gardens and menus June 6-13

Well, our menu planning changed a bit. This week has actually been a crazy week. I have joined a community garden and the beds are so empty right no its horrid. They need to hurry and fill in. The beds are each about 8X20 feet. Here I keep my full sun beds. At home I have three four by four beds and an eight by four bed. I also have two small round beds, about four feet in diameter. At home I have shade so lots of spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cold crop type foods.

The community garden is less then exciting. Here is the first bed, it shows corn, green beans, squash, cucumbers and a lone broccoli plant that was leftover from the prior renter of the plot. It was happy there so I left it. The seeds and plants were planted around four weeks ago.

This second bed has some established herbs (the reason I chose it!) There is thyme, cilantro, oregano and chives already there. I have put in more, basil, beets, tomatoes, tomatillos, crookneck squash and more. Its looking pretty bleak right now but soon . . . hopefully will be fuller.

Here are some of this weeks menus from our CSA box. Below is roasted baby beets, roasted Kohlrabi and leeks. We served this with the spinach bacon salad. This time we used sliced kohlrabi instead of water chestnuts and it was super good.

Spinach salad, made with fresh spinach, kohlrabi, eggs, bacon and more. YUM! It went great with the roasted veggies.

but THIS!!! THIS was the most yummy dish all week. It was somewhat impromptu but I will make this again many times. I took a pork loin, drizzled in olive oil, black pepper and kosher salt. I then browned it in a skillet before transferring to the oven. I used that pan to saute the entire bulb and stalk of the green garlic. When the garlic was softened I added the chopped kale and sauteed it until it was cooked soft. I added a can of white beans with some of the liquid from the pork roast . . .it was so amazing. My kids ate it all! This was the best kale dish I have ever made. DELISH!

SO, other then eating too much food what else has happened this week? OH YA!

I became a sister. .. . for the first time ever. My brother is actually forty . . .but while I knew he existed I was never able to make contact with him until today. I'm still in shock. I still am pinching myself to see if its real but . . .I talked to him. He talked to my dad. Its insanely crazy in a great way. I woke up an only child, and im going to bed a sister! CRAZY cool!

Catching up - CSA's and all things yummy

I haven't posted forever here. It was for no reason other then life got super busy. I moved to a new home with very little garden space (ack) but remedied that with my first ever community garden space, lots of pots of veggies and a subscription to a local CSA (community supported agriculture). The idea is you pay for a subscription and each week they deliver to you. Not only did I have limited garden space this year but I also have injured my leg. I took a hard fall which resulted in a chipped kneecap and a torn MCL. No hard work this year . . .shoveling would be impossible, so is much kneeling, digging etc. SO, instead I am doing small gardening and a CSA. I thought it would be fun to post my box each week as well as what we are doing with our CSA subscription. I will post recipes and show some pics of the good as well.

This weeks box included a large bag of spinach (thats going to be spinach salad tomorrow), a bag of salad greens, a head of lettuce, three big kohlrabi (I have never made that so unsure what to do yet) Beets, leeks, green garlic, kale, chard, broccoli, cabbage, parsley and some pretty flowers. My tentative plan is to eat the greens first and leave the broccoli, cabbage and beets for later in teh week. We have a trip to California for the weekend planned so we may share some of this food so it doesn't go bad.

Tonights dinner: Garlic roasted pork loin, greens and roasted veggies.
Friday: Spinach salad

The BEST spinach salad (a complete meal!)

Fresh spinach leaves
crispy crumbled bacon
hard boiled eggs chopped or sliced
chopped or sliced water chestnuts
bean sprouts

Combine these ingredients and toss with the salad
1/4 C sugar (or honey or splenda or whatever . . . to taste - its forgiving!)
1/2 C oil (we use olive)
1/2 tbsp worchestichire (we always forget this part)
1/8 C vinegar (cider is good, so is rice)
1/2 C minced onion
1/4 C Ketchup

This is so good. My kids beg for it all year long. We make it at least once a month.