Adventures in Cooking- CSA style

Last week I bought a box of CSA (communtiy supported agriculture) vegetables from the South Central Farmers.

Holy lotta greens Batman!

It was a bushel box, think large cooler, full of greens that I had never cooked before let alone seen.

Thank goodness there was identifying information on their website. They had a handy little "What's in the box this week" link with a list of the vegetables that might be in your box and links to pictures of almost all of them.

I gave away a fair amount, there's just no way two people can eat that much food before it goes bad, and today I had to throw away some Purple and Green Mustard Greens (or at least I think that's what they were) because they were just gone.

Cooking took a little imagination and got some tasty results!

Greens and Grains Quiche- mustard greens sautéed in olive oil and garlic,combined with pearled barley, and a ton of Parmesan in fantabulous quiche form.

Pureed white bean soup with Red Russian Kale (so far my favorite new green, really tasty and not at all bitter)

Stamppot Van Boerenkool- a tasty potato and kale dutch dish that is one of Peter's favorites. Traditionally served with sausage or bacon, but we had it with soy hot dogs. Although a Bratwurst or anything from Wurstkuche would be amazing. . .

I also made some Beet Crisps- tasty but too much work for too little output and Oliver wouldn't eat them even though he loves anything salty and chip like usually.

Coming up this week, I still have Swiss Chard, some sort of lettuce, beets, teeny tiny carrots and red onions, and radishes.

I have plans for all but the radishes. Maybe just serve them raw with a salad? Anybody else have any ideas?

Gotta go my toaster oven just dinged, my roasted garlic is done. Yum!

Pattern Challenge: McCall's M6016

So I did it. I created a piece of apparel in the month of February. Actually I completed three! But so far I only have pictures of one.

The pattern overall was pretty easy. I made view B with the fold down collar and no contrast cuffs.
I made the extra large which could be considered an 18-24 month or maybe a 2T.


My biggest issue with the entire pattern was the fact that the instructions had you baste every seam, sometimes twice? before sewing. I skipped the basting for the most part, or just used pins to hold it in place.

I thought the collar application was easy and that had me worried, and although it did turn out a little wonky due to seamstress error, I didn't sew it at the correct seam allowance and it ended up being slightly too big, I'm really proud of it.

And my little man looked super cute in his Valentine's Day Shirt.