TV and Dinners

Vegan Day 6 & 7: Just Call Me Violet Beauregarde

Ever wonder what a gallon of blueberries looks like? Wonder no more!

 

That's a lot of little purple globes.

In addition to providing me with enough fresh organic vegetables each week to fuel my elitist douchebaggery, my CSA also sometimes offers the opportunity to buy other local products for an additional fee. Right now they are featuring blueberries, which I love. The catch? They only sell them in gallon increments. Thatsalottaberries, folks.

As soon as I got home I promptly washed and froze half of the lot, ate handfuls upon handfuls of the ones I didn't freeze (someone had to see if they were edible -- breaking news! they were perfect) and then immediately started scouring the web for vegan blueberry muffin recipes. Most of them involved random ingredients I didn't have around the house. I finally stumbled across this one and decided to go for it.

 

I think I used too many berries. There was one muffin that was literally a muffin top over a pool of molten purple lava.

I ate two of these for breakfast this morning. The first bite was lackluster. The second? Good. By the third I decided they were delicious. I used less sugar than the recipe calls for so I think I just had to adjust to a "less sweet" muffin. Vegan baking success!

Even though I have been eating blueberries for the last few days like they are going out of style, I still had a ton in my fridge tonight so I decided to attempt a vegan blueberry crisp using olive oil. I've made a lot of crisps in my life (although none without butter) so I just threw a bunch of stuff in a bowl and hoped for the best.

I forgot to take a picture before digging in. Bad blogger.

This was sort of a fail. It tasted OK, but didn't have that wonderful crispy top I prefer. As I was eating I realized it is because I forgot like two ingredients. Um, oops. Still, those mistakes didn't stop me from eating this amount times two. Hey, fruit is healthy! (Ooo...I just got an idea. What if I subbed applesauce for part of the butter. Would it get crispy like granola gets crispy with applesauce? Advice?)

My other eats for the last two days have been vegan and tasty but unremarkable. The highlight was, unfortunately, the large Diet Coke I got from McDonald's yesterday. Hey, this time I made it a whole week before breaking down. Progress!

Tomorrow is a very important day in TV and Dinners land: Big Brother is back! I am Zap2it's sole recapper this season, so if you're a fan of the show be sure to check out my recaps three times a week. (I'm tired just thinking about that, by the way. That's a lot of words about idiots.) They'll go live about an hour after the East Coat airing of the show. Bring on the hot tub-soaked stupidity!

Vegan Day 4 & 5: Heaven is a Super Target

I have a major announcement: I'm pretty sure I located heaven on earth today, and it was in the grocery section of a Super Target. Have you guys ever BEEN to a Super Target?!? I hate to sound so blatantly consumerist, but damn. That is some good stuff. Unfortunately, there isn't one anywhere near my house. I just happened to be about 20 miles outside of Nashville meeting up with an old high school friend who was passing through the area (hi, Teri!) and we met at a Starbucks near a Super Target, so I decided to go inside and pick up a few things I needed. Best decision ever! They have so much stuff! And it's cheap! For real, I can't get over how awesome it was! Somebody stop me from using exclamation points, because I am out of control!

For all of my insane joy over the grocery section, I actually didn't purchase all that much. I did, however, buy two different kind of nut butter. Have I confessed my little nut butter "problem" here before? Behold the ridiculousness:

Yep. I live alone. Problem! (The one hiding in the back is Kroger brand creamy peanut butter. It is the most shameful one. Also, I don't really eat the MaraNatha one because I think it is gross.)

The new additions to my collection were the Dark Chocolate Dreams PB (only $3.69!!!) and the packet of Justin's Maple Almond Butter. I had to limit myself to two kinds at Target, but they had soooo many other delicious sounding options. Did you know Archer Farms has flavored peanut butter, like cinnamon? They do. I wanted it. But I abstained. A girl can only eat so much nut butter at a time.

Now that I've got that embarrassing little confession out of the way, let's move on to my eats of the last two days, shall we? First up is Sunday. One weird thing about trying to follow a vegan diet is craving (and purchasing) things I would never normally gravitate towards. Like these waffles.

I wanted something different for breakfast and I'd seen these on many a blog before, so I decided to give them a shot.

I topped them with some berries and maple syrup. They were good, for freezer waffles, but I won't be buying them again. Stupid vegan diet making me buy unnecessary processed foods.

