Russia – 1992

I’m on the left in the black jacket.  Pictures like this keep me motivated when I have set-backs.

Sometimes I don’t want anyone to know how big I was as a kid and teenager.  Othertimes I want people to know that it I was able to make changes for the better.

EAT YOUR VEGGIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I asked my farm to include 3 extra bunches of greens in my box, since I keep having to buy more at the grocery store to meet our green smoothie needs.  I’m paying $2.50 extra for each bunch, which seems fair.  Look at those beautiful bunches!  I have to say that I’ve developed a craving for greens.  When the sun is out and the grass is brilliant green, I think to myself, “Man, I could eat some of that!”

It took a long time for summer to arrive this year.  I was worried that we wouldn’t have strawberries.  Did you pick strawberries for pay in the summer when you were a kid?  I don’t know if Oregon kids do that anymore, or if it’s all industrialized and pesticized to the point where they aren’t allowed.

It was brutal work – I’m sure it was formative at the young  age of eleven to get up at 4am, and walk a mile alone in the dark to the berry bus station.  The ride from Portland out to the berry fields took about two hours, so I’d try to sleep if I could.  I’d pack a couple of frozen cans of soda, and a sandwich.  The soda would be thawed by early morning.  I’d usually be too full of berries and covered in dirt to eat the sandwich.

They’d usually send us out to glean the fields previously picked by migrant workers.  I hated that – it took forever to fill a crate.  I remember getting about $1 for a full crate.  I think the crate had about 24 pints.  We got paid by the weight.  I’d usually bring home $10 a day, for 6 hours of work. 

My Dad remembers being a kid and putting rocks in the bottom to increase the payout.  I thought about it, but couldn’t do it.  If I felt that the teenage “row overseerers” were mean to us, I’d smash green spiders into the berries.  Smucker owned farms seemed to be the meanest to us.  I smashed a LOT of spiders into those berries.

My point-and-shoot took horrible low-light pictures, so I needed to set up lamps everytime I cooked.  Then I wasn’t happy with the focus – and needed a tripod.

So, that was getting in the way.

Last week I got a brand new camera – it’s a lot like a dSLR only smaller and without the mirrors.  It’s an Olympus Pen micro four thirds camera, and I’m in love!

As a friend said, it has “automatic flatter”. 

So, I’ve already taken some great pictures and should have those up this week.

Here we have: rainbow chard, frozen banana, green granny smith apple and a pear.

I’ve found that green apples taste  great in smoothies!  The tartness is wonderful with the sweet banana and pear.  I don’t usually like to eat green apples, so now I know just what to do with them.

I’m still drinking about 1 liter of green smoothie most days.  My vita-mix is a blessing.  How did I live without it until now?  If I were rich, I’d give them away as gifts.  It does require spending money on veggies & fruit – but when I have a smoothie in the morning I eat less at lunch.  I’m spending half as much on food at work since I started drinking my morning smoothie.

This week I got: broccoli, apples, oranges, kiwi, asparagus, mustard greens, lettuce, eggs and a leek.  I was hoping for more greens – maybe next time.  I did find some beautiful rainbow chard at the Kiva for $1.69 lb.  Score!

Tonight I needed to use two HUGE potatoes; and also some kale, leek, shallot and rhubarb from last week’s CSA box.  We had turkey breakfast sausages that needed to be cooked – or else.

I’ve never made a twice baked stuffed potato, and I’ve never cooked rhubarb.  So, tonight I’ll try both.  Stuffed potatoes are great – use what you have.  If you have more than will fit into the skins, put it into a small oven safe dish and bake it along side the rest, or save it for later.   No worries.

Turkey Sausage & Veggie Stuffed Potatoes by Jessi (my own recipe!)

