6.30.2010
Pick me up wednesday
6.29.2010
What's cooking this week?
Oh my, my post is late. Yesterday Little J came down and we did 6 miles in 90+ degree heat. Man it was hot. I think I'm just now recovering. We were super stupid. We headed out around 9am and got back to the house at noon. We are not doing that again it was just so hot. Although we did have a good time and we went to Big Spring Park and walked around downtown Huntsville. Afterwards we ate a "healthy" lunch at Earth Fare.
Sunday: Grilled eggplant and corn with skillet green beans.
Monday: eating out at Rosie's while we hunt refrigerators. (I can say about 99% sure we actually found one.)
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Stuffed peppers
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: fiesta taco salad made with October beans (those white beans that are spotted)
Saturday: Eggplant grinders with cucumber salad and mac 'n cheese
6.25.2010
The joy of cabbage
1. My favorite doll when I was young was a cabbage patch kid. Man did I love that doll. Mine had red hair and Little J's had yellow. She used to try to steal mine and call it hers. I remember that it owned clothes but it never wore them. I think she was just like this:
2. Coleslaw and a bucket of chicken. When I was growing up my family had a boat. We used always get a bucket of Mrs. Winner's chicken with mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy, and coleslaw and eat it on the lake. I didn't much care for the chicken, coleslaw, or mashed potatoes but man I loved the biscuits and gravy (this is a deep insight into my food psyche) and going to the lake. Tubing and eating biscuits are happy childhood memories for me.
So, you can see I didn't grow up in a cabbage loving family.
Now that I tried to be more educated in my food I have learned to
Here is what I have learned about cabbage:
1. It is amazingly versatile. You can it raw or cooked. It has a mild flavor that be added to lots of different dishes.
2. It is cheap. I think around St. Patrick's day (cabbage's day to really shine.) I got it around $.19 a pound. And now St. Patty's day has passed it's still pretty cost effective.
3. It is very low in calories. Green cabbage has 22 calories in a cup. A whole cup for 22 calories! That must be why there is a whole diet dedicated to it (the cabbage soup diet.)
4. It comes in a whole slew of varieties. I think we've only had green and white cabbage but I'm sure purple would be delish too.
5. It stays good in the fridge for a long time. I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it's hung around my crisper but I can assure you it's hardy.
A couple of tips:
1. Always remove the core. It's just not enjoyable at all and it's really hard to chop. Simply cut up into the cabbage around the core and pull out.
2. Stray away from crock potting it. I've tried a couple of different recipes and unless you are making the cabbage soup from the cabbage soup diet I think the crockpot destroys it.
If you are leery start out stir frying it. Just chop it up to bite sized pieces and stir fry with onion in oil. Once it's just about cooked add Asian salad dressing, and if you are on omnivore, and chicken. Serve with rice. Easy and tasty.
If you want to be more daring here are our favorites:
1. Cabbage rolls.
2. Asian Salad.
3. Moo-shu chicken.
4. Homemade egg rolls. (I baked these in the oven instead of frying them. They were very good that way.)
The joys of ...
First up...cabbage.
a face lift
6.22.2010
Attack of the watermelon (plants)!
6.21.2010
CSA week 6
What's in the box? green beans, cabbage, green tomatoes, eggplant, corn, onion, bell pepper, tomatoes
I wont lie. Of course I like the box but it's not necessarily the best one yet. It feels a little sparse. I will probably cook everything in it this week with nothing to freeze. Last week my beetnik cake came out so good i was actually looking forward to getting some more beets to bake with.
Monday: "fried" green tomatoes, grilled corn, black bean burgers/turkey burgers and home made buns.
Tuesday: leftovers
Wednesday: Thai cabbage salad.
Thursday: leftovers
Friday: Pasta with eggplant, onion, tomatoes, and shrimp
Saturday: Date night out to Toy Story 3.
6.20.2010
Stuft Shells
When Mr. C and I started dating one of our favorite foods was buying the Marie Calender's stuffed shells from the grocery (usually Walmart, we were so broke and naive back then about the evils of walmart). It was easy and tasty. I think it's one of his all time favorite foods. He has an unnatural obsession with pasta. Well, now I still know how much he loves them and how terrible they are for us. Here is my attempt at a more nutritious version (this recipe totally throws my vegan attempts out the window.) These were SO good. They were more of an experiment than I've been doing lately but they were totally worth it. Cooking the greens before hand totally mask the pungent taste you usually get with greens. These are an excellent way to hide that bitter taste.
What you need:
Jumbo shells
spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
a bunch of greens (I used beet greens but you could use spinach, kale, swiss chard, really any greens)
1/2 cup mozzarella + enough left to cover when done
2 TBSP oregano
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 TBSP garlic
salt and season to taste
1. Cook shells according to package directions minus a couple of minutes. Set aside when done.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
3. Chop greens. If you use anything other than spinach take the stems off. They are where the strong flavor is coming from.
4. Put greens in glass bowl in the microwave covered with water (so you don't die of scary plastic toxins) and cook for about 4 min.
5. While both of those are cooking mix all other ingredients minus spaghetti sauce together.
6. Put thin layer of sauce at the bottom of the pan.
7. Drain water out of greens. Chop finely. I actually just added to the mixture and used the immersion blender to mix everything up. It worked amazingly but if you don't have one I'm sure you could do it by hand it'll just take longer.
