Couscous fail

Couscous is delicious and easy and you can do anything you want to it. Which is one (3?) of the reasons I've never been making couscous for dinner, thinking to myself, I should take pictures of this for the blog. It's easier than a grilled cheese sandwich.

So while dealing with the farmshare foods (making salad, washing things, determining if anything needed to be frozen) on Tuesday, I decided to do up some couscous for our lunches, using the fluffy chard we got. I sauteed up some chard in garlic and cooked the couscous in homemade veg stock and chopped sundried tomatoes, and a fontina rind. Black pepper. Done. It took 10 minutes.

CSA 2011 - The Goods - Week Four

Another pretty week in the farmshare.  Green and orange and purple and red.  After four weeks, I'm realizing that it's pretty easy when you choose your own veg.  There are no beets that way, and no weeks where you get three bunches of scallions, and you can always be sure you have salad on hand.   This week was a slight disappointment, as we found out over the weekend that something went wrong and those of us who had ordered arugula weren't going to be able to get it, but I had no problem swapping out for kale, and that's why we do this, right?  We buy the produce that's available now, and we're helping to balance out the risk of farming - if this farm had to deliver arugula to Shop Rite, they'd be screwed, but since it's me, I'll take kale.

Dining Out: Horizons

Me and the girls had struggled for months to find a good date for dinner.   Seriously, you'd think we were working on world peace.   We're busy ladies.  Everybody has a baby or a job, and either a social life or volunteer stuff or a marriage to sustain.   Finally, we got it figured out.  And just in time.  We'd been planning on going to Horizons for months, a "modern vegan" restaurant near here - one of us is vegan and all of us like food - and then we heard that they were closing.   The clock was ticking. 

Steak Fajitas

Fajitas are a default/easy/go-to in our house.  Either veg or chicken, usually.  This was a first for steak. Pretty quick and easy, except for a bit of marinade time. 

Grilled Pizza, again.

I contacted Maya, the winner of the bowl covers, and she said the following:

I can't even remember the last time I won a contest! My senior year in high school my name was picked first out of a hat to choose a passage from Hamlet to memorize. But I don't think that counts.

She selected this bold, fun print and they're on their way. 

Anyway, I said there'd be food. 

Sometimes you and your friends get together and make your own ricotta, make up some pesto, and grill up fantastic pizza, but you're not at home and you don't take photos of the process and then somebody jumps in and takes photos once it's over and tells you you should post it.  And you know, it's good pizza and people like to hear about good pizza, so you post it. 

Sometimes that happens.  And it's nighttime, and you're grilling and you're eating outside, so the photos look like this.

And sometimes one of your friends makes a salad that sounds mind-numbingly simple but might be life-changing. Chickpeas. Red Onion.  Tomato. Oil. Vinegar. Scapes. Nom.  

And sometimes eggplant gets that rich smoky flavor that makes it seem like it's not just a veg with a bit of tomato sauce and a blanket of mozzarella...like there's something way more complicated going on.

Hot tip on pesto.  

I used a ton of basil and a good amount of parmesan and pine nuts and olive oil... it was like two a half cups of basil, 1/3 cup oil, 1/3 cup pine nuts and 1/2 cup parm...one garlic clove, black pepper, salt...  and it was kind of lame. I mean it tasted good, but not super basily.  A little too salty.  Then I let it sit an hour and it got awesome.  Like fight over the leftovers awesome.  Dip your finger in the bowl, again, awesome.   So let your pesto develop.