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!