8. If doing by hand, add finely chopped greens to cheese mixture.
9. Put shells open side up in the pan.
10. Dollop cheese and greens filling inside shells.
11. Cover with another layer of spaghetti sauce.
12. Sprinkle dish with left over mozzarella cheese.
13. Cook at 375 for 20 minutes.
14. Serve with french bread and broccoli to your loving husband who has been doing manly work the garage this whole time while you are in the air conditioned house. =)
6.17.2010
10 ways to increase motivation
6.13.2010
csa meals week 5
Look at that box! EGGS, yes EGGS that are local and organic. I know I say this every week but we have never got a box this good. I honestly believe this year is way better than last year and last year wasn't bad.
Well, we've already eaten the lettuce, cucumbers, and bell pepper in salad. Squash, zucchini, and green beans I'm going to flash freeze for winter. Last year we ate most everything and winter came we didn't eat too healthy. This year we are being good squirrels and I'm going to put away a good amount of food for later.
Sunday: church picnic. we are bringing some twice baked potatoes I have in the freezer I made a huge batch of and then Mr. C decided he didn't really like them. The fine folks at The Brook will get the pleasure of enjoying them.
Monday: Haluski with oven roasted chicken and beetnik cake. (cabbage and beets)
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday cauliflower curry in the crockpot
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Stuffed shells filled with ricotta and beet greens
Saturday: gone to Nashville to visit our dads
6.08.2010
Meal plan week 4
What's in the box this week: 1 head of cabbage, 4 beets and beet greens, a head of lettuce, cauliflower, 4 cucumbers, 3 squash, green onions, and green beans.
We have already eaten the squash, lettuce, and the cucumbers.
Sunday: Leftovers
Monday: Mr. C has requested wonton soup with moo shoo chicken/seitan (cabbage and green onions)
Tuesday: Grilled steak/tofu, skillet green beans, and cauliflower salad.
Wednesday: Leftovers
Thursday:Mexican night(ish) with roasted beet salsa and tacos.
Friday: Hot dogs
Saturday: Homemade pizzas
6.04.2010
Remember my accidental gardening?
Well, here it is again and I'm now pretty confident it's a melon. It's hard to see but there is even a bloom starting to grow. Gardening really reminds me how amazing God is. His blessing a random plant in my yard like this really reminds me how He loves and blesses me (and you too).
Just imagine as he provides rain and sunlight for this meager melon he provides so much more for me and you to grow and blossom.
6.01.2010
My efforts to raise money for my run
The run that almost wasn't
Back in April I blogged about my plan to challenge myself for Chicago. Well, I paid for the Cotton Row 10K and I was pumped. I had a plan and a structure to get me to my goal of the 3 hour half marathon.
Then my mom mentioned that my grandpa would give his riding lawn mower if we would just pick it up. Well, right now we have about an acre and Mr. C is push mowing. He was fine with it but it takes about 3 1/2 hours to do so if something happened the lawn doesn't get done. So, that offer and the fact that my other grandma had offered a tiller for a garden were just too much to pass up (not to mention that we only spent a day in Texas over Christmas and barely got to visit). Anyway we realized that Memorial Day weekend was the perfect time to go get it. Therefore my dreams of the Cotton Row Run went out the window.
Well, my parents decided to go with us to Texas and decided to drive, the wonderful people they are. So, as planned we went to Dallas and saw the family there. Then we went to Henderson. My dad decided he wanted to leave Sunday night instead of Monday morning because of traffic on the road. Well, he was driving so we left early. We left Texas at 4pm and got into Nashville about 1:30am. Well, with the decision to come back early I got to thinking that the Cotton Row Run was a reality. Woo hoo! I mentioned this to Mr. C and him being the wonderful, amazing, supportive husband that he is agreed that upon arriving in Nashville in the middle of the night we would pick the mutt children up at his parents (another set of amazing people who willing dogsit our children during most of our traveling adventures) and he would drive another 1 1/2 hours so I could make my race. Well, we did just that. We got into Huntsville about 3:30am. We were both tired but Mr. C was exhausted due to the fact that I slept off and on since 9pm that night in the car and he was awake.
Well, 6am rolls around and I trot down to Huntsville and run my 10K. I finished the Cotton Row Run in record time! Not a huge difference but improvement is all that matters. You know what? Even though I was tired it was really due to my family. If it wasn't for them I wouldn't have even made it to the start line. I think even though I'm the one running it's a family effort most of the time. I am so lucky to have supportive family.
Speaking of family, next up Chicago Rock'n Roll Half Marathon where I'll be running for Danae.
CSA and meal plan week #3
zucchini, Cauliflower, Strawberries, Green onions, Broccoli, Beets (beet greens), Cabbage, and Mystery greens
The meal plan:
Monday- We went to a cookout with our neighbors. Nothing healthy was made or eaten.
Tuesday- Beet risotto with spinach garlic bread
Wednesday- Cabbage rolls in the crock pot
Thursday- Leftovers
Friday- Veggie/sausage calzones (mystery greens) with zucchini chips
Saturday- Tandoori chicken/tofu with roasted cauliflower
I am going to blanch the broccoli and throw it in the freezer for later in the year. I'm sure we'll just eat the strawberries and I'll cook with the green onions.
YUM