Ingredients:

2 very large russet potatoes

6-7 turkey breakfast sausage links

4 kale leaves

1 small leek

1 small shallot

2-4 oz cheddar cheese (more or less according to preference)

dried herbs & spices to taste

Olive oil for sauteing

1. Wash two large russet potatoes.  Prick each with a fork, and bake naked on the middle rack of a 375 F oven for about 60 min or until just the slightest bit little under-done. Don’t over cook.

2. Cook 6-7 turkey breakfast sausages in a cast iron pan.  Slice them in half lengthwise, and chop the strips into little half-moon slices.  Set aside in a large mixing bowl.

3. Finely chop about 4 kale leaves (remove the stems), 1 small leek, and 1 small shallot.  Sweat the leek and shallot in a little olive oil.  Add all of this to the bowl with the chopped sausage, and then cook the kale alone in that same pan until it’s just starting to wilt.  Add this to the bowl with the other ingredients.  Doing this in two steps keeps the leek and shallot from getting soggy.

If you’ve never cooked a leek before here’s my tip: cut off the end and the green parts, then slice the leek in half lengthwise.  Separate each layer and wash.  It’s amazing how much dirt and grit there is between these layers – so get it all!

5.  Reduce the oven temp to 325 F right as you take the potatoes out to cool.  Let the potatoes cool just enough to handle.  Cut them each in half, and scoop out the insides into the bowl.  Leave just a little potato lining the inside so that the skin retain hull integrity – but just a little.

6.  Grate about 2-3 oz of cheese into the bowl.  Toss in some dried herbs & spices to taste (basil, oregano, pepper, chili flakes, parsley) and mix it all together.   Using a wooden spoon (works great!) stuff the 4 potato skins.  Use the back of the spoon to really get it all in there.  Stand on that spoon!  It’s not going to expand while cooking, so don’t worry.  Just don’t break the skins

Place some sliced cheese on top.  Place the potatoes on a baking rack and bake until the cheese melts and the potatoes are hot inside.  This time will vary, but the cheese gives you a good indication.  It depends on how long you let the ingredients cool as you assembled the skins.

These were SO good.  My boyfriend loved them.  One skin was enough for me.  My tummy was full, but my taste buds wanted more!  I took one to lunch and nuked it.  YUMMMY.

For dessert: Ginger Vanilla Orange Rhubarb Compote

Ingredients:

6-8 stalks of fresh rhubarb

1/2 orange

2-3 TB honey (or to taste)

1/2 inch of fresh ginger root (or to taste)

1/2 t vanilla extract

Rhubarb is something I have never ever cooked.  I really haven’t eaten it much either.  I didn’t want to make this into a big deal, so I decided the easiest thing would be a compote.  It was good alone, and on cottage cheese.  I will make this again for sure.

1. Wash and trim the green parts off of about 6-8 stalks of rhubarb.  The green parts are not edible.  Chop into 1/2 inch pieces.  Put these into a stainless steel saucepan.  You must use stainless steel.

2. Into the saucepan add the juice of 1/2 fresh orange, some honey to taste (I used 2 TB), 1/2 inch chopped fresh ginger, and 1/2 t vanilla extract.

3. Cook slowly over medium heat, stirring often until soft.  I used a lid, which seemed to speed things up.  I waited and waited for it to soften, and then BOOM it happened all the sudden.  Weird stuff, but I loved this recipe!!

My boyfriend has been really great about helping me eliminate gluten from my diet.  I’m on my third month of no-gluten-what-so-ever.  I thought I might be feeling better.  It’s sometimes hard to tell. 

Sometime last week my boyfriend said, “Hey, we still have a full bottle of ibuprofen!  Did you stop taking it?” 

