CSA week 4

I'm getting into a routine now - leave work, pick up veggies, lay them out, take a picture, prep as much as I can, sit back with a glass of wine and enjoy.  I cut the tops off the carrots, radishes, beets, then roast the beets right away.  This helps reduce the amount of space everything takes up in the fridge.  I trim the onions too - the roots are usually dirty.  Then I bag the greens in plastic (unwashed) so they don't get limp and dried out.  Today I'll shell the peas too, and have to resist the temptation to eat all the strawberries before Steve gets home.

This week's share:
Fresh eggs
Baby cabbages
Lettuce
Beets
Spring onions
Rainbow carrots
Radishes
Peas (!)
Strawberries
Kale

I had an 'ah-ha!' moment today when picking up the veggies...I can choose smaller bunches of veggies so we're not overwhelmed with it.  Since we still have some radishes left from last week, I grabbed two small bunches this week that has white and red radishes mixed.  Some of the bunches were huge - and had a lot of big radishes.  I also grabbed the two smallest bunches of kale I could see.  We just don't need that much.  And I will admit that I threw our share of turnips into the 'free' bucket.  I just didn't want any this week.

The great purge

Along with a 4000 mile move to a place that can only be reached by air or boat, and more importantly, a move where there is nobody else paying for relocation expenses, comes a massive purging of most everything we own.  We have two main piles in the house - garage sale, and keep.  The garage sale pile is much, much bigger.  We also have sub-piles of 'shred', Goodwill, recycle, and garbage.  We're holding the garage sale this Saturday, so we're hoping for excellent weather.  We've spent the last couple of weeks brutally stripping our personal belongs down to the bare minimum...most photographs - GONE, but keep the negatives; books - mostly GONE, but keeping a few cookbooks; file cabinet full of a decade worth of files - GONE!  and good riddance!.  In the most shocking turn of events in almost a decade of marriage to Steve (10 years on May 25th!)...Steve has decided to sell both of his motorcycles before we move.  There are strings attached, of course, but it was his idea.

The plan:
Leave Charleston on or about August 2-3.  Drive to Bellingham, WA via Madison, Minneapolis, Fargo, and Bozeman.  Visit people.  Eat Wisconsin cheese.  Board a ferry (2.5 days travel time) to Juneau on August 18.  Enjoy every moment of the trip.

The 'fuzzy' details:
Where to live once in Juneau.  We're still working on that part and it's stressful for me.  Housing (and everything else) is crazy expensive in Juneau, and we'd really, really like to try to live (at least until Steve finds a job) on my student salary alone so we don't have to draw from our savings.  So right now we're thinking renting a room in a house, buying a cheap RV and parking it at an RV park, or maybe even a liveaboard boat (that's not my preference, it was pretty cold doing that in Maryland in the winter, can't imagine it would be any better in Juneau).  Also: How to move our stuff?  We're looking into an enclosed 5x8 or 5x10 ft trailer to tow with our Tacoma - that's it - if it doesn't fit in there, we're not moving it. 

Kale - finally a good recipe

 

Tonight, staring at the two bunches of kale from the CSA and not really wanting to cook a long, elaborate dinner (which is what I had planned) I had a brilliant idea...a recipe mashup.  There's a recipe I've made before with hot Italian sausage, fettuccine, and broccoli in a garlic olive oil sauce, and I thought, it might work with the kale instead of broccoli.  It did!  It was pretty easy (a tiny bit more time consuming than I would have liked) but largely hands-off while I was rearranging things in the living room.  I'd even BUY kale to make this again...it was that good.  Shoot me an email if you want the recipe!

It's official - we're moving to Alaska!

This August we are loading what remains of our worldly possessions (hopefully greatly reduced after a yard sale this weekend) and driving to Bellingham, Washington to board a ferry to Juneau, Alaska.  I'll be starting a PhD in fisheries for the fall 2012 session.

