Today is more about bragging than cooking. After being stuck in the house for almost a week with a cold, and after waiting since spring for my membership to activate, I was finally able to go out to the local community-supported organic farm to pick up my first share. Exciting! I’d missed a fabulous party the night before due to a hacking cough. But nobody cares if you cough a little outdoors. So I asked my mom to meet me after church, and we headed out to pick up the produce.

Here’s the skinny, if you’re not up on this… For a relatively reasonable price, you invest in the running of the farm. Your payoff, your “dividend,” is in produce during the growing season. And you also chip in some time tending the crops and volunteering where you can. I think it’s a fair deal.  And you have the chance to support local business, encourage local growing, and be a part of a community. Oh, and the fabulous, fresh organic vegetables are a huge bonus, too.

I have a half share, so I go every other week. That’s more than enough. I picked up shares of 12 different types of vegetables, and that’s plenty to stock my own fridge and freezer for a couple of weeks.  I got mizuna, which I’d never heard of by name before. Now, it’ll be a tasty part of my salads. And I’d heard of chard, but I’d never bought it. Now, I’m becoming an expert on what to do with rainbow chard, as well.

When I got home, I washed everything, bagged it, and froze half of the kale, chard and mustard greens. I froze half of the eggplant, as well. The eggplant gives me happy images of toasty, impromptu eggplant sammiches on lazy Saturday afternoons. And it’s so tender! The ones at the store are tough, and you need a plan to work with them. With this one, from the farm, even the skin feels tender.

I am a very happy girl.

After all that, and a week of floating in a Nyquil-induced haze on the sofa, I was pretty worn out. I thought about skipping dinner, but the new ingredients were too tempting. So I sauteed some of the mustard greens with button mushrooms, garlic, and scallions, and had those with some leftover mashed potatoes, and topped it all with feta. No complaints here. Oh, and I still had just enough room for the very last bit of the butter pecan ice cream and a few ginger snaps.

Life is good, y’all.

SC

I should be doing homework, but it’s been a crazy, small, BIG, eventful week. On Monday, I had my interview for my school internship. While there, I was already feeling sick. My eyes were itchy, my throat was closing up, and I think the interview was a balls up. (Oh well. That remains to be seen, yes?)

So I’ve been stuck in the house for the better part of a week. I slept all day Tuesday and Wednesday, dragged into class on Wednesday, then stayed out on Thursday and Friday. I don’t know if it’s allergies or a cold, but no one needs any germs from me. Better safe than sorry.

As if things weren’t complicated enough, the hot water heater flooded my dining room on Thursday morning. Luckily I was at home, so maintenance came to take care of it right away. But they ripped up the carpet to expose the padding, inserted a big blower underneath, and it’s been a rackety mess in here for days. They’ve been spraying the carpet with some sort of anti-mildew stuff, but I’m sure that everything trapped between the carpet and the pad has gone right up my finicky nose. Huzzah.

So I’m hoping this is my one big sick of the season. I can’t afford any more time away from school. And I’m super stir crazy! I’ve watched almost four seasons of Psych in a week, a LOT of National Geographic, and I haven’t really gotten anything useful done.I still need to register for next semester!

This morning, in a fit of self-pity and optimism (because I’m sure today is the day I get rid of the fan,) I treated myself to whole wheat biscuits. My appetite hasn’t run much past wonton soup from my favorite Chinese place. So I got the idea for biscuits and just went with it.

Biscuits are one of the many things I find difficult to quantify. I watched my mom and grandmom make them by touch for years, so I pretty much do the same. I almost always cut in too much butter and forget the baking powder till the last-minute, and they usually still turn out right.

If I were you, I’d start with a tested recipe, like this one from King Arthur Flour. I’m not guarding a secret family recipe, or anything; I just dump stuff into a bowl until it feels right.  Mine was something like this, but I won’t swear to it:

(Made just for me, so it yielded five biscuits.)