I’d been taking the pills for the arthritis in my hands and for the IBS pain.  I know I’m wheat intolerant.  I won’t go into details, but it HURTS so I know it’s true.  I’ve tried to tune it out for many years.  I’m actually good at doing that.   A plate of pasta?  OH MY GOD I’d be on the floor in fetal position if I eat that.   A bagel?  I might as well shoot myself.  I was hoping that if I bit the bullet and really gave up all gluten that I might feel better. The doctors haven’t been of much help, so I have nothing to lose. Except pizza.  Oh well…

 I hadn’t even noticed that I’d stopped taking the pills.  People keep telling me that I look like I’ve lost weight (I haven’t lost a single pound) – but my jeans feel a little more comfortable.  I wonder if I’m less bloated?  Anyhow, the experiment continues.  It’s really amazing how much of your emotional well-being is messed up by having a pain in the gut.  Kinda makes you one at times.  My boyfriend can attest.

So, I tried the Sesame Cracker recipe from Elana’s website.  Thanks Elana for reprint permission. 

Gluten Free Sesame Crackers
3 cups blanched almond flour
1½ teaspoons celtic sea salt
1 cup sesame seeds
2 eggs, whisked until frothy
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil [I used unrefined corn oil]

1. In a large mixing bowl, stir together almond flour, salt, sesame seeds, eggs and oil until well blended

2. Separate dough into two halves

3. Line two large (12 x 16) stainless steel baking sheets with parchment paper

4.  Place one half of the dough in the center of each lined sheet

5. Cut another piece of parchment paper and place it over one of the balls of dough

6. Roll dough out between the two pieces of parchment paper, until it is ⅛ inch thick and covers the entire baking sheet; remove top paper and repeat process with the other piece of dough

7. Cut the dough with a knife or pizza cutter into 2 inch squares [The pizza cutter worked really well!]

8. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown

Cool and serve

Makes 96 crackers

My findings:

These are good!  My boyfriend thought they tasted okay, but he wasn’t into them.  I think he’s opposed to the whole idea of almond flour.  He wants me to make rice crackers next.

My first batch of crackers was thinner, and crisper than my second.  It wasn’t easy rolling out the dough.  I ended up taking off the top sheet of parchment and used the roller directly on the ball of dough.  That worked a little better.  It was quite easy to make squares, and the finished crackers broke apart nicely.  I’ve never done anything like this before, so it was fun actually.  The crackers baked quickly.  Keep an eye on them.  If they look even slightly brown you might have gone too far. 

These crisped up quickly after taking them out of the oven, unlike Elana’s recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

Oh, and to go along with the crackers I baked salmon with lemon slices and chervil from my CSA box.  I’ve never tasted chervil before! 

Pop all of this into a covered casserole dish and bake at 350 F for about 30 minutes (depending on the size of your fish).  Yumm!!!

This week: oranges, apples, salad greens, collard greens, shalots, eggs, rhubarb, beets, potatoes and chervil.  This was a box has great potential.

I know myself.  I’d better use the “difficult” produce from my CSA box asap.  I let the radishes from Box #2 go a whole week.  Can’t have that.

When I was a kid my parents served boiled cabbage and corned beef.  OMG I hated it.  It was slimy and greasy and rubbery and weird. Even the begging cats and dogs under the kitchen table wouldn’t eat it.   (The cats loved Swanson’s Pot Pies.)  Why do the Irish and Scandinavians have to boil everything until it’s gross?  I wish I was born with Spanish and Italian roots instead.  I don’t think I had non-boiled veggies or sausages until I left home.

I found a recipe in “Eating Close to Home” by Elin Kristina England for “Coleslaw with Ginger-Mustard Dressing”.   She uses some weird “hippie Eugene cuisine” ingredients for an Asian inspired coleslaw.  So, I made some changes.  For instance, instead of olive oil and apple cider vinegar I used sesame oil and rice vinegar.  I’m sorry.  Hippies use way too much apple cider vinegar.  Even our local humus has it.  Enough already.

I’ll post my adaptations in [BRACKETS].  I used my Vita-mix instead of whisk to create an emulsion.  How cool is that!?  My boyfriend really liked this, and so did I.  It was excellent in my lunch the next day.  I will make this again.  Finally now I know what to do with an entire cabbage.