Later, I was out and about and realized I hadn't eaten anything but waffles all day. I pulled into a Panera, hoping I could find something both healthy and vegan. I think I succeeded? (There were a few ingredients in the salad dressing and bread I didn't recognize, but they didn't set off any warning bells.)

This is a Greek salad without feta and a baguette on the side. (Sorry for the cell phone pic again. I seem to have difficulty remembering to bring my camera.) This is the first time I've had their Greek salad without the feta, and honestly I really liked it! I think the one major thing I am taking away from this challenge so far is how unnecessary cheese has become in my diet. Since rolling it way back due to my lactose intolerance, I don't seem to need or crave it as much as I used to.

Later, I saw Eclipse and ate a vegan cookie from Whole Foods. The cookie was far better than the movie. (I did kind of enjoy the flashback sequences, even though they seemed to come from a completely different movie. Hmm. Maybe that's why I liked them.)

Today, I ate my standard banana/Barney Butter/granola bowl for breakfast, had a venti iced coffee with soy and vanilla from Starbucks while chatting with my friend, and then had the EXACT same meal from Panera (with the addition of a fruit cup) while out doing some shopping. I seem to find myself out and about during mealtimes frequently. I need to work on that, my wallet will thank me.

Now, I am tired and need to eat dinner. I am feeling lazy, so I'm thinking some nut butter on toast will do the trick. I do have a few jars to finish up, after all.

Vegan Day 2 & 3: Parties, Popsicles, Pedicures & Pei Wei

Happy 4th of July weekend, everyone!

We had a party at work yesterday to celebrate the occasion. I celebrated by making this cake I can't eat, and ostracizing myself by not eating any of the food ANYONE brought. Being a vegan is fun!

Seriously, though. It was a little bit awkward bringing my own food to a party, especially because I really didn't feel like explaining to everyone why I wasn't eating hot dogs, cheese dip and cole slaw. They are sort of used to my healthy ways so it didn't phase them too much. I just used the excuse "I'm not eating hot dogs right now" and they took it as the quirky healthy girl doing her quirky healthy thing. Instead of their spread I made a burrito out of my leftover rice and beans. Honestly, it was really good and way tastier than a hot dog so I didn't feel like I was missing anything by not partaking in the party food.

That night I was feeling really lazy so I made a totally lame vegan dinner: a giant plate of roasted vegetables.

This is potatoes and beets from my CSA and carrots from the regular old grocery store tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and baked for about 40 minutes at 400 degrees. Of course, ketchup was added post-picture for the potatoes. This tasted great but didn't really fill me up. I should have roasted the tofu I have in the fridge for some protein.

This morning, I slept so late (9:30am!!!) my breakfast was more of a brunch: homemade granola with a sliced banana, a scoop of Barney Butter and some unsweetened soy milk.

I totally dominated this bowl. Why is Barney Butter so much better than other nut butters? If it wasn't so expensive (and if I didn't have to make a special trip to a grocery store in a neighboring suburb to get it) I would eat like a jar a week.

After breakfast, I only wanted to do two things: get a pedicure and eat a paleta. Paletas are Mexican popsicles, and they are amazing. Nashville's local shop, Las Paletas, is pretty famous (they beat Bobby Flay on Throwdown!) and rightly so. Their popsicles are seriously on a whole other level of deliciousness. My favorite is the spicy chocolate one, but since I'm not doing dairy right now I was really just planning on ordering whatever fruit popsicle they had today with chili involved. Of course, I got there and NO fruit flavors were chili-infused! However...there was a mysterious vegetable chili flavor. A vegetable popsicle? Oh, yes, my friends. Yes indeed.

Behold the cucumber chili paleta. This. Was. INCREDIBLE. It was sweet, salty, spicy and sour all at the same time. It tasted sort of like one of those Asian cucumber salads, and I wish I had ordered two because I want another one right this very second. Wow. (Sorry for the terrible pic, I forgot my camera and had to use my cell phone. Considering my cell is like one step up from Zack Morris' giant phone, it turned out sort of okay.)

After this paleta revelation, I got a pedicure. The lady cut the crap out of one of my cuticles. Boo. Still, it looks nice. No pictures because I don't want to attract foot fetishists. (If you're already a foot fetishist and read this blog, I'm not saying go away. I'm just saying go elsewhere for your foot jollies. I'll stick to food and television.)

