Jul 312011
Breakfast
1 cup milkLyn
On Wednesday, I had a trainer workout with Chelsea. I did a cardio workout first – 40 minutes on the E Spinner.
Then the following:
Thursday, we didn’t go to the J.
Friday, I did 30 minutes on the elliptical. I’m happy to be working back up on my cardio. For the most part, my knee isn’t hurting on the bike or elliptical. I also did a few arm weights while I chatted with Chaya.
Saturday, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. There was no formal workout today.
My plans for tomorrow involve more cleaning, maybe biking to church and Blossom.
“You’re not managing an interruption, you’re raising a human being.” I read this quote on another blog this week. I’m not even sure where I saw it.
I’ve been reading about raising healthy kids and that having them help in the kitchen is one of the keys to healthy eating. In addition to farm visits, U-Pick and our CSA, helping in the kitchen is our next logical step.
We’ve made peanut butter and occasionally, Nick and Sally will help dump ingredients in a bowl or push the button on the blender. But, they are starting to get old enough to do more.
A couple of weeks ago, I had them start using the salad spinner. I rinse the greens and get it ready and Nick and Sally both take 3 or 4 turns of 5 pushes as the greens spin. It helps them learn to count and take turns in addition to helping me prepare the greens. It gives us an opportunity to talk about cleaning veggies and getting salad ready.
Earlier in the week, they added all of the ingredients for our blueberry banana smoothies to the blender. It was a slow process as the blueberries went in 3 or 4 at a time, but they were making the smoothies and loving it.
Yesterday, we received sweet corn on the cob in our CSA. CSA day always makes dinner time a bit hectic since we usually get home about the same time I should be making dinner. With fresh corn, I thought we should definitely enjoy it along with the roast that I had cooking in the crockpot.
As I began to clean the corn, Nick came in the kitchen and wanted to help. I felt interrupted and really wanted him to go back into the living room and leave me alone so I could finish dinner. Then, I began thinking about the quote and my desire to have them learn about healthy cooking. So, I looked around and tried to think of something they could do without the hot stove or a knife. At this point, Sally had joined Nick. She doesn’t like to be left out.
Then, I thought – maybe they could shuck the corn!? We’ll try it.
Intense concentration ensued. We talked about taking the outer greens off first and getting all of the strings off so we could cook it. Even Sally could do it. I will say that it took FOREVER, but it was totally worth it. Both of them were so proud of the corn as we ate it for dinner.
Today was week number 9 for our Fresh Fork CSA. Robert who works at the truck was back today. He seems to be going better. It was nice and smooth to have him in his usual position. There was only one person ahead of us and everything was smooth at pick up.
As usual, we received our list of contents on Tuesday. It’s nice to know what we have to work with between our CSAs by Tuesday night.
Here’s what we were expecting:
Small CSA:
Here’s a group shot:
Apparently, the Italian sausage is really good. I don’t think we’ve had it yet. Always happy to see peaches.
We still have onions to chop and freeze and the corn is already gone.
We were almost out of lettuce, so I see a couple of salads in our future. I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh apricots and certainly not local ones. I’m looking forward to having one at breakfast.
Curly kale might make for another batch of kale chips, The last batch was ok, but I’ve read a few other variations lately and may have to experiment again this weekend. I’m in love with local eggs and just used our last two yesterday, so these were especially nice to get.
Everyone in our house likes green beans.
In addition to our small, we purchased 2 packages of chicken brats. These were $7 each. They were amazing when we had them in our box a few weeks back. We’re having company next weekend and I stuck these in the freezer for grilling. We also paid for our cream cheese ($5) that we picked up 2 weeks ago.
I’m happy that we had a week off of squash and tomatoes. I still have some to use up from our Tuesday CSA pickup. Next week we are “on vacation” from Fresh Fork and I hope that gives us a little extra time to regroup and make sure we are caught up in the fridge.
