25/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2016."

Claire: Off to her first sleepover camp...so excited, and a wee bit nervous.

Bridget: "Mom, I like colorful, bright, funky things." Really, I hadn't noticed....

Joining in with Jodi for the 52 Week Project.

Local Produce Box: Week 2

On Tuesday afternoon I picked up our second produce box.

Our pickup location is inside a local garden center. With hundreds of hanging baskets, rows and rows of flowers, veggie plants, herbs, and gorgeous planters, it an amazing place that I am happy I get to visit weekly for the next several months. I love wandering the aisles and looking at all the plants, which I did on Tuesday because as luck would have it they were having a huge 40% off sale at the time so some pretty flowers had to come home with me, you know how it is.

Driving home on a sunny afternoon with fresh fruits and veggies and new plants for the garden made me very happy.

In this week's box we had: kale, butter crunch lettuce, chives, peppermint, rhubarb, green onions, radishes, strawberries, salad greens and maple syrup.

Now I thought I would do something a little different this week and not only show you what was in our produce box, but also some of the dishes I made from it. My absolute favorite thing about getting a produce box is cooking and preparing meals from what comes in the box each week. So fun.

From left to right:

1. Spring Green Salad with Mint Vinaigrette - butter crunch lettuce, green onions, grape tomatoes and a delicious mint vinaigrette dressing (the recipe was included in last week's box). 
2. Rhubarb Muffins - using a recipe I got from my Mom. These muffins are absolutely delicious and between last week's and this week's box, I had enough rhubarb to make four dozen muffins. 
3. Radish Butter Toast - This was so good; I could not make it fast enough, the girls were just gobbling it up. Recipe courtesy of The Forest Feast
4. Spring Green Salad with Fruit - my own creation using salad greens, strawberries, blueberries, mint and pecans.

I also added mint to some cubed watermelon, dressed it lightly in olive oil, and sprinkled pecans on top to make a simple salad.

Likewise, I added the kale to a bunch of veggies I had on hand which I then cooked and stirred together with some wheat berries - a personal variation of this salad recipe from The Forest Feast (have I mentioned I love this book and blog)   

And I have plans to make a chive salad dressing...

Like I said last week, happy times in the kitchen making delicious food.....

And Now for the Fun Part.....

A few nights ago I sat down on the sofa to sew my wreath cover around my wreath form. I had butterflies in my stomach, and there were a few moments when I truly thought it was not going to work out, but in the end all was well, and I now have a blue wreath....

I am glad to be done crocheting the wreath cover as row after row of blue was sort of dull work. That being said, it was the perfect project to take along to the pool and work on while the girls were at swimming lessons.

And now it is time for the fun part....decorating. Flowers, leaves, pom-poms, butterflies, etc....all need to be made and added to the wreath. I am not exactly sure how full I want my wreath to be, but am leaning towards a middle ground approach - not too empty and not too full. I will be faffing around with this forever, I am sure...the perfectionist in me will likely obsess a little bit until I get it just right.

Alright, I am off now to soak up some inspiration and look for patterns for all the bits and bobs I'll add to my wreath. Fun stuff...

24/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2016."

Claire: With the jar of candy you won at the school carnival; to say you were excited would be a bit of an understatement, I thought you were going to burst.

Bridget: Biking further and further from home all the time. You are craving independence and while I want to grab you and hold you close, I feel in my heart that you are ready, and that it is best that I let you go just a little bit. 

Joining in with Jodi for the 52 Week Project.

Local Produce, Happy Kitchen

Today was a very exciting day. After work I hopped in the car and drove a few minutes out of town to pick up our first produce box of the season. Funny enough, I felt a little like a child on Christmas morning, so eager to see what I was getting, in this case, what delicious produce was waiting for me.

Oh, I was not disappointed:

In this week's box we have: rhubarb, chives, pea shoots, lettuce, salad greens, maple syrup, green onions, red beets, and peppermint.

We participated in this program last year and loved it. It is so much fun, and quite educational, to get a box of locally produced food every week and then prepare our meals from that.

There is always a little note included with the produce, sharing a little bit about how things are growing, as well as a small collection of recipes; some of the recipes from last year have become family favorites.

Having cooked mostly plant-based/vegetarian for the last few years, I feel very well equipped to cook up delicious meals with our weekly, local produce. And when in doubt I will be referring to my all-time favorite cookbook, The Forest Feast.  

Tonight for dinner, using ingredients from our box, I made a beet salad that was a huge hit; even Claire, who is quite a picky eater, devoured it. And later this week I am going to bake some rhubarb muffins. Happy times in my kitchen making delicious food.

I absolutely love that all this food is organic, grown in a sustainable way, and locally sourced...and it tastes incredible. We have committed to the program from now until November and I am really excited to see what we get each week...  

23/52

"A portrait of my girls, once a week, every week, in 2016."

A few inches of hair cut off and suddenly you both look a lot older. You are so happy with your new hair styles and there has been a lot of hair flipping going on. 

Joining in with Jodi for the 52 Week Project.

Garden Notes

I'm sitting here this evening with a steaming cup of green tea. I've just come in from watering the garden, it was a hot day and the ground was quite dry. 

So far things are doing very well in the vegetable patch. I am so excited to see progress so soon after planting, and while I do not want to get too far ahead of myself, I am already thinking about how we will eat all our amazing produce - doesn't a kale salad with roasted beets sound amazing?

Of course the flowers are coming into bloom in turn, and this makes me so happy.

Especially my bleeding heart. I have wanted one for years and this year I used some of my birthday money to buy one.

We may head to the garden center this weekend to get new strawberry plants (what we had shriveled and died within a few days of planting), a thyme plant which I forgot to put in the cart the last time we were there, and I think I need a few more annuals to fill in a few holes.....

How is your garden doing?