This weeks Menu

Here is the yumminess going down at our house this week. Who’s coming over for dinner?

Stir fry, with broccoli, snow peas, bell pepper- over rice or quinoa

Bulgogi plate- delicious hawaiian plate that we had while camping, going to recreate it with as many local parts as possible and make our own mac salad; meat served with sticky rice

Roasted summer squash with pasta

Tempeh caesar salad

Eggs benedict with asparagus on homemade english muffins

Grill day- probably some lamb chops and hopefully some baby artichokes

Chocolate covered strawberries

Lots of delicious smoothies

 

Yeah I think that about covers it.

May 19, Hillsborough Market- Spring winding down

End of Spring Farmer’s Market Fare

Lots of spring plants are starting to wind down with the warmer weather.  This week is most likely the last week of strawberries, so of course I bought a flat ($22).  There was also asparagus again, which is pretty much done or on its way out.  I also got what is surely the last snap peas we’ll see until next spring.  I did a final harvest on out plants earlier this week and then cut them down and the farmer that had these said he had done the same.  There is a hint of early summer with the first squash of the year coming home.  Also got some garden peas (more on those below).  Here’s my price break down this week:

$37: strawberries, peas, asparagus, lettuce mix, broccoli

$5: squash and snap peas

$4: onions and garlic (from Cane Creek Farm’s store)

Grand total: $46 ($22 of which was those berries so a small week sorta)

 

Berries are mostly getting frozen for our ever increasing smoothie making habit.  The peas also get frozen, but of course had to be shelled first.  Farmers have a cool piece of equipment that does this for you, but its kind of theraputic to do it by hand, which is how I got my pound of peas done.  Einstein helped…

Shelling Peas for freezing

Einstein helping shell the peas

Ducks!

I bought some ducks.  8 straight run khaki campbells to be exact.  They are living at my friend Chris’s house, since I live in an apartment, and while it is in Carrboro, I’m pretty sure having ducks on the patio would still be frowned upon. Straight run, in case you don’t know, means that they are a mix of male and female ducks.  Being mostly vegetarian, obvious we’re hoping for more females than males.  Although if there are too many males, I will be helping with their processing from ducks to meat.  (Which I’m sure will make for an interesting post.) That process will also help decide if I’m going to be a full vegetarian or not, I’m sure.  Also there is a neighbor who got a batch of female khakis and is willing to trade us if we have way too many males.  So I went to meet my ducks for the first time on Monday evening and here is their epic cuteness.  They are about a week old and already know that they should stick together because they are not chickens.  They don’t seem to mind their chicken broodmates much but they already know that they are cooler than chickens since they are ducks Without any further ado, check out their cuteness:

 

Menu. Week of 5/13

So we were camping this weekend and so I didn’t make it to the farmers market. We might get out to the farm store some time this week. But it will be a delicious, mostly veg*n week nonetheless.

Here’s the plan as of now:

Samosas (using the leftover filling from last time)

Tempeh Lettuce Wraps on bib lettuce

Quinoa surprise… aka whatever veg we’re feeling that night tossed over quinoa

Black bean and avocado tacos- thanks again to pinterest

Pizza night

Braised lamb roast with rice and some kind of side veg- probably kale and swiss chard from the garden

 

Keeping it Stupid Simple this week- which is sometimes the yummiest way to go.

Market and Mulberries

Last Friday was my friend Chad’s place: Market Restaurant‘s second birthday! We have so far gotten to make it for all of thier brithdays which is very exciting.  Market uses as many local products as possible and all humanely raised meats. Therefore it is one of the few places where I will eat meat that I didn’t prepare myself.  They also do this awesome thing called $5 fridays.  There is usually a meat choice and a veg*n choice for $5 in addition to the regular in season menu items.  For their birthday, Gary and I both got the BBQ turkey sandwich with slaw and it was amazing as always. So amazing in fact that I did not take it’s picture (or even think to) until it was too far gone In any case, you should go check out Market sometime if you are ever in Raleigh!

After lunch I took Gary over to clean out his lab! We went to check and make sure nothing needed done at the green house and low and behold, there were ripe mulberries to be had! I had about 10 minutes until I needed to leave for work, but we managed to pic about a quart of mulberries.  Love me some free fruit! I froze them up for using in smoothie or future jams or cobblers.

It was a very yummy date afternoon with my hubby!

Menu for this week 5/6: good-bye seniors!