Yesterday, we returned to Wintergreen Tree Farm for the 4th and probably final time for blueberries this season. Even though my freezers are bursting with blueberries, I can’t seem to get enough of them.
We ended up staying there for 3 hours. This was the longest that the kids had lasted for picking anything all year.
They started out playing on the blanket (after eating a few blueberries).
After they got bored with the blanket, they walked around, picked a few berries and hung out. For a few minutes, I thought I was going to get tired before them. I knew I had picked a lot of berries when I needed to use one of their buckets for the rest of the berries. The picking was pretty good, but a good picking day is a mix of weather, farm, cost, drive, amount of fruit available, temperament of the kids, etc. Yesterday was definitely one of the best days yet!
Back at the shed, we talked to Julie for a few minutes. Sometimes, she balances these wooden sticks while she is working at the shed. She let Nick and Sally play with them. I was glad they didn’t hit each other, but we had a couple of close calls.
Julie took a picture of us together. It’s nice to remember to get group photos.
We ended up with 12.6 pounds of blueberries for $18.95 ($1.50 per pound). It was the most we had picked in one day all season. We’ve had blueberries, blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, and blueberry oatmeal. I’m glad that we’ll have some in the freezer to enjoy for a few months.
Blueberry season is winding down. We ended up picking 7 times at 4 different farms. We kept going back to Wintergreen and are already excited to see what chestnuts are all about later in the year. Meanwhile, blackberries are next and should be ready for picking next week.
Today, we had the week 7 pick up for the Geauga Family Farms CSA. Since it was the 4th Tuesday and there was a farm visit this evening, my husband picked up our share. Even though we had the list of what could be in our share earlier today, it’s really a surprise when you actually see it.
Here’s what we received today:
Let’s take a closer look.
Tomatoes, beets
Lettuce, kohlrabi
Swiss chard, onion
Green beans, cherry tomatoes
Radishes, cucumbers
Yellow squash, patty pan squash (Most of the patty pan squash that I have seen before is more flat and scalloped, but I am pretty sure this is patty pan squash.)
Zucchini, honey (add on order)
New this year, we can place orders though the website for some additional items. There are things available like honey, maple syrup, eggs, etc. I ordered some honey for this week. We didn’t really need honey at the moment, but I wanted to try out the ordering system. Pay with paypal and pick up with the share. It was easy!
I’m still thinking about the bounty that we received and haven’t made any specific plans for it, but we’ll be busy eating our veggies this week for sure!
Today, I did 30 solid minutes on the E Spinner. It felt great. I’m going to try for an hour the next time. I really want to get back to spin class soon!
Food was ok, see below.
BreakfastA couple of weeks ago, we noticed that something had eaten our bean plants. I thought for sure it was the ground hog that we had seen in our front yard. Last week, the tops of our pepper plants were eaten. Stephen thought the deer were here. I thought we would have seen them around if it was deer.
Then, yesterday, I was driving home with the kids around 7pm. We turned up on street and Nick yelled, “mommy, I didn’t know we had deer on OUR street!”. I turned to look in his direction and saw this:
So, I think we are done putting effort into our garden. Our yard is small and doesn’t get much sun to begin with, so fencing and other precautions aren’t realistic. It’s a good thing we have Fresh Fork CSA, Geauga Family Farms CSA, and many U-Pick places to keep us in fresh produce.
Squire’s Castle is located in the North Chagrin Reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. It’s less than a 15 minute drive from our house in Mayfield Heights. Squire was a pioneer in the oil business.
This is what the gutted castle looks like today.
One extra nice thing about a picnic with friends is that Chaya always offers to take a photo of us. This one turned out especially well.
Here are a couple of more castle shots.
Sally was in a photogenic mood today.
Days like this, really remind of my touring in Europe on our honeymoon. Squire’s castle is fun, but doesn’t compare to places like the Tower of London. I hope the kids like to travel as they get older.