3/4 – 1 cup of whole wheat flour

1/2 stick of butter

1/2 – 3/4 cup of organic soy milk

1 tablespoon of baking powder

A little confectioners sugar

A little butter

Set oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Cut the shortening into the flour. Add the milk in slowly, while mixing. When you’ve added all the milk, mix thoroughly with a spoon or fork, then switch to using your hands. The dough should feel sort of silky and light, not sticky and not heavy. Add more flour if you need it, but be careful not to add too much.

I hand shaped these and placed them in my little ceramic baking dish from Ikea with a light glaze of oil in the bottom of the pan. Then I split the tops with a knife slice. It felt as if they cooked forever, but it was really about 15 minutes. The glaze is just a little confectioners sugar mixed with a little melted butter.

And then, I had the audacity to stuff two of them with pats of butter and ate them with a hot, sugary, milky latte. If I don’t get out of here soon, I will weigh 8000 pounds.

SC.

Today was weird. And good. And weird. I had an online class this morning, so I got up to run. (Run/walk. Whatever.) The power had crashed in my neighborhood while I was out, and my DSL modem was jammed. I finally figured it out, but I lost a lot of time. Then, I lost more time while I printed stuff for the afternoon class and ran out of paper.

But I made a deal with myself this year: I will take care of myself. One thing that I will do is be healthy, and that includes running and eating right. Another big deal is that I will not get upset. Oh sure, sometimes getting upset is warranted. But printers crash and assignments are turned in late, and life goes on. I can get the job done with drama, or I can just get the job done. I choose option 2. So I fixed stuff and dug up resume paper when I ran out of laser white, and that’s that. I like this. I feel better. I could do without the stress and drama. I’m sure that I’ll have a massive meltdown some day over something trivial that happens in class. Not today, though.

I still have an 8-page paper to write, but my undergrad training taught me a lot about writing under pressure. I’ll be fine. And I stopped for early dinner with a really good friend, and that was worth all the trouble of the day. I had a decent but tiny breakfast, and had to stop to eat just a large order of fries for lunch, due to delays. So it was nice to sit down for dinner and have Italian Tomato Bisque and a salad.

Gonna crash for a bit, then write. Yay Friday, with or without a paper and a presentation looming. It’s all ok.

I’m tempted, but I’m not that pithy. “Ran-trained, ate, Evil Baby Kitty Puked, off to work.” Oh, actually that worked pretty well.

I have to put my money where my mouth is. I complained about the Facebook memes where people paste crap in their status(es? ii?) instead of atucally taking action for a cause. So I have to at least try to live up to my entry in the half marathon I signed up to do in November. So I surprised myself and hit the treadmill this morning. I freak if I’m too tired to study, but I have to nut up (snicker!) and put some effort into this. Then I ate steel cut oats with applesauce and fig bars. I might survive today.

Evil Baby Kitty isn’t feeling well. I have to take her back to the vet. I hope we can solve this, and that she isn’t *really* sick. Thank you pet insurance! (I think. I haven’t really used it yet.)

Last night? Skillet cornbread, okra, tomatoes, corn, and redownloaded all of the research that I lost for Friday’s paper/presentation. W00t.

(These are this morning’s breakfast potatoes. They were supposed to be crispy, but I flubbed it. And they look not a bit like saurkraut. But they were tasty. Oh. Yeah.)

I’ve been having a great summer. I really did. I played a lot, saw a lot of live music, read a lot of books, and generally had a good time.

But food has been weird. I went through a phase where my digestion was much worse, and I had a hard time trying to figure it out. Saw a new gastroenterologist, had myself tested for celiac (it was negative,) and I still think I have a wheat sensitivity. So I sort of threw in the towel and went back to eating meat for a bit. I was in the cafeteria one day, they had pork chops, and I lost my mind. And trust me, these were damned good pork chops, smothered with onions and gravy, and accompanied by mashed potatoes.