So this week we are having our amazing friends Kirsten and Amanda over for a final shindig before Kirsten goes off to medical school! We are sad to see her go, but know she is going to be an awesome doctor so we are letting her part with us for a while

We will be making many things this week (although fewer than some weeks because next weekend we’ll be going camping, but more on that later)

This weeks menu:

Lamb tikka masala on the grill- this is for when the girls are over- something similar to this recipe.

Pad thai with tatsoi and home grown sprouts (didn’t ever get to this one last week so I’m less obsessed than I may seem)

Cheesy Quinoa Cakes- thank you pinterest!

Pizza with homemade wheat crust and miscellaneous veggies

Mushroom stroganoff

Also kickin’ it with some leftovers: cauliflower was left from last week so I went ahead and made up a patch of cauliflower egg salad.  Also we have leftover lasagne which we’ll be having for dinner tomorrow night

What are you making this week? I’m always up for some new ideas!

Carrboro Market 5/5

It was a beautiful morning for the farmers market.  I went to Carrboro so I could get done quickly.  Here is the breakdown on my produce this week:

Strawberries, mixed lettuce: $8.50

Spring onions, garlic, tatsoi (!): $6

Goat cheeses: $5.30

Yellow tomatoes: $1.80

Organic Carrots: $3

A dozen eggs $4.50 (kinda pricey carrboro!)

Grand total: $29.10!

I’m excited to see what we can make this week! I’m sure it will be yummy!

Beer yeast sourdough starter

My husband got these beers in a multipack that had a ton of yeast sediment in the bottom of them.  My old sourdough starter had frozen in the back of our refrigerator, and it was time to make some new anyways.  I got a clean mason jar, some fresh flour and some clean water, in addition to rinsing the sediment from the bottom of one beer bottle.  Then I left this concoction on the counter, covered with wax paper for a few days, adding about 1/4 cup of water and flour each day.  Finally, I had this beautiful bubbly brew:

This past weekend I used the Challah bread recipe from Wild Fermentation.  The bread turned out pretty nicely, but a bit denser than pervious challah loaves I have made.  I think the starter would be better suited to a rustic italian/sourdough loaf; but it also may have helped to let the second rise go a bit longer.  All in all, we do have some tasty bread for the week. And it looks pretty too:

I am excited to see how this starter evolves over time.  The last starter I had kept going for about a year and a half.  I find that using it every two weeks or so is the best for keeping it going pretty nicely.

Strawberry Picking!

I went and picked a bunch of strawberries today.  Here are some of them:

Some went directly into some strawberry daquaris, the majority of the rest are in line to be frozen.  About a quart of them will be held in reserve for making some peach and strawberry jam, which was our favorite concoction from last year, but that won’t be until August when peaches are at their prime.  The rest, however many that ends up being, will be available for making smoothies and whatever else needs strawberries for the 10 months out of the year that we don’t hae fresh strawberries at the market.  The goal is to freeze about 4-5 gallons.  I picked 15.62 lbs today with my friend Megan, in addition to the 6 lbs she took home.

Cane Creek Farms grows everything naturally and organically with no sprays or pesticides, which is super important for strawberries as they are one of the “dirty dozen.” The pick-your-own berries were $2/lb, so they came out to a total of $31.24.

St. Baldricks, Carolyn’s Birthday and another yummy week

So the St. Baldricks event yesterday was awesome; Gary raised just shy of $1300 for childhood cancer research.  Check out the before and after pics if you’d like. Today is my beautiful friend Carolyn’s 21st birthday so we’ll be breaking out some of the pumpkin that we have frozen from last fall to help with celebrating her special day.

Here’s the lovely menu for the week:

• Asparagus Quinoa salad with a beautiful yellow tomato
• Lentil samosas from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything
• Vegetarian Lasagna  (again), this time with broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and homemade tomato sauce; cottage cheese instead of ricotta
• Lamb stew with herb dumplings, adapted from my Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, using the new potatoes, and course some of our lamb
• Pumpkin Pie for Carolyn
• Egg mushroom rolls from Indian in 6 (trying this one for the first time this week) featuring the local shitake mushrooms I got yesterday
• Kaplan sandwiches a la Sam the Cooking Guy, will use the beefy tomatoes we got this week
• Pad Thai (again)- clearly this is a staple for us… will be using bok choy and home grown mung bean sprouts, and throwing in some tofu for extra protein
• Also there are many more strawberries to be had, as well as sugar snap peas, for healthy snacking
• Got some sour dough Challah bread in the works
• Probably will make some cauliflower egg salad for lunches
• And lastly, got some mini blueberry muffins (last years frozen blueberries) baked up for breakfast at Love Chapel Hill