Community Supported Agriculture

We are regular patrons of the Lawrence Farmer's Market.  We have a modest garden in the backyard.  But this year we are taking our commitment to eating fresh and local one step further.

I have heard of Community Supported Agriculture programs before, but was always hesitant to participate.  I didn't want to make a financial commitment to a weekly food ration that I wasn't sure we would use.  Then I was introduced to the Douglas County Child Development Association's program, Families, Farmers and Educators United for Healthy Child Development, at Jack's school.

Princeton is participating in the program by planting a garden at school. 

The garden at Princeton

The plot for the 3's room

Of course, there are countless learning opportunities that the garden helps facilitate (agriculture, nutrition, insects, etc.).  In addition, the kids will get to cultivate their garden, watch the food grow and enjoy the fruits of their labor during snack and meal times.  Cool, right?

Then they took it one step further by partnering with a local farm, Pendleton's Country Market, and their CSA program.  Princeton is now one of the pick-up locations for Pendleton's weekly produce bags.  Suddenly CSA participation is not only extremely convenient for parents, it also reinforces the message of local and sustainable eating at home, too.  Gotta love a win-win!

Needless to say, I was sold.  John Pendleton was kind enough to take a photo of Jack and I as we picked up our first bag of produce (in fancy insulated bags...bonus!) earlier this week.

Here is the bounty from week one:

Blackberries, New Potatoes, Purple Asparagus, Kale, Beets, Kohlrabi

I'll be honest, it's a bit intimidating.  The blackberries, potatoes and asparagus are home runs for sure.  But the kale, beets and kohlrabi are definitely out of the norm for us.  I've been scouring pinterest and cookbooks for recipe suggestions and cooking techniques.  And the awesome folks at Pendleton's even included several recipe cards to help get you started with some of the more obscure items.

Overall, I can't tell you how excited I am.  While I'm sure we will encounter some duds along the way, I'm hopeful that throughout this process we'll discover new foods and recipes that we love and likely never would have tried without the CSA program.

One of my biggest challenges is putting delicious and healthy meals on the table for my family.  Especially after a full day of work with little time and often less motivation.  I'll be the first to admit that I often (way more often than I like) fall back on our standard - and not always healthful - meals or carry out just because it's easier.  Participating in this program has inspired me to be more diligent in setting a good example of healthy eating and teaching Jack to try new things.  Something all three of us will have to embrace through this program.

So wish us luck.  And if you have any favorite recipes that involve kale, beets or kohlrabi (or any other produce you can think of) do share!

What To Do With 13 Pounds of Strawberries

The thing about a trip to the u-pick strawberry patch is it's hard to know when to stop.  I must have said "I'm done!" no less than 5 times only to spot another perfect little bunch of berries and promptly add them to my box.

The result:  13 pounds of berries.

The problem:  I'm the only person in my household who will eat them.  (I know...totally weird, right?)

Luckily, as it turns out, the boys like strawberry flavored things, they just don't like strawberries.  So at least I had that going for me.

Of course, I ate a fair share of the berries all by themselves, but I also did some canning and some freezing with my 13 pound haul.  Here's the breakdown:

• Strawberry Sauce.  I love this stuff.  It's so easy to make, freezes well and dresses up almost anything you serve.  I've used it to turn lemonade into strawberry lemonade and drizzled it on top of cheesecake, ice cream and strawberry shortcake.  It would be great in a milkshake and I'm sure countless other things that I haven't thought to try yet.
• Meyer Lemon Strawberry Muffins.  These are delish.  I made 2 batches and froze them in packs of 4 - a perfect size for a quick breakfast or snack for our little family.  Both boys love them (despite their aversion to strawberries...go figure).
• Strawberry Jam.  No recipe to share for this one - I just followed the directions on the instant pectin packet that I picked up at the grocery store (thanks for the tip, Deb!)  Couldn't be easier - 3 ingredients and no cooking necessary. 
• Freeze them for later.  When you're freezing whole berries (or any fruit for that matter) be sure to flash freeze them by spreading them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and placing in the freezer overnight. This will keep them separate so when you pour them into a baggie they won't turn into one big rock hard ball of berries.  There are lots of uses for frozen berries (I still want to try homemade fruit roll-ups and didn't get a chance to make a batch of strawberry sorbet), but my main purpose is...
• Smoothies.  I tend to follow the recipe from this link - 3 C fruit, 1 C liquid, 1 C yogurt - but there are countless combinations when it comes to smoothies.  I try to remember to chop up and freeze any fruit that is on the verge of going bad for future use in smoothies.  Currently, in addition to an enormous amount of strawberries, I have kiwi, blueberries and bananas in our freezer.  I even filled a couple of ice cube trays (they still make those!) with some plain yogurt and have baggies of yogurt cubes in the freezer ready to go.  When it's smoothie making time all I have to do is grab a couple of cubes of yogurt, the fruit of my choice, splash in some juice or milk and blend away.  Since everything is already frozen there's no need to add ice.  Once in a while I sneak in some spinach - you don't even notice it's there and the nutritional benefits are fantastic.  These ball freezer jars are the perfect size for a single serving and even snap together for easy stacking in the freezer.

And that is what you (or should I say, I) do with 13 pounds of strawberries!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week.  I wanted to make a little something for Jackson to take to the staff at Princeton so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try out some cupcake cones.  These things are all over children's magazines and websites, but I had yet to make them myself.

As it turned out, my mini muffin pan is the absolute perfect size to hold 24 cake cones.

I made a plain old devils food box mix and used a large scoop to fill the cones with cake batter.