I really hate cooking my own dinner on Saturday, so I ended up getting Pei Wei takeout. They have a really great nutritional guide online so I was pretty positive I could come away from there with a vegan meal. That link is pretty entertaining and informative, by the way, for a couple of reasons. First, did you realize that all of the meals served there are technically two servings? Yeah, I didn't. Also, I love the section where they claim they won't commit to calling any of their food 100% vegan because, and I quote, "there are many vegans who do not eat sugar because it is processed with animal bones." I'm not attempting to mock people's choices or beliefs, but MAN it would be hard to be that strict of a vegan. (Um, and I had no idea sugar was processed with animal bones? That is weird, right?)

Anywhoodle, here's what I got:

This is Honey-Seared Tofu and Vegetables and a Vegetable Spring Roll. Note: there is no actual honey in this. It's just in the name. Which is...odd. What do they put in there instead? And why don't they just call it something else? Marketing is weird. Luckily, this was delicious and by far the best thing I've ever eaten at Pei Wei. I've been pretty disappointed in the past because their meat-based dishes are very light on the veggies and heavy on the sauce. This was the opposite, full of crunchy vegetables and very lightly sauced. No matter what happens at the end of these 30 days, I will only be ordering vegetarian meals at Pei Wei in the future. (Also? This is only half of the food they gave me. Now that I know there are supposed to be two servings I will feel awkward eating the whole portion!)

Whew. That was long. Have a great night, everyone! I'm off to babysit the cutest baby in the world. I heard a rumor there will be vegan brownies involved. Mmm, chocolate.

Vegan Day 1: Bread? Really?

Today I learned an important lesson about being a vegan: dairy and eggs are in EVERYTHING.

I woke up starving and a bit uneasy about what I was going to eat for breakfast and dinner, as I haven't been the the grocery store in ages and my cupboards are bare. Literally, they're bare because all of my food was here.

I had a bit of an ant "situation" in my cupboards and had to take everything out, fumigate and start over. Apparently, ants like graham crackers. The one (unopened) sleeve I had looked like an ant farm. Ew. And gross.

My plan was to pack an almond butter and jelly sandwich in my lunch. Quick and delicious! When I looked at the bread ingredients, however, I noticed the last one: nonfat milk. Why? Why, why, why? I quickly regrouped and packed a giant salad instead. Thank heavens for my CSA, which provided 90% of the ingredients for this impromptu lunch:

I topped this with some hummus and was good to go. For breakfast, I realized I had no fresh fruit in my house (I swear, I'm normally more prepared) so I rummaged in the freezer and found juuuust enough frozen fruit to make a smoothie.

This is made of banana, blueberries, unsweetened soy milk and oatmeal (for staying power). Oh, and look at my new smoothie cup! It's it pretty?!? I walked around work all morning yesterday introducing it to my coworkers. They weren't as impressed as they should have been. I mean, it has a screw-on lid. That's fancy.

My breakfast and lunch were tasty but not the most filling meals in the world, so as soon as I got home (from the GROCERY STORE, finally) I speed-cooked exactly what I was craving: rice and beans.

Happy happy. So happy. This is your standard weird ingredient-filled yellow rice (mmm...MSG) topped with black beans I sauteed with garlic, onion, a can of Rotel and spices. Layered on top of that is simple sauteed yellow squash, avocado and salsa. With chips on the side for crunch. So good I didn't miss cheese or sour cream at all. Vegan success! Unless one of the weird ingredients in the rice wasn't vegan. Then, fail.

I'm off to make a very, very non-vegan cake for a work party tomorrow. The positive: I actually hate this kind of cake so I won't be tempted to eat any. Score!

30 Day Vegan Challenge

Apparently I have this thing called a "blog." That I am supposed to write in. Who knew?

All joking aside, I did one of my infamous disappearing acts last week. Whoops! I never really know why or when they are going to happen, just that they are inevitable. Like the sands of the hourglass, these are the days of my life. While I was gone, however, I came to an important decision: I'm going vegan.

Let me qualify this declaration. I'm going vegan...for 30 days. I've always wanted to do a "vegan challenge" but never felt it was the right time for me. For one, National Vegan Month (when you're supposed to do things of this sort) falls in November. Listen. I know going vegan is supposed to somewhat be about reflecting on animal welfare and the meat industry's practices, but having Vegan Month encompass the most carnivorous holiday of the year just seems like a cruel trick current vegans are playing on us all. I mean, right? No one honestly likes Tofurkey. No one.

