need more practice

I'm hoping to get some quality camera practice time in this weekend at The Farm. So weird that we have to get our al fresco time in now before summer descends upon the valley...while the rest of the country is one giant blizzardy mess.

Puppy pics to warm your heart, if not your toes:

 

*yawn!*

pb&j for breakfast

Peanut butter and jelly on toast makes for an amazing breakfast. The peanut butter gets all warm and gooey, it's delicious. But why have I never thought to try a little pb&j in my oatmeal? Cook up a bowl of plain oats (instant, regular, steel-cut) and then stir in a spoonful of peanut butter and jelly. It's not going to be very sweet, but that's perfectly fine for me. Those packets of instant oatmeal (and cups of yoplait) have gotten way to sweet for my taste buds. (Okay, now I feel like a crabby old lady.) 

Seriously, pb&j oatmeal is a revelation! Try it and see for yourself...unless I'm the last one to discover it.

set your dvrs

Set your DVRs. My man, Michael Pollan, will be on Oprah tomorrow (February 1st). Oprah will be announcing a challenge to go temporarily vegan, and while I don't think I'd consider vegan-ism, it'll be great to see a discussion about animal welfare, factory farms and CAFOs on such a popular program.

FYI: Michael Pollan's FAQs on Animal Welfare (because he's the scholarly writer, not me!)

I hope that it at least makes you think about where your meat comes from.

kitchen hack

Like Alton Brown, I believe kitchen tools should be multi-purpose. Hence my cake keeper / mass-quantity-of-greens storage unit. And it even turns into a salad spinner - pop on the base/lid and give it a spin on the kitchen counter. Just don't get too crazy or it'll rocket right off onto the floor.

in yo face

 

(Taken with my snazzy new phone and post-processed with Instagram - a really cool FREE photo app!)

halfway there

I love those subway/bus scrolls that are so popular in Etsy-land right now.  They're just so darn expensive.  So, I've been toying with the idea of making my own but unsure about how to go about it.  Today I came across this tutorial, but geesh, is that ridiculously tedious!  Instead, I'm going about it the brute-force method, with the oh-so-sophisticated computer programs - MS Word and MS Paint.  Ha!  Here's what I've done so far:

1. Download and install Roadway font.

2. Type the words you want on your final piece in MS Paint, and in a really large font size.

3. Copy and paste the words into MS Word so that they become an image that you can shrink or enlarge as need be.

4. ...And that's as far as I got.  Still need to figure out how to sharpen the edges of the letters (Picasa?) and make sure it doesn't look too pixelated if it's blown up to print at Kinko's.

I made a sample in Word, hit "Print Screen", and transferred it back to Paint so I could invert the black and white. 

Cute, no?  I'll be back with a final product once I figure out how to finish it.

csa week 1

While the 2-week holiday was a nice break from leafy-greens-apalooza, by New Year's Day, I was ready to get back to healthy eating and fresh produce arriving on my doorstep each Thursday. (P.S. Thanks, honey, for picking up our veggies!)

This first week of the year we got:

• spring mix
• kale
• spinach
• oranges
• butternut squash
• cilantro
• beets/beet greens
• radishes
• ruby streaks (a mustard green)

And here's my game plan for our goods from Crooked Sky Farms:

• sauteed spinach with garlic and a splash of half n half
• barley risotto with butternut squash and mushrooms
• dijon chicken stew with potatoes and kale (might try this with butternut squash in place of the potatoes)
• cilantro pesto
• guacamole (for taco night! Also, Alton Brown has a taco recipe that way better than the taco seasoning packets...if you cut back on the salt.)
• fresh-squeezed (and super pulpy) orange juice (with my new juicer!)
• creamed greens (with milk and cream cheese)

Just a little inspiration to introduce a few more veggies to your plate!