Just pop the whole pan in the oven and 20-25 minutes later they're done.  You can see from the photo below that mine ran over a bit.  Next time I'll use less batter.

This is where it gets fun!  I whipped up some Buttercream Dream (bookmark that recipe - best cake frosting ever) and piped it on top of each cone to look like ice cream.

I had some sprinkles on hand so I added those for color, but the possibilities for dressing up these cones are endless!

Not bad for our first attempt at cupcake cones!

One word of caution:  they do not transport well.  I had them packed tightly in a shirt box with a cookie sheet underneath for support, but the minute the car hit the slope in our driveway I had a domino effect of cones.  They looked a bit rugged, to say the least, by the time we made it to school.  Fortunately, they still tasted great and the teachers appreciated them none the less.

Almost as much as this little guy enjoyed making them!

What about you guys?  Any ideas for future Teacher Appreciation Days or other fun edible gifts?

Let it Snow

Snow day #3.

But alas, this is how snow days were meant to be spent!

Let's make cookies!

You're not watching this are you, Mom?

Ready for the oven



Are they done yet?



Cookie time!

The Chair That Turned Into An Oven

Sometimes, the universe works in mysterious ways.

It became clear after the Christmas haul that our plan to one day turn our dog/mud/storage room into a playroom for Jackson and any future bambinos was quickly moving up on the priority list.  So much so that we began the conversion the weekend of New Year's. 

Project Playroom is a series of posts in it's own right so I'll skip the details for now, but suffice it to say we suddenly have MUCH more space in the downstairs family room (aka: man room) now that Jackson's toys have a room of their own.  Of course, our immediate response to this new found space:

"Let's go to Nebraska Furniture Mart!"

It wasn't completely impulsive.  We've been dreaming of additional seating in the basement for some time.  An opportunity just hadn't presented itself until now.  We wasted no time and headed into Kansas City that very weekend.

For what might be the first time in our marriage, Drew & I left Nebraska Furniture Mart empty handed.  And not for a lack of effort.  It's a tough room to furnish.  Currently, the furniture is all brown leather.  We love it.  The problem is, as opposed to a matching set, each piece (sofa, recliner and ottoman) was purchased years apart from one another and are at various stages of wear.  In other words, we are rocking 3 different shades of brown leather in the room.

I am of the school of thought that the room needs color.  And fabric.  Drew would be happy if everything we owned (but at the least the items in his "man room") was leather.  I'll spare you the details, but needless to say we didn't agree on a chair (despite me finding one I loved) and left the store empty handed.  To be fair, Drew did say that he is not opposed to a fabric/colorful chair in the room.  We just have yet to find the right one.

So I pouted the rest of the weekend, but eventually came to terms with the fact that the chair I wanted probably isn't a perfect fit either and something better will come along.

Thank goodness we didn't buy a chair.

Last night, while cooking meatloaf for dinner, I noticed a strange glow coming from the oven.  One very small section of the heating coil was bright red.  I kept an eye on it for a minute thinking perhaps it was just burning off some spilled food.  It then shot white sparks.  I immediately turned the oven off and waited for Drew to come home.  Fire scares me.  About 30 minutes later, with my husband (and a fire extinguisher) within reach, I turned it on again.  No sparks, but after nearly 15 minutes it was barely above 250 degrees.  The damn thing is toast.

Seven days after our failed trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart, we loaded up in the truck and headed back.  This time we were successful.  We are now the proud owners of a new range that will be delivered on Thursday.

Funny how things work out.  In the end, it was a good thing we didn't purchase furniture for the basement.  It certainly would have made the $700 we dished out for an appliance much tougher to swallow.  While I can think of much more exciting things to spend $700 on, I think we'll enjoy having a new oven.  We've definitely been complaining about the unmatching and unevenly cooking old one more and more lately.

As for the chair, well it will just have to wait.  But at least now we'll have plenty of time to find one that we both think is perfect.

So there you have it.  The unlikely story of a chair that turned into an oven.

Cupcakes

One of Jackson's favorite things to do is help me in the kitchen.  Almost every evening he will drag (or attempt to) a chair up to the counter and declare, "Cook!  Cook!"  I've always allowed encouraged his help.  There are actually quite a few learning opportunities in the kitchen (counting, pouring, washing hands, etc.).  And who knows, perhaps these are the formative days for America's next top chef.  Or not.  But either way, we have fun.

This morning Jackson was helping me boil a chicken and prep veggies for homemade chicken and noodles.  On a whim, we decided to make some surprise cupcakes* while the chicken was boiling.

First, I will admit that I let him lick the bowl.  We're pretty diligent about no sweets/junk food for Jackson.  However, I make an exception when he and I bake together and always let him go to town on the beaters or empty bowl.  I know, I know...raw eggs are dangerous and blah, blah, blah.  I guess in this case I just throw caution to the wind and let my kid be a kid.  (Light bulb moment:  could this be why he loves helping me cook so much?!)

Anyway, here is the scene that unfolded when I gave him the green light on the mixing bowl.

In this shot, Jackson realized that he could see his reflection in the side of the bowl. 

He pointed at himself, said "mine" (his current word for me), looked up at me, and uttered "Uh Oh".

Uh Oh indeed.
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*Drew introduced me to surprise cupcakes when we first met (via his Mom's recipe).  They are just standard boxed chocolate cupcakes with a dollop of a cream cheese/chocolate chip mixture in the center that sinks to the middle as they bake.  Hence the surprise.  They are a family favorite.  Trust me...you want these in your life!  Leave a comment if you want the recipe.