The baked taquitos are easy.  Put a little grape seed (or other refined oil) in a warm cast iron pan.  Place a tortilla in the oil and heat both sides until soft and warm.  Place some cooked chicken meat along the center, and roll.  Place on a cookie sheet, and bake until a bit crispy.  I think 450′ for 15-20 minutes usually works, but you might want to test with your oven.  You can do this in a toaster oven too.

Coleslaw with Ginger-Mustard Dressing

Adapted from “Eating Close to Home” by Elin England

1 medium [Large] cabbage, shredded

4 carrots, peeled and grated

1 small sweet onion, minced

2 Tablespoons cider vinegar [Rice vinegar]

4 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 Tablespoons Dijon mustard [1 teaspoon dry mustard, prepared with water]

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger

1 Tablespoon sugar

2/3 cup olive oil [1/2 cup unrefined sesame oil]

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced

salt & pepper to taste

[1 small red bell pepper, minced]

[1 tablespoon dried arame seaweed, reconstituted in water]

[1 teaspoon wheat-free tamari]

[garnish - chili flakes]

[garnish - homemade sesame garlic hot oil]

Toss the cabbage, carrot, [red bell pepper] and onion together in a bowl.  Whisk together the vinegar, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, ginger, sugar [and seaweed].  Add the oil and cilantro, and season with salt and pepper to taste.  [At this point, I put all the dressing ingredients except the sesame oil in my Vita-Mix.  I turned it on low (setting 1-3) and slowly poured in the oil. It took about 15 seconds.]  Toss with the vegetables and let the flavors become acquainted for 10 minutes before serving.

My mom loved radishes.  I wish I could have served her this dish.  She would have loved it.  I found this recipe for sauteing radishes & their greens with butter, green onions and garlic.  Cooking the radishes mellowed the hot and bitter flavors I don’t really like much.  I guess almost anything tastes better cooked in a little butter.

Adapted From: Live Earth Farm Newsletter

Sautéed Radishes (with their greens)
modified from a recipe in Gourmet Magazine, 2001

Serves 2
1 bunch radishes with greens attached
organic butter (1T)
salt (kosher)
1 small garlic clove, minced
~2 to 3 tsp. chopped fresh chives

Cut greens from radishes and coarsely chop. Trim radishes and cut lengthwise into wedges.

Heat some butter in a heavy skillet over moderate heat, then sauté radish wedges with some salt, stirring, until crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.

Add garlic and greens.  Sauté, stirring, until greens are wilted, about 1 minute or less. Stir in chives.

Okay, enough veggies.  Time for a treat.  It was a rainy, blustery, cold spring day.  I put District 9 in the dvd player, and started up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. These cookies are gluten and dairy free.  It seemed like every time the movie got exciting I had to pause it and run to pull cookies out of the oven. 

I checked out  The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam  from the library last week.  I liked the idea of gluten-free baking that didn’t require a bunch of empty calorie starches or gums.  I ordered the almond flour that the author recommends from Honeyville Food Products.  It was about $30 for 5 lbs, so I was making a bit of a commitment.  I hoped that the author wasn’t leading me astray.

Gluten Free and Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt [KOSHER SALT]
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup grape seed oil [UNREFINED CORN OIL]
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup agave nectar
1 cup dark chocolate 73%  [1/2 CUP CHOCOLATE CHIPS] 

 

My Findings:

The dough held together well.  It wasn’t too wet or dry.

For my first tray of cookies, I made the balls of dough too big.  In her book, the author tells you to drop the dough in heaping tablespoons, but that’s way too much.  For the second tray I  made the balls so small that they could only contain one or two chocolate chips each.  THAT SMALL folks!  She also says to leave 2 inches between the pressed cookies before baking.  She means that – the  cookies spread and grew more than I expected.  It was fun to watch.