I think July will be the perfect month for me to successfully pull this off for a few reasons. First: my CSA. I currently get loads of veggies each week which will make perfect vegan meals. Second: no vacations. I'm sorry, but it is hard to eat restrictively on vacation. And third: I've had a bit of stress at work and therefore eating kind of crappy lately so this is going to be a good cleanse for my system in general. I can't wait to eat clean and feel normal again!

While I'm doing this challenge I am going to try to post my meals every day and talk about fun vegan recipes or how to eat vegan in a restaurant. I have a feeling I might accidentally slip up once or twice (honey isn't vegan -- how quickly do you think I'll forget that one?) but I am honestly going to do my best to be as strict as possible. I might be seriously craving a hamburger on August 1st, but I want to have EARNED that beef.

In the meantime, check out this delicious and decidedly NOT vegan dinner I made the other day from random ingredients in my fridge.

So, so tasty. I was in the mood for something pizza-y so I just used a baguette I got from my CSA to make homemade french bread pizzas. For one, I did a basic margarita using some homemade tomato sauce from my freezer, some mozzarella cheese on its last leg and this incredible basil from my CSA. For real, this basil is so potent it has almost an anise quality to it. Yum. For the other, I wanted to use up some leftover garlic scape pesto and was going to simply use the pesto as a sauce when all of a sudden inspiration rained down from up above. Instead of a simple pesto sauce, I decided to make a cheesy pesto topping instead using a tablespoon or so of pesto, a tablespoon of mayo and some mozzarella cheese. I mixed those three ingredients together, spread it on the bread and baked both pizzas until the cheese was melted. It was AMAZING. It really would be a perfect quick appetizer for an informal get together. Inspiration from above (or, honestly, Paula Deen) for the win!

There's Kinky, and Then There's Just F-ed Up
My True Blood recap has been up since Sunday, I was just too lame to post the link until now. Here it is, for all who want to relive the glory of angry twisted-neck vampire rape sex.

'True Blood': Alcide arrives, Bill gets freaky

Tomorrow is Vegan Day #1. Here goes nothing! Now, I'm off to eat some dairy-filled chocolate while I still can. Sweet (non-vampire rape-y) dreams.

My CSA Runneth Over

I simultaneously hate and love Mondays. On the hate side, there's that whole going back to work after the weekend thing. The love? Monday is CSA pick-up day! This lovesick glow quickly turns right back around into hate when I get home and realize I have to do an hour's worth of work washing, trimming and storing all of my haul. (I learned a lesson the hard way after not cleaning my greens right away one week: unwashed farm-fresh produce does NOT last as long as the Frankenproduce they sell in grocery stores. Oops! Swiss chard fail.)

This week's haul was the biggest and most diverse one yet, which means we're definitely getting into good growing season, which for a vegetable nerd like me is pretty exciting. Check out my loot:

Clockwise from top: squash, red onion, red chard, lettuce, green onions, basil, parsley, beets (with their greens!!), potatoes, celery, fresh garlic. 

After I took this picture and started washing everything I realized it would probably be much more visually appealing to look at clean vegetables. Here are a few of the washed beauties:

Yeah...that's the good stuff.

I stood in the kitchen staring at all of this bounty and wondering how I was possibly going to eat it all in one week, and the perfect dish came to me to use a lot of these things all in one meal: a roasted beet salad. Giada De Laurentiis has a gorgeous recipe for one that I've made in the past, but I didn't have all of the ingredients so I decided to improvise just a little bit. It turned out great!

Roasted Beet Salad (adapted from Giada De Laurentiis)

For the salad:
2-3 beets
2 cups chopped lettuce
2 Tbsp. dried cranberries
2 Tbsp. chopped walnuts, toasted
2 Tbsp. crumbled feta cheese
1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

For the dressing:
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. honey
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, grated or put through garlic press
1 Tbsp. red onion, finely minced
1 Tbsp. chopped basil
1 Tbsp. chopped parsley
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place beets in a tin foil "package", toss with 1 Tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper, close foil tightly. Roast for 30-45 minutes or until beets are tender. Once beets have cooled a bit, peel and cut into about 1" pieces.

While the beets are roasting, combine all dressing ingredients (except olive oil) until honey is completely dissolved. Slowly stream in olive oil while whisking until fully incorporated. Toss beets in dressing and place dressing-coated beets on a tin foil-lined baking sheet. (Note: there will be quite a bit of extra dressing. Reserve for use on salad greens or for other future use.) Roast beets in a 450 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.

