu cheese. Fantastical:

Beet greens aren't nearly as disgusting as I thought they'd be. When I cooked them I was expecting the flavor of grass clippings mixed with spinach mixed with those tear jerker candies from seventh grade. I was wrong, they tasted more like vegan angel wings.

And for dinner, I once again defiled the bok choy with cheap conenience food--but daaaammmmmnnnn, it was good. The recipe can be found by clicking here:

Let he who does not secretly enjoy uncooked Top Ramen cast the first noodle.

Two Worlds Collide

June 12, 2010

It's day three of our CSA, and this might be premature, but I'll say it anyway--I'm sold. For the first time in my life, I know what a carrot's supposed to taste like, and to be quite honest, it's better than a Skittle. If you know me, you understand the magnitude of that statement. The broccoli is soft and sweet, and did you have any idea that mescalin salad mix is spicy? Yeah, me neither. And when I say spicy, what I actually mean is makeyournoserunandyourcleanasawhistlehusbandsayaswearword spicy. I could get used to this.

And without further ado, here's what we ate today...

For lunch I had salad topped with soy nuts, feta cheese, and this really awesome salad dressing that had twenty-two grams of fat per serving. Hello!

After lunch, I decided to blanch some spinach. I've never blanched anything before, but I've got to say, it was super easy. Basically you boil some water, you throw the spinach into the boiling water for two seconds, you pull it out, you let it cool, you stick it in a couple of ziploc bags, and you freeze it for the winter. Here's the really unbelievable part--See this pillowcase sized bag of spinach?

Well it turned into this:

Those are sandwich sized bags, not the kind of bags that the school puts your kid's poopy windpants into. Your kid, not mine.

And then we moved on to dinner. This my friends, is where my two worlds collided--leftover Chinese takeout and organic bok choy. See?

The bok choy was super easy to make. I am no longer afraid. 

I used a the recipe provided by the CSA. In other words, I stir-fried it in a tablespoon of olive oil, added a pinch of sugar, and pinch of salt, and tossed in a tablespoon or so of toasted sesame seeds. It was really stinking good.

But James? Well, he's not a Chinese food kind of guy. He had two PB&Js with a side of CSA carrots.

He even ate the tops.

Moral of the story? You should be afraid of dragons and you should be really afraid of crack cocaine, but don't waste your time fearing bok choy. It's on our side.

Week 1: 白菜 and Rookie Mistakes

June 11, 2010

Well, it's true. After a million summers of hoping and wishing, we finally joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) here in Maine. Here's how it works.... My friend Anna's parents own the organic farm, we pay 'em $500, and in exchange we get an assload of vegetables every week from the middle of June until the beginning of October.

I bet you're wondering what an assload is. Well it's a precise unit of measurement (forget metric, go asstic!), and when it's measured in vegetables, it looks a lot like this:

Isn't that basket adorable? If you listen hard enough, you can hear it say things like, Come together! and Recycle, man! and Can't we all just get along? Totally different from the tupperware in the back of my cabinets. It can't talk, but if it could I bet it'd say, Wash me out, ya b****!

Now the fact that the basket is sitting on my counter? I do believe that constitutes CSA Rookie Mistake #1. I think I was supposed to leave it there. The name tag would be Rookie Mistake #2--same reason. And Rookie Mistake #3? Well, I haven't paid the balance on my account just yet. I had my checkbook with me when I went to pick up my share yesterday afternoon, I swear I did. But for some reason, I couldn't find an actual person to take my check. There were sheep, there were cows, and there were ducks all over the darn place, but no actual people. As far as I can tell, the whole CSA is done on the honor system. You walk in, you take your basket, you ignore the urge to steal beets from the Daigles or the Schwatzs, and you walk out. Just like Super WalMart--except you don't have to put the radishes in your bra.  

So Denis, Michele, if you're reading this, the check is in the mail.

Now do you have any idea how much stuff they fit inside that happy, little basket? Oh my word, a whole freaking lot--I've got more salad greens than the salad bar at Bonanza! And let me tell you, for a girls who's more accustomed to eating Ding Dongs, hot dogs, and the occasional banana, this is a major lifestyle change. Here it is all laid out:

Let's see if I get this right. We've got two giant heads of Romaine, two heads of red leaf lettuce, two heads of this super cute green curly lettuce stuff, two bags of mescalin salad mix, two humungazoid bags of spinach (like as big as the pillow on my bed), three heads of broccoli, two bags of carrots, a huge bunch of radishes, and beets...lots and lots of beets. 

And I shouldn't forget to mention this:

James pulled it off the top of the basket and said, "Mom, what's this?"

I took it in my hands and put it up to my nose to sniff it. Not much help. Then I put in next to my ear and shook it. Still no clue. So I tasted it, and you guessed it--still couldn't place it. So I said, "You know what that is, James? That's healthy."

"Oh," he said. "Its name is healthy?"

"Sure is, buddy."

So the truth is, that stuff is healthy, but that's not it's official name. It's real name is 白菜 and it's pronounced exactly as it's spelled. Some people (the ones who are far less sophisticated than I) call it Pak Choi. And the peasants? Well, they call it Bok Choy.

To be quite honest, I have no stinkin' clue what I'm supposed to do with it, but I'll get there, I'll figure it out. And when I do, I'll post it. Actually, that's the whole idea behind this new blog--whether it's baby food, a casserole, or a donation to my neighbor who's on Weight Watchers, I plan to show you exactly how I use every single item in my CSA basket.

Exhibit 1, Salad:

I didn't even need to use a recipe. I'm such a natural!