If you touch the cookies when they first come out of the oven you’ll think you messed up: they have no solidity.  They feel a little like hot wet goo.  After waiting for 30 minutes they were cool and solid enough to take off the paper.  I undercooked the first batch just slightly, but soon got the hang of it.  I pushed it and over-cooked the last batch.  They didn’t look burned at all but I could taste it.  Err on the side of undercooked until you get the hang of how almond flour cooks and looks. 

Next time I’ll use slightly less oil.   The corn oil tasted good, but left lots of grease on my fingers.  Seemed a bit excessive. I’d use a little less salt too. The salt and the baking soda combined makes them taste pretty salty.  Once I get some unrefined grape seed oil I’ll give that a try.  I like the idea of avoiding dairy.

My boyfriend thought they were too heavy tasting, but I didn’t.  They were a little crisp, a little chewy,  and had a nice crumb.  They tasted enough like the real thing for me.   I’m grateful for a treat that makes me feel like a kid, and doesn’t cause me pain to enjoy.

This week’s box:

Fresh cilantro, mustard greens, celery, green onions, lettuce, asparagus, bananas, green cabbage, sweet potato, grapefruit, lemons, and asian pears.  A really great assortment, although I have no idea what to do with so much celery.

Today’s dish features fish sauce.  Here is my favorite brand – it’s made in Vietnam and found in my local Asian food market.  This is dangerous stuff -  it is so salty that it eventually forms large salt crystals in the bottom of the bottle.  It’s a saturated solution of salt!!   You use it so sparingly.  It lasts for years, and spends a lot of  lonely time in the back of your fridge.  If you can’t find this kind, find a friend who can recommend something good to you.  There is a huge variety out there – and you don’t want to get stuck with yucky fish sauce. 

I don’t buy much packaged food – other than a few select condiments, oils, and a can of tomato paste from time to time.  I do like the Thai Kitchen brand coconut milk and Red Curry Paste.  The paste jar has a recipe that has works well for me, with a few adaptations.  It’s an easy dish to prepare, especially on a work night.   I almost never follow someone’s recipe exactly.  I don’t know if I can.  Maybe when baking.  No, not even then I guess.  Oh well. 

To start, I simmer the whole can of lite coconut milk with about 3 level tablespoons of the curry paste.  Because of the lemongrass and galangal root, it need to slowly cook for about 5 minutes in the milk before you start adding other ingredients. I added an extra small clove of crushed fresh garlic.

While the sauce was simmering at a low heat, I chopped up some celery, carrots, brocoli, a small zucchini, and a yellow onion (from this week’s box).  I tried to slice the carrots and celery on the diagonal – like they do in Asian restaurants.

After about 5 minutes of simmering the sauce, I added 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar, along with about 1 Tablespoon of fish sauce.  I let this simmer for another 10 minutes or so.  I added a dash of Tabasco and some chili flakes, and 1 whole Anaheim chile (roasted in the toaster oven yesterday).

I had 2 raw boneless turkey breasts to use up.  I sliced each breast down the center to remove that tough white membrane, and then I sliced along the grain to create bite-sized slices.  I simmered that in the sauce for only a few minutes before adding the hard veggies (carrots, celery and brocoli).  After about five minutes at medium-low, I added the soft veggies (onion & zucchini) and brought the whole dish up to a boil.  I served it spooned over brown basmatti rice.

One of my favorite Sesame Street episodes featured Bert and Ernie in a boat fishing.  Instead of using a pole, Ernie called to the fish to jump into the boat, “Here fishy, fishy!”  Bert made fun of Ernie, but it worked!  I can’t get it out of my head, even 30 years later.  It still makes me smile.

Here’s another good smoothie.  I’ve found that it works better to place the greens in first, and then the ice, and then the other fruit on top of the ice.  When I put the greens in last, there are usually a couple of leaves that don’t get blended. 

So, here we have ice, water, lettuce, spinach, apple, orange and half a lemon.  Yummy!  Make sure those bananas are frozen so you can get the best smoothie texture.

Ah, here we have a Friday afternoon brunch.  I wanted to use that lonely shallot with some of the great eggs from my CSA farm this week. 