To assemble salad: toss greens in a bit of leftover salad dressing (if desired) and salt and pepper to taste and place on serving plate. Sprinkle dried cranberries and walnuts over greens. Place warm beets on top of salad and sprinkle feta cheese over the top. Makes one large, tasty salad!

Another reason to hate Mondays? Absolutely no good summer television. Boo. I'm off to go watch reruns of The West Wing in bed.

Shameless Plug Alert!

My recap of True Blood's second episode is up on Zap2it:

'True Blood': Nazi werewolves, oh my!

Click, read, comment! Please. So I can get paid.

The Politics of Tabbouleh

Lately, I've been watching reruns of The West Wing on Bravo. I like to revisit old favorite shows periodically to see how well they've aged and just to remind myself of their general kickassedness. I recently decided to rewatch ER from the beginning via TNT, which was going swimmingly until TNT decided to stop airing the show in the middle of season 13. A year of my life, down the drain. Thanks a lot, jerks! (Granted, they did replace ER with reruns of the very awesome Supernatural, but as much as I want to see Jensen Ackles on my screen every day they could have waited a few more weeks, you know? Sigh.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The West Wing. I was a huge fan of the first two seasons but had a hard time swallowing the condescension and naked politics of the post-September 11th season three premiere, and stopped watching some time during that season. When I saw the episodes were about to start over from the beginning, I decided to give it one more shot to see if some time and distance would change my mind. I'm only about three quarters of the way through the first season, and liking it (but not with the passion I had originally -- Aaron Sorkin characters can be much more annoying than I remembered) but the one thing that sticks out to me more than anything in this rewatch is the politics. All of the issues Bartlet's administration is dealing with? Our country is still dealing with today. Here is a list of a just a few I can remember off the top of my head:

- Don't ask, don't tell
- Campaign contribution reform, specifically in reference to corporations
- Rash call to fire someone who says something dumb on television
- Census panic
- Criticism for never getting anything accomplished (OK, this could apply to any presidency)

There are more examples that have already exited my mind, stage left. It's sort of crazy. Seriously, if C.J. didn't wear such dowdy suits and everyone didn't talk about their beepers, I would think this show was a new summer drama. I'm not trying to get political on my blog -- if I attempt to talk about politics I will inevitably just end up sounding like an idiot -- but it is pretty depressing to realize how little things have changed in the past 11 years. But this is a good thing for Sorkin, I suppose. If chunky shoes and long, baggy suit jackets come back into style, he will never have to worry about losing residuals on the reruns!

Enough about politics, as even fantasy television politics can be horrendously depressing. Let's talk about food! My CSA share this week was chock full of leafy greens of all stripes. I used to worry about not getting enough dark leafy greens in my diet, but no more. I am going to start sweating green soon. (That sounds like a euphemism for having lots o' cash. I wish.) The leafy green in my share I was most interested in this week wasn't a leafy green at all, however, but an herb: parsley. And watching The West Wing and thinking about global politics made me realize exactly what I wanted to make with it. Tabbouleh!

I seriously love tabbouleh, but many times when I buy it in the store it is disappointing: too much bulgur, too dry, not zesty enough. I like my tabbouleh to be a very lemony herb salad with grains, not the other way around. The only way I can usually get what I want? Get off my lazy butt and make it myself.

Isn't it pretty? I sure love tabbouleh. I made some substitutions for the normal bulgur based on what I had on hand, making this less of a traditional tabbouleh and more of a tabbouleh-inspired salad. (How is tabbouleh in spell check but not bulgur? Weird.) Anywho, I used this:

 

It is a lovely change.

 

Tabbouleh-Inspired Harvest Grains Salad

1 1/4 cup Trader Joe's Harvest Grains (or other grain of your choice)
2 cups flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 cup mint, chopped
3/4 cup diced cucumber
1 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2-3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Juice of one large lemon
Salt & pepper to taste

Cook grains according to package directions and cool completely. Combine rest of ingredients and chill. Makes 4-6 side-dish sized servings.

The celery isn't traditional here, but I had some in my CSA and threw it in. It was tasty! I also randomly sprinkled some feta cheese I had on hand at the last minute for serving purposes, which was SUPER delicious. I highly recommend doing that.

Side note: this weird Kia commercial just came on with hamsters rapping to an old Black Sheep song. Um, what? I really think 90% of advertising is created during drug-fueled ad exec all-nighters. I'd rather picture them all just drinking scotch and smoking Lucky Strikes instead.