That sent me on a meat binge that lasted for at least a month. It was kind of fun. However, I have really developed a conscience about eating meat. Before, animal cruelty was in the back of my mind; but my vegetarianism was mostly dictated by my problems with IBS. Now, I can’t eat anything without thinking about sad little beakless chickens and brutalized cows.

So I’ve made a deal with myself. I can be a flexatarian (someone who occasionally eats meat) as long as it’s cruelty free. I think that’s a fair deal. My body is still really not crazy about meat anyway, so I don’t feel it’s a great loss.

I started grad school, as well. It’s been a weird six weeks trying to adjust to the new schedule and get a plan down that includes decent meals. I think I’ve finally gotten into a groove. We have two decent eateries in my department, and both have really good, really fresh vegetarian choices. Since I’m a broke-assed student now, I generally try to pack healthy appealing lunches. So today, I’m leaving you with a medley of recent SanghaChick meals.

Oh, but I have been missing! I was running a lot, then not running so much. Then, there was Crazy Week, and all bets were off. But when I show up, I usually have something good right? (Yes? Maybe?)

When I was in Ireland, I had a Fennel and Goat Cheese Lasagna at a vegetarian restaurant called Cafe Fresh, and I’ve been wanting to try something like it since then. I wouldn’t be surprised if the very kind owner would send me the recipe if I asked for it. But half the fun is puttering around and trying to figure it all out!

This turned out to be quite different from her recipe, but I really rather like it. I’m gonna give her version another shot, but this is gonna make me happy all week.

Fennel and Four Cheese Lasagna

Half a box of lasagna noodles

1/2 cup of fennel bottoms

Half of a red bell pepper

Nice-sized shallot (baby fist)

5-6 baby portobellos

1 cup of skim ricotta (as fresh as you can get)

1 package of feta cheese (7 ozs.)

1 package of parmesan (about 16 ozs.)

1/4 cup of asiago cheese

2 eggs

Three cloves of garlic

1/2 cup or marinara sauce

A little salt and pepper

Slice the tops off your fennel (save them for later.) Slice the bottoms up pretty fine (finer than I did, even,) and then boil them until they are REALLY tender. Slice the portobellos, the shallot and the red bell pepper and put them aside. Crumble the feta with a fork, and mix it with the ricotta in another bowl. Add half of the parmesan.

Put on your noodles to boil.

When the fennel is tender, drain it and mix it with the cheese. Stir in the other vegetables. Crush your garlic into the bowl and mix well. Add your two eggs and make sure those are also stirred in well.

Grate your Asiago; put that side for now.

I slathered the bottom of my lasagna pan with extra virgin olive oil, then started a layer of noodles. (Word to the wise? Run them under cold water first so you don’t singe your fingers. If that wasn’t obvious, then you might be me.) Add a layer of the ricotta mixture, then another layer of noodles and another layer of the ricotta mixture, followed by a last layer of noodles. I didn’t want this to be really “red,” but I realized that the marinara would help to keep my noodles from drying out. So I carefully spread a layer of the sauce.

Put your pan in the oven and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, to start. While you’re baking, mix the rest of the Parmesan in with the grated Asiago. (And do your dishes and clean up!) After 30 or so minutes, take the pan out, sprinkle the last of the Asiago/Parmesan mixture evenly over the top of your pan, and bake for about another 10 minutes. I had mine with organic lettuce from the co-op, and I am a happy, happy woman.

I always know that I’ve done well when Evil Baby Kitty yowls at the smell like she hasn’t eaten since Christmas. So this must have been pretty good.

And I did hop out to the organic co-op on Sunday to see what I could see. My veggie “dividends” don’t start until September. But I still bought a ton of stuff for a lot less than I would have gotten it at one of the chains. SO happy that greens were in season! I got one bunch of greens, washed them., tore them up, then froze them in four individual bags. That’s good eatin’.

(For my friends with IBS, this is probably way too much cheese. You could try a cheese substitute, but I’d go with one of the rice derivatives.)

How did I miss this? Maybe I should take this course.