(It’s hard to tell, but I’m using my treasured 6 inch cast iron skillet – found at St. Vincent de Paul thrift store for $3.00.   It’s perfect for a 2 egg omelette.  Oh, that bread is real bread – and it’s my boyfriend’s plate.  I had buttered corn tortillas instead.  There is nothing more wonderful than a hot buttered tortilla out of a cast iron pan.)

Making the omelette: in a separate pan, I lightly sautéed the shallot and about 2 cups spinach and a little olive oil.  While that was cooking, I scrambled 2 eggs and poured them into the “mini-me” skillet.  While the eggs slowly jelled on a low heat, I dropped bits of the spinach and shallot, sliced cherry tomato, and a bit of shredded cheddar and smoked gruyere cheeses.

For desert – a blended orange-banana-brandy daiquiri.  I used three varieties of oranges, including a blood orange, 2 frozen bananas, about 10 ice cubes and 4 shots of brandy.  The blood orange gave the drink a really cool color.  Tasted a bit like a cream-cicle.  Very simple, very tasty!  This is only the second time I’ve made an adult beverage using my new toy.  I think that’s pretty good.

Here’s today’s delivery.  My boyfriend thoughtfully left everything in the bag until I got home, knowing I wanted to have the fun of unpacking it myself. 

This week I got 6 eggs, a bag of shiitake mushrooms, 1 shallot, 1 leek, 2 yellow onions, 4 navel oranges, 3 blood oranges, 4 apples, a bag of mint leaves, a bunch of beautiful radishes, 1 butter leaf lettuce, and finally 1 Russian kale.  YUMMY!

We had no trouble eating last week’s delivery.  In fact, we had to do two additional produce runs.  That’s okay for me.  I’d rather do that than have too much. 

When I did go to the store to supplement my delivery, I had a much better eye for what was in season.  My box contents really reflected what was also fresh and on sale in my two favorite natural health food stores. 

One day, one of the stores had a killer deal on greens – and they looked fresh.  I went back the next day to get some but the greens were wilted and picked over.  The greens I got in my CSA box were beautiful -  better looking than anything I saw at the store.  So, if I had acted at that VERY moment in the store -  I would have gotten a deal.  I don’t have a car, so my greens travel via bicycle panniers.  After going over the river and through the woods, they are usually worse for wear by the time I get them into the fridge.  So…..the CSA Box is still a better deal for me.

Going without gluten doesn’t mean going without crusted fried fish.  Fish and chips from a restaurant are out of the question – the batter has gluten, and the fries are cooked in the same oil.  Bummer.

I love fish.  Recently my dad gave me a bunch of my old kindergarten drawings.  I kept one in particular.  We cut out a bunch of  construction paper semi-circle “smiles” and pasted magazine pictures on to them of what made us happy.  I used a picture of a salmon. I knew what mattered early in life.

I started with 2 cups of frozen brown rice grains, and within about 30 seconds (using the dry blade Vita-mix container) I had just over 2 cups of brown rice flour.  It’s easier to grind about 2 cups at a time -  less than that doesn’t work quite as well.  Freezing the grain first keeps it from overheating.  The texture is still more coarse than the bulk-bin variety.  But take a whiff – it smells good!  I tried smelling the stuff at the store yesterday – I couldn’t smell anything.

We didn’t dip the sole in raw egg before dredging in the rice flour.  It stuck pretty well anyway.  I’ll try it with egg the next time.  The fish cooked fast – within minutes. The smell of butter and fish and brown rice filled the kitchen.  Bandit the Cat went crazy.

My boyfriend doesn’t like shiitake mushrooms.  “Why didn’t you tell the farm “No mushrooms”?  he asked me. 

