Need to use up that CSA?

I have purchased shares in a CSA through work.  What's a CSA you say?

Community Supported Agriculture!

We get a box of organic veggies every week from now until October.  It is like a treasure chest of goodies!

This week we got radishes, carrots, arugula, green onions, red lettuce, butter lettuce, cilantro, parsley, rainbow swiss chard, kale and beets.

The big question becomes what shall I prepare?

The greens were easy; the lettuces got washed, dried, and made into salads for Ben and me today for lunch.  I added the radishes and some carrots along with some other vegetables I had from the fridge.

The kale is such an easy choice; I am making my favorite Tuscan Kale salad from True Foods in Arizona.  Nothing better than this!

The cilantro will go into avocado salsa.  I just chopped up a couple of avocados, cut up a couple of tomatoes, add fine dice of red onion, a jalapeno, juice from one lime, and chopped cilantro.  Delicious on a salad with some black beans tossed in too, or of course with chips.  Tasty with a margarita, too!

The beets. I didn't even have to think about it!  I immediately knew what I wanted to make.  No recipe to follow, but it came out great!

Pizza, of course! Specifically, Beet and goat cheese pizza with arugula salad.

When I came home last night, I scrubbed the beets, coated with a little olive oil, and wrapped in foil.  I cooked at 375 degrees for about an hour.  Let them cool, and then the skins peel right off.  I am a wimp by the way; I wear gloves when I handle them! They were ready to use tonight.

The pizza crust is one I have shared before; it is absolutely delicious.  Make it with white flour, wheat flour, wheat pastry flour; use whatever flour you want!  Just make it!

After work today, I headed to my favorite cheese shop, Surdyks; this happens to be attached to my favorite wine shop!  I sampled a couple of cheeses until I find the right goat cheese.  I wanted a semisoft and chose one from Spain.

Make the above dough, and drizzle with a little olive oil.  Slice the beets and place on the dough.  Cut, rather break up the goat cheese and scatter on the pizza.  I added some sliced green onion too.

I baked at 450 degrees for about 12 minutes.

In the meantime, I tossed the arugula in a tablespoon or so of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

When the pizza came out of the oven we sliced it, then topped it with the salad.

Here is the outcome!

Not thrilled with the lighting in my kitchen!

We dined on the "veranda" tonight.

It was so good!  In one recipe, I used the beets, the green onions and the arugula.  I also had another half slice without the arugula, and I have to tell you, it really is what made this pizza so good! The peppery bite of the arugula with the creaminess of the goat cheese, and the sweetness of the beets...looking forward to leftovers!

While we dined on the veranda, we talked about weekend plans.  I am headed out to go strawberry picking tomorrow, and sense a shortcake and some strawberry ice cream in my future!

Here are a couple pictures of Ben's flower pots; he has the green thumb in the family.  It really is nice to sit outside, enjoy our dinner, look at the flowers...oh, and watch cars not stop at the stop sign on the corner.  Just give me a badge.  I would make this town a mint.

I am now on twitter; not that I know what I am doing, but you can follow me!  Just look for kelbeaudoin and this picture!

Thanks for checking in!

Kel

Don't Make Me Get Out of the Car

Ben and I ran a 5k yesterday.  It was our first of the season.

I have not been doing a ton of running,  hoping to heal whatever pains in are in legs.

We awoke to a downpour.  Every bone in my body wanted to stay in bed!  Ben convinced me to at least go to the race and see what the weather was like when we got there.

This was the scene as we sat in the car:

I don't wanna.

We grabbed our umbrellas and walked to the tents to pick up our packets and our tshirts.  We then walked to the car to drop this stuff off.  As we sat there, the rain slowly came to an end.   We donned out timing chips, shed our sweatshirts, and headed to the start.

Amazingly enough, I survived.  Not the best time ever - 30:13 - but it just sets the bar higher for the rest of our 5ks this summer.

We like to keep up a regular schedule of races, and have one planned for each month between now and November.  Goals are good, and maintaining a race schedule keeps me out there.

I don't really run to race; I just compete with my mind.  Just keep going I often tell myself.  Slow down if you have to but no walking.  I "placed" 225th out of 502.  That is good enough for me!

As soon as we got back to the car, the rain started again. Perfect timing!

We headed to Great Harvest Bakery, and had some bread to refuel us.  I love their High Five Fiber and stocked up with 2 loaves as well as a multigrain loaf.  I had a slice of the cinnamon chip, but did not dare buy any. That to me is a trigger food; I just know I would cut off a hunk, slather in butter, and then be back for more...and more...and more.

To complete the morning,  Ben and I went to Whole Foods.  I can't get over how much money I spend when I go there.  Part of it is because I buy things like Fage for $1.99 each (they have a lot of the ones with fruit that I cannot get at my local store) but I also get fresh fish and meat there that I normally don't get.

A $14 bottle of B-complex and a $10 jar of coconut butter did not help with the final total either, but all so worth it to me.

We headed home and scrambled to get ready for a wedding reception.  Scrambling was required because of a little too much putzing by me in Whole Foods.

I love this dress and the ruching; ruching makes everything better!

Now, here is some advice.  Do NOT drink a lot of wine and not eat enough.  Maybe the warning should be don't do a 5k and then go to a wedding reception.   Maybe I should have paced myself better.

Let's just say I came home, crashed and then drank lots and lots of water.  Ben took good care of me.

I invite everyone to listen to a radio program that I will be on Tuesday evening.  It is on 8pm East coast, 7pm Central and 5pm West Coast time.  Info can be found here.  (Thanks Karyn for doing all the work.)    

It is bound to be a fun and perhaps crazy show with Lynn, Karyn and I all trying for the spotlight!

That's all from me for now.  Just wanted to check in with the blog world!

Happy Sunday!

Living Outside the Box

I cleaned out my baking cabinet today.

I purchased 3 different canister sets from various sellers on Etsy.  I also purchased these cool chalkboard stickers to label them with.

A girl that loves to bake has to have a lot of different flours and sugars, ya know?

I was quite pleased with myself!

In cleaning out this cabinet, I came across this recipe box:

I have 3 recipe boxes full of cards typed out by my mother over the years.  She had everything nicely organized.

This box contained the diet recipes.  There was only a small part of the vast collection of diet recipes my mother had.  She was always trying something new.

Well, always isn't really accurate.  We (the whole family) were either ON a diet or we were OFF.  There was no real balance in our lives.

I live my life differently than they did.  Not that the way they lived their life was bad; they just did not, well, know any better.  Their family doctor said eat less, exercise more.  That was as far as the advice went.

I live my life outside a box...I don't have recipes that are for when I am ON or OFF.  I find a way to incorporate all of it into my life.

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I went to the grocery store yesterday.  Among the other items needed were bread.  I love Great Harvest bread, but sadly, it just isn't convenient.  I examined the various loaves on the shelves, all wrapped and declaring what they had to offer - whole grains, double the fiber.  As I read the ingredients lists, sadly there was a lot more in most of the loaves than what I wanted.  I declared I would make my own.

I have made my own bread before, but knew I wanted something heartier than just wheat bread.  I found this recipe for Seeded Bread, and, oh how good it is!

In addition to the seeds she uses in her recipe, I added sunflower kernels and pepitas.

Here are the nutritional stats:



Yes, the calorie count make it higher in calorie than what you find on the grocery store shelves.   I know every ingredient that went into it and I control the size of the slice.

If you look carefully, you can see the steam rising off the hot slice!

This is not Great Harvest, but it is a damn good bread!

Enjoy!