Saturday, November 29, 2008

Feast

"Well, how was your feast for Thanksgiving, Uncle Mike?" asks Zachary after finding a ROTARY phone and learning how to dial up his uncle. "Our feast was delicious, even with 3 desserts!" Delicious, indeed. I am so grateful -- for two good boys and their dad and a great extended family and a good meal and blessings too many to count.

Here's the sweet potato recipe for Connie and Pam (or anyone else who wants it!):

18 ounces sweet potatoes, canned (I prefer fresh sweet potatoes, baked and mashed)
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 stick butter
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 pinches fresh nutmeg, grated
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup chopped pecans


Mix 1st 10 ingredients. Pour into buttered 9x13 pan.
Mix remaining ingredients and sprinkle over potatoes.
Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes, uncovered.

If doubling the recipe, don't double the topping.

Happy feasting to all!

Monday, November 10, 2008

My Little Characters



Monday, November 3, 2008

Friday Fun with Friends

A week ago on Friday, Jeremy and I had so much fun going to Totter Otterville with the Kruse family.



Saturday, November 1, 2008

Local Eating

Many of my friends who know about my involvment in the CSA just a mile or so from my house have been wondering how it works and/or how I like it. First of all, let me just say I thought being involved in a CSA was an awesome experience. The CSA I belong to, Earthshares (http://www.earthsharescsa.org/), happens to offer the choice of working 30 hours per summer in the gardens or not. Cost is adjusted accordingly. I worked and loved it. Yes, it was a bummer to have to go work sometimes, and yes my back often did not appreciate it. BUT, it was SO worthwhile. I can't say enough about the sense of peace, connection to the community, and connection to the food I'm giving my family that the experience gave me.

So, what was it actually like? Here's a photo from one of the first weeks of pickup. You can see that the napa cabbage didn't do so well, but we had several yummy salads that week:


The long scallion-looking things are young garlic plants. You can use the entire thing, just like a green onion. There was also kale. Greens seem to be the big item for the first several weeks, so you better like them! I grew up with things like swiss chard and kale, so I was in good shape. If there was anything we didn't manage to eat, it wound up as nutrients in my compost pile, so I didn't feel too badly about it.

As the season went on, we added things like brocolli, then green beans, peppers, tomatoes (up to 20 tomatoes at a time!), summer and pattypan squash, basil, parsley, garlic. Towards the middle of July, the sweet corn came in. Here's a list of what we picked up one week in early July:

  • 6 pounds tomatoes
  • 2 pounds peppers
  • 1/2 pound swiss chard
  • 1/2 pound lettuce greens
  • 1 green cabbage
  • 2 red cabbages
  • 1 pattypan squash
  • 1 pound beets
  • basil
  • parsley
  • 3/4 pounds broccoli

And some of the gorgeous potatoes that started arriving around September:



Then, some photos from the first week of October:




(These photos were thanks to Ali Edwards' week in the life photo project. She's an online, blogging scrapbooker who encouraged people to document a week of everyday life through words and photos. I highly recommend this project! I actually did it AND created my photobook already.)

You have to be ready to cook, freeze, can, or compost stuff when you are going to be getting 10 or 15 pounds of produce every week. Some weeks I used everything; some weeks stuff went into the compost bin. Some weeks, I even took the "freebies" (leftovers from the previous pickup 3 days before) and froze them right away. I pawned some free tomatoes off on my mom who made and canned ketchup! I can't say I've tried the canning thing yet, though I did learn how.

Just one more note: Many moms really involved their kids in this endeavor. I saw babies in backpacks, older kids helping out, and little kids hanging out at the end of rows while moms and dads worked. My kids did come to the garden with me a couple of times. Zachary really enjoyed weeding. He didn't enjoy it enough to want to come with me more than a few times, though! I actually enjoyed the quiet time. Jeremy liked looking at the garden, but he did NOT like to be there while I worked. We took walks there instead. Tim put in an hour of the 30 our family had to contribute!
The gardeners, Steve and Mary Lu, were so helpful and knowledgeable. It's really an art to get it all just right - much more so than for conventional gardening. They were always willing to teach people what to do and patient with all of the newbies to gardening. If you wanted to know anything, they were more than happy to teach. Steve even took our family to see his huge breeding hogs and let us watch (AND SMELL) him feeding them. Cool, but SMELLY!

So there you have it. I wish I had had some of this info last year to help me feel better about investing myself and my money in something I had never tried before. Turns out, it was totally worth it.