Well, I don’t want to have a long “never, ever” list on register with the farm.  I mean, isn’t it about learning to try new things, and making do with what the land, seasons, God, or whatever gives you?  So, he took over the knife and cutting board, and I gave him control of the dreaded mushrooms.  He came up with a fried rice recipe using yesterday’s leftover saffron basmati rice, a bit of purple cabbage, garlic, ginger, asparagus (from last week), a yellow onion, and zucchini.  For seasoning he used a bit of wheat-free tamari, sesame oil and Tabasco. I can’t remember if there was a carrot in there or not, but it could have been there if it had wanted to be.

This is the coolest thing!  This is what sold me on the Vita-mix.  To clean, put a few drops of soap (I use Dr. Bronners) in some hot water and blend it up.  My Vita-mix has a preset for ”smoothie” -  this works the best.  Rinse, and you’re ready for another smoothie.   I tried this with my old blender, and it didn’t work.  (BTW: Don’t put your Vita-mix pitcher in the dishwasher, the instructions warn against it.  I don’t know why, but maybe it ruins the plastic.)

The blade assembly doesn’t detatch – so you don’t have rubber gaskets and multiple parts to take apart and clean.  My old blender would get moldy because I was too lazy to take everything apart.  It would leak because I wasn’t good at screwing it back tightly.  The Vita-mix isn’t going to leak unless you break it, and it’s easy on arthritic hands.

I was out of greens for my morning smoothie, so I had to pick up spinach on the way home from work.  Here we have ice, water, spinach, a frozen banana, frozen strawberries, a tangerine, and a pink lady apple.  Tasty!

What do we have here?

Water, ice, red leaf lettuce, blueberries, an apple, an orange and a frozen banana. 

This would be a great recipe for someone scared of green things.  The lettuce is totally hidden from sight and taste.

 Look how beautiful that color is!  Carrots, beets, celery, cucumber.  Wonderful stuff.  Good for you too.

And then I tasted it.  Tasted fine, pretty good actually  – this is one of my favorite juice combo’s – but the texture….man-o-man.  Not gonna happen.  My boyfriend and I each managed to slide about 1/8 of a  cup down before giving up. 

My Boyfriend said, “We should try to drink more, and think of it as medicine.” 

I took one more sip.  I gave up.  UGH!

“I don’t want to throw it up; nor do I want to throw it out.  Maybe we can cook it?”  I said.

So….I did.  With some olive oil, garlic, herbs, salt, pepper and a little Tabasco.

I ate two bowls – it was pretty good.  My boyfriend managed a bowl.  But look how the color changed.  It oxidized very quickly.  Usually you cook the veggies, and then blend them while they are still hot.  I bet this typical method helps preserve the antioxidants.  Cooking after blending allowed the tiny food particles to get lots of contact with heat and air.  We ate as much as we could, and tossed the rest.  It tasted good enough to think about keeping for lunch, but it was obvious that it was going to degrade quickly.  No use in keeping something once that happens.  “We’re eating for health, not survival” my boyfriend likes to say.

No, seriously, I had to go to the local hardware store and buy industrial strength hearing protection for my Vita-mix.  Maybe I’m a baby, but as a fiddle player I value my precious hearing – and this monster blender sounds like and airplane taking off.  (One of my parents’ favorite family-nights-out was to park near the end of the PDX runway.  Now that I think about it, that’s kind of dangerous.  There was a snack stand, and people would hang out and party waiting for the next plane to land.  I would get cotton candy.  I remember that there was nowhere to pee.

Another collard creation – ice, water, collards, apple, frozen banana, lime and tangerine.  The pear works really well with those strong-tasting greens.

I’m reading the book Green Smoothie Revolution: The Radical Leap Toward Natural Health by Victoria Boutenko.

Victoria Boutenko answers many of the questions I had about drinking raw greens – especially about alkaloid poisoning.  She recommends rotating your greens – so that you don’t eat the same thing on a regular basis.  For example, pick a different green for each day of the week – spinach, collards, chard, lettuce, dandelion, beet greens, parsley, etc.  Her book has lots of good recipes and guidelines.  Here is another Guidelines to Drinking Green Smoothies that lists the basics to avoid too many alkaloids from drinking green smoothies.

