Spinach

Thursday, August 28, 2014

If there is a variety of spinach to introduce to your kids, this is the one. Straight from the farm, it was crunchy, crisp, and had the most beautiful purple-tipped roots. After I’ve seen the potential for spinach, it’s going to be hard to return to those limp bagged baby spinach greens that you so often see in the grocery store. This is spinach with heft. Popeye-approved 100%.

ME: Do you know what you’re eating? What is it?

LAUREN: Green leaf lettuce?

ME: No, it’s not green leaf lettuce. Does anyone know what the green leaves are on their plate?

SAM: I don’t know.

ME: Have you guys ever tried spinach before?

LAUREN: I have.

ME: You have? Where? At school? Where have you tried spinach before?

LAUREN: When we were cooking something.

ME: You and me?

LAUREN: No. At camp.

ME: Oh cool. Have you had spinach before Emma?

EMMA: But it was tinier.

ME: Have you guys ever heard of Popeye? Who’s Popeye.

LAUREN: Papa?

ME: No, it’s not Papa (their grandfather). Popeye is a really strong guy with big muscles. You know what he loves to eat?

LAUREN: Spinach!

ME: He eats spinach. That’s what he eats all the time. Can you believe that? He eats this stuff. What do you guys think, does it taste good?

LAUREN: With some olive oil and salt on it.

ME: Yeah. You like it, Emma?

LAUREN: It tasted so bad plain.
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Family

Where Tuesday is Friday

Monday, August 25, 2014

“I wish it were Summer every day” Lauren told me last week. “That way our Summer would never come to an end.”

And that, my dear girl, is exactly why Summer should come to an end. Nothing is special unless it’s sacred. A weekend isn’t indulgent unless it’s well-earned. And so, too, with this perfect string of weeks that separates Memorial Day and Labor Day. Days that bleed into each other, leading me to ask on repeat – “is today Friday?”

Rodney was traveling last week, so we did what we do on most days, which is make things up as we go. It was our last full week at the lake.

Last visit to the Ringwood Farmer’s Market (at least for a few weeks) to pick up some really big shoe-matching carrots…

Last time to make a mess of my closet and try on our bridesmaid and flower girl dresses for an upcoming wedding one…more….time…

Last time to crash our friends’ houses for frozen treats. Those red treats, dangerous….Unless you intend to look like Batman’s archenemy, in which case, perfection….

Last few hangouts on the dock with aging furry friends…

Last time to walk the patio with the intention of…

….making shoes; that’s right, that was the day when they piled Rainbow Loom bands on the ground and made some desperately-needed footwear…

…and a pair for me…

…a pair for all of us….

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CSA

Bialas Farms CSA: Week 9

Sunday, August 24, 2014

This week was one of the more fun weeks to cook – not only because I got a fabulous box full of vegetables from our friends at Bialas Farms, but also because I received my first box of artisanal food products from Hatchery.

I’ve been wanting to test out the Hatchery subscription box for a while since I tend to fall hard for small-batch producers. My first box didn’t disappoint, a true compliment for the range of vegetables that I received from the farm, including:

Poblano Chiles
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Green Peppers
Red & Yellow Onions
Beets
Radishes
Eggplant
Cilantro
Zucchini
Cucumber
Lettuce

Cooking with this range of unique products has been fun.

Pictured: Lafaza Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Bean, Bella Nut Sunflower Maca Cinnamon Honey Nut Butter, Not Ketchup Cherry Chipotle dipping sauce, Modern Gingham Preserves Coffee’d Tart Cherry jam, Fogg City Spice Co. Smokey BBQ Seasoning and extra virgin olive oil from the Other Brother Company.

Breakfast couldn’t wait; I immediately spooned some of the Coffee’d tart cherry jam onto Greek yogurt and topped with a handful of homemade granola. I could wake up to this every day.

As you may have seen on previous CSA posts, the majority of the recipes featured use my Bialas Farms produce. But in some cases, when I hit the farmer’s market to pick up my farm share box, I stop by the neighboring stands to gather some additional items – namely berries, stone fruit and melons.