Hey, Summer, How You Doin'?

At some point this weekend I realized it was summer. A little late to the game, I know. It wasn't the ridiculous heat and humidity (seriously, Nashville, WTF?) that did it. No, it was Justin Bieber.

Let me explain. I have this weird thing where I become obsessed with pop music in the summer. All pop music. Even the really bad, embarrassing pop music. I've always maintained a side obsession with all things pop -- hello, Britney! -- but for some reason I can really only tolerate it in the summer. Not just tolerate it, crave it. Need it. Three days before summer begins? Can't stand it. I know, I have issues.

Anyway, I was driving around on Friday after work and flipped on a new Nashville pop station. And left it there. For like an hour. Through a Justin Bieber song, a Katy Perry song, AND a KeUSDha song. Ladies and gentlemen, summer has arrived. Let my ears begin to bleed!

Also a sign of summer is the absolutely gorgeous produce available right now. After swooning over beet greens in my CSA last week, I was lucky enough to get them again. This time I incorporated them into a frittata bursting with summer flavor. Bonus: cheap, quick and easy, too! Summer rules.

Beet Green, Tomato and Feta Frittata

2 eggs
Splash milk (or milk substitute) -- I used unsweetened soy milk
1-2 cups chopped beet greens
1/4 cup cherry tomatoes, chopped
1-2 Tbsp. crumbled feta cheese
2 Tbsp. onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1/2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Crushed red pepper
Salt & pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in small oven-proof skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes. Add beet greens and cook until fully wilted. Season with crushed red pepper, salt and pepper to taste.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and milk and season lightly with salt and pepper (if desired). Turn heat on skillet down to medium/medium-low and add egg mixture, making sure to pour it evenly into skillet so it covers all surface area. Cook for a few minutes until partially set, then sprinkle feta on top.

Place skillet under heated broiler until eggs are fully set and feta is partially melted. Makes 1-2 servings. (Double recipe -- at least -- if using standard-size skillet.)

If you don't have beet greens, any dark leafy greens will do. Frittatas are great because you can add almost anything to them and they turn out delicious, as long as eggs and cheese are involved. Also, they are way easier than omelets because you don't have to worry about that whole pesky "flipping" thing. I command you to make frittatas! Immediately! (But stay away from Justin Bieber. Trust me on this.)

I'm Totally Team Eric
You know how else I know it's summer? True Blood is back! I have the distinct pleasure of doing Zap2It's recaps for the show. Check out my take on the premiere here:

'True Blood' Season Premiere: We have werewolves!

The Great (E)Scape

(I apologize in advance for the post title. Once it popped in my head it was like one of those God-awful K3$h@ songs that invade your brain until you are unknowingly singing out loud and realize what you are doing in horror.)

Tonight I had grand plans to pillage my CSA loot and make a different, exciting, interesting dinner based around a funky ingredient: the garlic scape.

One of the cool things about my CSA is how they provide recipes revolving around each week's ingredients. This week's newsletter featured an interesting recipe for pesto using garlic scapes in place of the traditional basil. Better yet, it was seriously easy.

Step One: Cut 8-9 scapes into one inch pieces (about 1 cup) and place in food processor.

Step two: add 1/3 cup walnuts (I toasted mine in a dry pan for a few minutes first to bring out the flavor.)

 

Step Three: Blend until almost smooth. Then stream in 3/4 cup olive oil while blending until fully combined. Remove from food processor and put in bowl.

 

So...things were going pretty well until step three. This is when I realized I was low on olive oil (I only had about 1/3-1/2 cup.) Therefore, my pesto "sauce" is more like pesto "toothpaste." If you like toothpaste that tastes like it should be on the set of The Sopranos. At this point, I decided I would just remove a little bit for tonight's dinner and put the rest in the fridge until tomorrow when I could get some olive oil and do this up right.

I took my 2-3 tablespoon serving and added a good bit of parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Meanwhile, I cooked some whole wheat spaghetti and drained it, saving some of the pasta water. I should really make a video of my attempting this process someday. I don't have tongs so I pour out most of the water and then sort of use a wooden spoon to slide the noodles into the colander. No one ever said I was a graceful cook. Anywho. Simultaneously (sort of) I toasted up some breadcrumbs in the smallest amount of oil I could squeeze out of my empty bottle and added some chili flakes, removing them from the pan once they were brown and toasty. I have no pictures of this step because I only have two hands.