I once swore I'd never go back to school again.  Then I went back for a Masters.  Then, I swore again that I'd never, ever go back.  I. Was. Done.  Then the perfect project in the perfect location with the perfect advisor came along, and it was fate, or karma, or time to push aside my fears (it's scary, what if I'm not smart enough or persistent enough, what if I finish and I can't find a job, etc) and GO FOR IT.  Lesson learned: I need to stop swearing.  

Whoa.  It suddenly feels very, very real.

CSA week 3

Whoa - this week we got a HUGE bag of produce. It took our usual 'CSA bag' plus three smaller bags to get it all to the car.  I traded the turnips we were supposed to get for an extra two bunches of radishes (and both parties were delighted by the trade).  There are TWO bunches of beets this week (I'm salivating already).  I'm really excited for the new lettuce type that's in the back right of the picture - it's two small heads of leaf lettuce.  I think I'll have a big salad with radishes, beets, and carrots for lunch tomorrow.  We're getting a little behind on the eggs as we still have four left from last week and another dozen we picked up today, so I'm going to hard boil a bunch and have them for snacking (Steve likes to take them for lunch).

The list:
Kale
Beets
Bok choy (I sense another stirfry in our future)
Head lettuce
Rainbow chard
Radishes
Mesclun mix
Spring onions
Asparagus
Green garlic
Rainbow carrots
Eggs

Last week I cooked the turnip greens with bacon and green garlic and it was really awesome!  I was excited to see green garlic again in the box this week.  I think it would be good with the bok choy, or the rainbow chard.  This week I'm not going to explicitly plan a menu since I want to try to eat what needs to be eaten (i.e. to keep it from going bad) as the week goes on.

Aiken State Park

 

 We went camping again this weekend with friends Julie and Fred (and dog, Panda) at Aiken State Park. There wasn't a lot to do at the park, which was fine because we brought the hammock, some books, and spent a little time hiking one of the nature trails and exploring a small pond.  It was fun and we had absolutely perfect weather.

There were lots of cool critters around the park.  I think the dragonflies and damselflies were hatching - they were everywhere. Can you spot the frog in this picture?

Seca found a muddy stream to play in, then went for a swim while Steve walked beside her.  When she came out of the water from her swim she had a tiny frog on her back!  It went flying when she shook off.

 And Steve, embracing his inner 6 year old...

 

CSA week 2

Well this week's box of produce seems a bit more manageable than last week.  I think it's a combination of knowing what to expect and getting less stuff that seems like we need to eat it all right now.  In general, we don't keep a lot of food in the refrigerator at any given time.  We usually shop multiple times a week, getting just what we need for the next day or two.  Getting this much produce at once stresses me out a bit because I hate to waste food, and I worry that we won't eat it before it goes bad.  But, I'll have to learn to get over it.

In this week's share:
Arugula
Asparagus (probably the last of the season?)
Spring onions
Rainbow chard
Beets (yay!)
Mesclun
"Asian greens" (need to investigate what those are)
Carrots
Green garlic
Turnips (came with the greens on this week, so am cooking them up for dinner tonight...with bacon!)
Cauliflower
Eggs (still have three eggs from last week)

We're going camping this weekend with friends and are in charge of one dinner and one breakfast...so we're having grilled chicken over salad as part of dinner and some of our eggs for breakfast!

Week one CSA notes

Today we will finish off most of the produce we got last week from the CSA.  We have turnips left, but I see that we're getting more this week and there's a recipe I want to try that calls for 2 lbs and right now we only have 1 lb. We ate A LOT of salad - with the carrots, beets, onion, and radishes we got as well as some feta cheese and homemade mustard vinaigrette.  I think I could eat beets every day of the week and never get sick of them (I'm weird - I love beets but hate chocolate ice cream), but Steve doesn't like beets (more for me!).

It was fun trying new things and trying to find recipes to use up what is fresh.  However, it is a lot of work to make dinner from scratch every night - washing the greens, scrubbing veggies, chopping, etc, it takes time.  As summer progresses I worry that I'll get sick of all the prep time and long for convenience.  We also ate very little meat this week - mostly eggs and tofu, with a tiny bit of bacon in the quiche and one of the recipes for cooked greens.  That won't be the case every week, but with so many veggies we didn't really miss the meat.