I try to make these posts as inclusive as possible, recognizing that many people receive these types of fruits in their CSA boxes, and/or may be shopping for similar summer items at the farmer’s market. So please excuse me if I meander a little and share dishes that have been prepped with food that goes beyond my CSA box specifically.

I’ve been making ice pops all summer long with the berries that we’ve been buying in bulk. Before we headed up to the lake, I’d ordered a few different pop molds on Amazon, which I thought could be a fun activity for the kids. This week we tried a blackberry and vanilla bean combo which was a straight up disaster. I’m still not quite sure what happened to a few of the pops, but the two different sections froze separately and at different temps, making them really tough to unmold.

Which led to a lot of this…

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100 new foods

Yellow Doll watermelon

Thursday, August 21, 2014

I was so thrilled to find a Yellow Doll watermelon at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago. I hauled it around the market as I picked up a few more items, satisfied with my prize. As I was paying for some carrots, I asked the farmer to lop the tops off. “You know you the tops are edible right?” he asked as he passed me my change. I then launched into a lengthy story of how my freezer was full of carrot top pesto, blah, blah, blah. Finally got home, no Yellow Doll in sight. In all of my pesto smugness I’d left it with the carrot farmer, his consolation prize for having to listen to my five-minute response. Fortunately there was another Yellow Doll waiting for me a week later. And it was well worth the wait…

ME: Ok, wait guys. What are these called?

SAM: Uh, yellow baby.

LAUREN: Dolly?

ME: Yes! You were the closest. Yellow doll, that’s right.

EMMA: Yellow dolly.

ME: What does it look like?

EMMA: A tomato.

ME: It does look a little bit like yellow tomatoes. What’s different between these than our usual watermelons?

SAM: They’re yellow.

ME: Yeah, they’re yellow and what else?

LAUREN: They’ve got blacker seeds.

ME: Yeah, they’ve got darker seeds. With our other watermelons you can kind of eat the seeds. But with these ones you really should not eat the seeds. Or else….

LAUREN: What?

ME: You will grow…

LAUREN: A watermelon out of your head.
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NYC

The wheels on the bus

Monday, August 18, 2014

Can it be that our endless summer is actually coming to an end? Time to get my head back in a New York frame of mind. Although we’re leaving so much stillness and beauty in Greenwood Lake, there is culture and excitement, chaos and adventure that lies ahead. In some ways I can’t wait…

Before school ended, the kids had a half day at school and I wanted to share a few pictures from our day since the weather was perfect for a Red Bus tour. If you’re ever in NYC for the day, do not miss this activity– I could ride the bus a dozen more times and still be content.

I’ve mentioned it before on the blog, so it should come as no surprise that I love to be a tourist in New York City. There’s so much to see, and the best thing about a Red Bus tour is that you can see so much of it at once.

I’ve taken Lauren on the tour before, but this was Sam’s first time. Lauren fell asleep 10 minutes into the last tour, so I was hoping that Sam wouldn’t do the same since it ain’t cheap to ride the Gray Line, but fortunately they were well-rested and up for some fun.

Starting with lunch at Westville, or “West Village” as Lauren likes to call it, not realizing that there’s an actual West Village and that this isn’t it.

(I felt the need to include a ketchup action shot since that’s how we roll there…they have my kids’ favorite fries in the city, lightly breaded to make them extra crispy.)

We started our tour on 8^th Ave with some frustrating non-kid-sized headphones, but once we squashed and pinched the ear buds enough, we finally got them wedged into position.

And we were off….cruising first through Times Square past the Neil Simon theater…

…then on to Columbus Circle where Lauren stole my old lady hat.

Finally, we rode up along Central Park West and through the Upper West Side to Harlem.

We weren’t long into our trip when we passed 110th Street and our guide pointed out the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Although I’ve taken the bus tour a few times, I must have always tuned out at this point because I didn’t realize that it’s the biggest cathedral in North America.