At this point, the cooked pasta went in the pan with the garlic scape pesto and a few pours of pasta water to thin the sauce out and coat the pasta. Once the sauce was in shape I tossed in the breadcrumbs -- because what does a pasta dish cry out for except more carbs -- plated and covered it in more parmesan cheese.

At this point, it smelled pretty great in my house.

And it tasted pretty great, too. If you love garlic, you'll love this. I love garlic, but this was almost too much from me and I might water the rest of the batch down with some basil. I bet if you cook the scapes a little bit first they would also mellow out a bit. Still, a quick, easy and delicious meal, if a bit (OK, a lot) light on the veggies.

Here's the pesto recipe in full [source]:

Garlic Scape Pesto

1 cup garlic scapes (about 8 or 9 scapes), top flowery part removed, cut into 1⁄4-inch slices (<-- Oops! I totally thought this said 1 inch.)
1/3 cup walnuts
3⁄4 cup olive oil
1⁄4-1/2 cup grated parmigiano
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste

Place scapes and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and whiz until well combined and somewhat smooth. Slowly drizzle in oil and process until integrated. With a rubber spatula, scoop pesto out of bowl and into a mixing bowl. Add parmigiano to taste; add salt and pepper. Makes about 6 ounces of pesto. Keeps for up to one week in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

I am going to be sweating garlic for a week. Totally worth it. Just don't use the treadmill next to mine at the gym tomorrow, if you know what's good for you.

My Kingdom For a Salad Spinner

So, you guys...remember five months ago? When I said I would post less frequently, and only when I was truly inspired? It turns out I wasn't lying.

I wish this was just a flip introduction to get me back in the blogging game, but unfortunately it is right on the money. My last few months have consisted of no motivation to cook leading to lots of takeout. Consequently, my pants are kinda tight. (And by kinda I mean totally and completely. Thank God for jersey dresses.) This is not a good feeling heading into shorts season.

One of the things I decided to do in an attempt to stem the tide a bit was join a local CSA. I figured if I paid good money for vegetables each week I wouldn't be able to rationalize getting takeout instead of eating what I already had on hand. Also, I was intrigued by the idea of eating locally and in season. So far I've had incredible success! Perhaps this is because I just picked up my first share tonight. Perhaps. Still, I say! Good start!

Here's my haul:

Clockwise, from top: sourdough bread, rhubarb, thyme, mint, potatoes, radishes, green onions, lettuce, arugula, beet greens and garlic scapes.

Isn't it gorgeous?!?

I had grand plans to go to the gym but once I had these goodies in my car, all I could think about on the way home was what I was going to do with all of this deliciousness. Vegetables > elliptical. I was so lost in my thoughts that I took the wrong exit to my house. I'm lucky I didn't run over a pedestrian in my beet green-fueled haze. Once I got home I realized the pain-in-the-ass part of belonging to a CSA: washing and storing all of this crap. I always thought salad spinners were sort of stupid and useless, but I can admit when I am wrong and I WAS WRONG. I am buying one this weekend.

For my first meal I decided to go simple and experiment with the beet greens. I love beets, but I'd never had their greens before. I took inspiration from Kath and went for a simple greens/eggs/bread combo. She is a genius, because this was goooooood.

(Please ignore the egg yolk. I had a minor transferring mishap.)

Beet greens, where have you been all of my life? These were seriously the best greens I've ever had in my life. All I did was saute them in garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, salt and pepper until tender. Perfection. I want MORE! But I ate them all already! I think I'm already discovering one of the other downsides of a CSA...

I wanted to keep dinner light because I had grand plans for dessert. More specifically, a rhubarb strawberry crisp, inspired by the rhubarb in my CSA bag, some sad-looking strawberries in my fridge and Brandi.

Sorry 'bout the blurry pic.

My serving:

This is a really small bowl, so there is probably only 1/3-1/2 cup of crisp in there and 1/4 cup of coconut milk ice cream. If your stomach can handle real vanilla ice cream, that's what I recommend with this. The coconut flavor was OK with the crisp, but straight vanilla would have been better.

I didn't really use a recipe, so my attempt wasn't perfect but it was certainly delicious! I have more strawberries and rhubarb in the freezer so I am going to perfect the recipe in the coming weeks (read: ADD MORE BUTTER) and post it then.

Goodnight, all. I'm off to bed to dream of produce.

Do any of you belong to a CSA? Have any tips for me as a CSA-newbie?