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!