Some random notes I jotted down this week...
We liked:
The arugula - wow - so good, I'd like this in my salad every night! 
The carrots and radishes we so much better than ever from a grocery store.

We didn't like:
Kale.  Maybe 'didn't like' is too strong of a phrase...they were just 'meh'.  Wouldn't seek them out.  Maybe I just need to find a better recipe?
Beet greens (actually, they were red).  Again, they were just ok, kind of bitter.  Will try again, but will look for a different way to cook them.

Other random notes:
The egg shells on these eggs are noticeably thicker than what we're used to.  It takes a much bigger *whack* to crack one open, and I love that they're all different shades of brown.

Chinese inferno

So tonight I tried a recipe for General Tso's Chicken from The Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook.  We followed the recipe exactly, except using tofu instead of chicken.  The recipe was really easy, and calls for 6-10 dried hot chilis - cut in half with most of the seeds removed.  We use dried hot chilis a lot and have a package of them in the cupboard, and we've never, ever had a dish turn out too hot when using them.  Until tonight.  The flavor was excellent, but it was almost too spicy to eat.  Steve was dripping sweat by the time we were done!  Next time we'll have to use a lot fewer chilis (maybe 1 or 2 only).

kayaking II

We went kayaking again on Easter Sunday, inland this time.  We kayaked 9 miles of the Edisto River, which took about 3 hours.  For the first 3-4 miles the water was moving pretty fast so we didn't paddle much, mostly just correcting our position in the river or moving towards something we wanted to see.  By the time we hit mile 7-8 or so, the current had slowed down quite a bit and we had to paddle pretty steadily...the headwind made for a nice cooling breeze but also slowed our progress at the end too.  I was tired by the time we go off the water!

We were both surprised that we didn't see much wildlife other than this snake (a rainbow snake, not poisonous) at the launch site and some turtles on the water.  It's not like we were expecting a zoo, but I figured we'd see more birds. There weren't a lot of other boaters out either, which was nice compared to the traffic on the harbor from Saturday's trip.  We're really torn about whether we want to sell the kayaks or not...we're thinking we'll try to sell them.  They're fun and we like going out, but they're honestly more kayak than we need (14 footers would be better, I think) and they're too heavy to load solo, making it harder to just head out for a short paddle.

We got a bit of a late start since I made a big breakfast - homemade quiche (even the crust!) and a kale-bean-tomato...thing.  The kale stuff grew on us after a couple of bites.  The quiche was fantastic but had so much butter, cheese, cream, and whole milk that I can't justify making it very often (or ever again).  It's a good thing we got a workout on the river!

kayaking

Perfect day for kayaking at Shem Creek!  We saw three dolphins feeding and playing in the harbor, and because of the really low tide there were dozens and dozens of shore birds on the oyster flats.  And finally, a day without humidity!  We're going out again tomorrow.

Fresh, local produce! CSA week 1

Today we picked up our first 'share' of the CSA we joined!  We both went for the pick-up, and since we pick it up at the Stono Market, we get so see what everything is (it's labeled) and pack it ourselves.  In this week's share we have:

Kale
Spinach
Arugula
Mesclun
Radishes
Broccoli
Asparagus
Strawberries
Turnips
Beets
Carrots
Sweet onion
Rainbow chard
Fresh eggs

Here's some ideas for what we'll make this week with the goods...
Pizza bianca with goat cheese and greens (sweet onion, kale or spinach and feta instead of goat cheese)
Salad (tonight, plus other nights - mix of spinach, mesculin and arugula with radish and carrots on top, homemade mustard vinaigrette)
Beet greens (recipe here, using kale and maybe the rainbow chard)
Quiche or egg bake (for Easter breakfast, using the fresh eggs and maybe some spinach)
General Tso's tofu with broccoli

Dinner tonight - our mesclun/spinach/arugula salad with the carrots and radishes:

WOW - it was soooo good!  I can't believe greens can have a taste.  And I didn't think I really liked carrots, but I did really like these.  Look at the colors they came in: