What do you do with Kale?

So this week I got a bunch of kale included in my CSA. Kale is a food that I have very little experience with. To put it simply, I have no idea what to do with it. My go-to meal with leafy greens is to throw it in a salad but kale doesn't really seem like a salad veggie.

So - I googled and found this recipe for Potato Cakes with Onions and Kale.

I have to say - this was a pretty tasty way to eat some kale. I am not a huge fan of the wilted greens but the combination with the potatoes made them tolerable. I didn't use as much onion as the recipe called for, primarily because I was crying too hard to cut any more. Onions make me very sad. I also added salt because I think potatoes always need more salt!

Anyway, here they are right after they came out of the oven.

It is raining....

So, it has been raining here since last night. We are in serious need of some rain down here so overall this is good news. I just wish it didn't happen all at once! My garden loves some water but this is a little out of control!

Not sure if you can see the standing water in my poor carrots! I think they are drowning!!


I dumped some of the water out and tried to shelter the pot from the rain which is basically impossible given that it is basically a monsoon out there.

After I dumped out the water my carrots were lying down. Now, I'm no gardening expert here but this seems bad.

Organization project!

My scrapbooking supplies are OUT OF CONTROL. Seriously. My mission for this week is to get this mess a little better under control and to get rid of things I don't need. I know there are tons of scraps of paper in there that I really don't need to keep. I might purchase some sort of shelf system or organization system because the multiple tupperware/suitcase system isn't really working for me. And yes, I have a suitcase full of paper. I am actually embarrassed to admit that.
Hopefully by the end of this week there will be a picture of a nice tidy scrapbook supply center!

And it won't look like this:

Garden, week 3

Garden is definitely getting bigger! I have a TON of flowers on my tomato plant so I am real excited for some tomatoes to start growing! My peppers almost look like they are ready to go too - very exciting! Neither the sage nor rosemary have sprouted and I am thinking that at this point they probably won't be. Bummer. I may try to replant them to see what happens.

The exciting development this week was - cucumber sprouts!!

CSA, week 3

Well it is another week of leafy greens. It will be tough for me to get through them all given how much I am out of town these days! Spinach and lettuce are back again as are strawberries. Joining the party is kale (seriously, what do you do with kale??!!?!?!) and asparagus (YUM!).

We got another BEAUTIFUL head of lettuce. I took a picture with my hand in it to show how huge it is - seriously, that is a lot of lettuce! It was almost too pretty to cut in half!

Lunch time walks

Most days at lunch time I walk the length of a trail near my office. It is 1.5 miles out and then 1.5 miles back. It is actually a really nice trail

It follows a stream

And crosses over it occasionally

It is shaded and cool and overall a great place to spend an hour every day.

Lettuce Wraps

So I have an abundance of leafy greens thanks to my CSA and if we are being perfectly honest, I am getting mighty tired of eating salads. Enter Thai Peanut Sauce.

Holy moly it was delicious. It was basically still a salad - but I wrapped all the goodies up in the lettuce to make lettuce wraps. Not quite PF Changs but I will definitely be making it again. Actually - the recipe makes quite a bit that I now have in my freezer so hopefully it thaws well!




Not sure why the picture is sideways. Blogger sometimes changes the orientation without asking. Takes too long to switch it around though!