Carousing Collards

Not bad, actually!

Ice, banana, collard greens, red grapes, & apple.  For dinner, I used the asparagus and carrots from my box to create a tofu gallimaufy.

I adapted a great recipe from the book: Eating close to home : a guide to local seasonal sustenance in the Pacific Northwest by Elin Kristina England.  Elin lives in my area, and has written a great book about how to use what’s local and in season.  I turned to the Early Spring section, and right away I found ideas for yesterday’s delivery.

To get chicken broth: I bake a whole chicken by simply putting it in a large covered casserole dish – nothing else added.  Then I take the broth and freeze it for later.  It’s the most simple chicken broth recipe I know.  As you see, the fat rises to the top and is easy to discard once it’s frozen.  Sometimes I use a little bit of that fat in the soup if I’m feeling sassy.  I use that in place of any dairy.  Leave a comment if you want the recipe, and I’ll post it.

 I also made another batch of gluten-free brown rice bread.  I used the dry-pitcher for my Vita-mix to grind my rice fresh.  YUMMY!  I added few raisins this time, and it didn’t hurt anything.  Instead of sugar I used molasses, and instead of olive oil I used butter or grape seed oil.

This morning I set my cooler out on the front porch and patiently waited for my delivery.  I was totally excited!  

At 3:30 pm I had my first CSA boxFor $36.00 I got:

3 potatoes, asparagus, 4 kiwi, 2 leeks, bunch carrots, lettuce, parsley, collards, 2 large apples, 3 tangerines, and 6 eggs.

Everything was nicely washed, and carefully placed in my bag.  The greens were especially nice looking, since they hadn’t spent the last 2 weeks at the grocery store.

I got the white balance setting figured out – and managed to capture the vibrant color from a parsley smoothie.

Remember those old commercials?  This is how I remember the Vita-mix: It had this strange spigot.  It looked cool, and it sounded like an airplane.

 Even as a kid I wanted a professional blender, but my parents were not cooks, and didn’t invest in kitchen supplies or whole food.   I didn’t learn to use a kitchen knife until I was in college.

My health history is a long story, and it will have to come out in bits and pieces.  Lately I’ve struggled with thyroid and arthritis problems, and have been trying to work a little harder on my sleep, exercise and nutrition to see if I can avoid NSAIDs and hormones. 

Last Tuesday I had a both my dental exam and an eye exam.  The dentist wants $5000 of my hard-earned cash in exchange for a bridge, crown, and weeks of eating soft food.  The optomitrist tells me that I have Pseudotumor Cerebri – and that thanks to my hard work so far, it’s in remission.  If I ever get back to my teenage weight of 325 lbs, or even start gaining weight at all, it would come back and I could go blind.  Blindness.  Hmmm…..  No thanks.

So, I started thinking about how I was going to eat well during the dental stuff since my tendency is to get glum and eat lots of sugar.  I also wanted to see if getting more fruits veggies into my diet would help the arthritis and sluggish thyroid.

A while back my tai chi teacher told me that he and his wife drink green smoothies.  That got me thinking.  I knew my blender wasn’t up to the task.  I went down to the local gourmet kitchen supply shop Hartwick’s to see if they had a Vita-mix.  They aren’t easy to find really – and I don’t know of anyone who owns one. They had several models, but I wanted the Vita-mix Pro 500.

The kind sales clerk saw me standing near the display, dreaming about the possibilities and how I was going to pay for such a machine.   She grabed one, and lead me over to the  kitchen demonstration area.  “let’s make rice flour”, I said when she asked what we should start with.  In 30 seconds we had two cups of flour.  I poured it out into a bowl and sifted the flour through my fingers – it was totally smooth and like what I’d buy at the health food store.  I had so much fun dropping food into the blender that it was very hard to leave without one.  I placed it on a 48 hour hold, and went home to talk my boyfriend into it.