Too Booked to Cook

Eating dinner out with family and friends tonight and tomorrow, so no homemade dinners this weekend.

I have decided to wash all the greens and have them ready in a bowl. Today's and tomorrow's lunch will just be garbage salad. (I need to clean out the fridge anyway.)

Also, last night hubby and I ended up at Cafe 28 for drinks/appetizer/
dessert. They placed some fantastic salty/spicy butter on the table with the bread, and I was reminded how much I love herbed butters. I think this is one way I will use Farmer Vicki's herbs this summer. The other way is in dressings, as I have been wanting to break myself of the habit of bottled salad dressings for many years.

Wine & Radish

After work, I sliced the radishes and set them out on a plate, but I have nothing to serve with them. (Wish I had olives and feta and pita bread, oh well.) I guess I"ll just squeeze lime over the radish, and have a glass of wine while I watch the news.

I have chicken in the oven now, and I'll serve it with the purple asparagus for dinner.

FYI, teenage daughters declared Kale Krisps "interesting". And spent much time cleaning the green stuff out of their braces!

Pretty Purple Asparagus

In her weekly email, Farmer Vicki says that because of the late spring, the box would be light this week (and that she will make up for it in next week's box). When I opened the box, I thought it did seem light, especially since we are sharing the box with another family. But after dividing everything in two, I think it's safe to say the Broderick family will probably be just fine with the following produce for the next six days:

3 radishes
bunch kale
bunch spinach
mesclun lettuce mix
bunch thyme
stawberries
bunch purple asparagus
(I gave all the rhubarb to my friend, because I harvest my own rhubarb from our garden.)

We ate the sweet strawberries with breakfast this morning. I will make Kale Krisps tonight, as recommended by Farmer Vicki.

A Farm in St. Anne, Illinois

We bought a share in a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm for the summer—Genesis Growers.

“Our pledge: We will do our utmost to provide you with a wide variety of fresh, chemical free produce weekly, but please remember crop failure can occur, and while this rarely affects our boxes, there is a certain risk involved in farming.”

The summer season begins today and goes for 21 weeks until sometime in October. We decided on the summer season, since grilled veggies are yummy and that’s when we’re most likely to grill. We went with the medium share, rather than the large share, and we decided to split the cost of the share with another family of four. Cost per family is $14.29/week. Since we paid for the season back in February when we signed up, it now feels like we will be getting free organic veggies through October.

I’ll pick up the box after work today.

Food Labels

Although I've learned to decipher Big Ag food labels, English labeling is still a crutch I lean on.

I don't think I can handle all the international products at Fresh Farms. I'm impressed by the selection - I just want to know what I'm eating!

More on Fresh Farms later.

I believe I can live the rest of my life without eating another Totino’s Pizza Roll

Ingredients: tomato puree (water, tomato paste), enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), pepperoni pizza topping (pepperoni made with port, chicken and beef [pork, mechanically separated chicken, beef, salt, spice, dextrose, oleoresin of paprika, sodium ascorbate, garlic power, sodium nitrite, lactic acid starter culture, BHA and BHT and citric acid added to protect flavor] water, soy protein isolate), water, mozzarella cheese substitute (water, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, rennet casein, modified corn start, potato starch, sodium aluminum phosphate, vital wheat gluten, salt potassium chloride, citric acid, potassium sorbate [preservative], sodium phosphate, sodium citrate, titanium dioxide [color], maltodextrin, magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, vitamin A palmitate, riboflavin, vitamin B12) partially hydrogenated soybean oil, modified corn starch, rehydrated pasteurized process nonfat mozzarella cheese (water, nonfat milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, citric acid, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin B6, sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium citrate, sodium phosphate), salt, sugar, defatted soy flour, dried whey, dried onion, spice, methylcellulose, rehydrated enzyme modified cheese (water, milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), natural flavor.

Notes on ingredients:
1) I love the vagueness of “spice” and “natural flavor” and the irony of including them on the ingredient list.
2) One of these days I really would like to see the machine that mechanically separates chicken.

More Reasons Why Winter Bums Me Out

Things changed over the last few frozen months. My neighbor's little fluffy puppy is now a gigantic German Shepherd.

And my garden is a cesspool.