I’ve joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) this year. We got our first box last Thursday. Lots of lettuce. Really good, but a lot. I have made quite a few good salads, of course. Here is one from this morning:

CSA lettuce, arugula, and grapes, tomatoes, and poached egg, rhubarb and ginger muffin

I also made a great cabbage salad that I haven’t made in years.  I made it all the time when I was in grad school and I completely forgot about it.   It’s great.

yellow and orange peppers, red cabbage, CSA bok choi and scallions, peas, tempeh, cilantro, rice noodles, and chili lime dressing

Okay.  I think that I’m going to have to do some great planning if I’m going to be successful with comsuming all these veggies.  Here’s what I’m thinking for this week.  We receieved tatsoi in the box this week.  It’s  a green that looks like big spoons, I guess.  I found this recipe that looks good. I also think I’ll make a spinach frittata. Perhaps I’ll also make some zucchini bread or grilled zucchini.

On the knitting front, I’ve been making tons of hats:

Pasha

Here is Pasha that I made for:

Friend Valerie’s son that I met last weekend. So cute. Both the baby and the penguin.

Yesterday I went up to Madison for Friend Carolin’s 30th Birthday Party. Happy Birthday!

Birthday Girl

Today I planted my patio garden. I decided that it was time to re-pot some of my houseplants, some of which have never been re-potted – like the jade plant that my friend Lisa got me for graduation… 12 years ago! I think I have about 35 plants out there. I haven’t organized the space yet, but I’ll get to that this week.

Let’s see. Per Friend Michelle, it’s been a while. Sorry.

May 6th Bento

Here’s my bento lunch from May 6ht. I’m still having fun making them. We have muenster cheese, greens, edamame, ginger dressing, veggie dumplings, and almonds (including two chocolate-covered one).

cookie decorating table

This weekend I went into Chicago for Mother’s Day. The brunch yesterday was incredible. The desserts were served in a separate room. There were 4 different dessert tables. I was so stuffed from the brunch, but I did manage to save enough room for dessert. They even had a cookie decorating table!

Las Vegas

Two weeks ago I went to state #47 – Nevada. A couple friends and I went to Las Vegas for a long weekend. Good fun.

socks

I’ve been working on a couple pairs of socks, a clutch, and another penguin.

That’s about all.

I just spent the weekend down in Charlotte. My sister and her husband flew me down for the weekend to take care of my niece and nephew while they went away for the weekend (thanks!). It was a gorgeous weekend – or 75 degrees and sunny the entire time. We spent a lot of time outside.

I took pictures of a quilt that I made a few years ago for my niece and nephew while I was down there. Five of the embroidered squares were made by my grandmother. My grandma is my crafting inspiration – she was a wonderful knitter, seamstress, and quilter. She always designed her own embroidery patterns.

Here are a couple shots of the bento lunches (is that redundant?  I don’t actually know what bento translates to…)  I’ve made recently:

hard-boiled egg, gouda cheese, salad with pea shoots and spring greens, and lemon pepper pasta with sauteed asparagus

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homemade whey bread, hummus, olive tapenade, omelette roll-ups with tapenade, and salad with spinach, grape tomatoes, and homemade cheese

Hiya. I’ve been cooking and baking this weekend. I got inspired to make cheese yesterday. For Christmas, my sister got me a few cheese making supplies, so I’ve been waiting for a calm moment to try some out. I made a cow’s milk mozzarella. It only took about 25 minutes – start to finish – to make the cheese and I got a great yield from the gallon of milk that I started with. Not having a kitchen scale, I’d guess that I have over a pound of cheese. Yum. It turned out great, but I think next time I should add more salt. I tend to be pretty conservative with salting things. Here’s a shot of the finished product (cue the not very attractive picture of the vat ‘o cheese):

So, then, I had all this leftover whey. Great. I can’t just waste it, so I decided to make whey bread. I started with the recipe from the cheese making class that I took last year. I should have known that something was up when the ingredient list calls for yeast, but it never says when it should be added. I checked some recipes online and decided to wing it.  The recipe also called for 4 c. of whey (check – I had loads of whey!) and 4 c. of flour – which just made a big gluey mess. I kept adding flour until I had something that I could work with. I ended up with 4 sizable loaves – two went in the freezer and one is going to the parentals.

Last night’s dinner was lovely. I whipped up some olive tapenade and had that, wine, and the cheese and bread that I made. Yum.

Like I wrote, I went to a Japanese market on Saturday. One of my purchases was a very cute bento box. Truth be told, this one won me over with the cute cloth napkin that came with it. Well, last night I made my first lunch for the bento box. Here we have yaki-soba noodles with orange peppers, baked tofu, and seaweed salad. Yum! I also had a cup of miso soup. I have plenty leftover to have the same thing tomorrow.

Tonight I was a very good girl. After getting home from a meeting at 8pm, I did the paperwork for a meeting that I have in the morning and I wrote two reports. Now, off to bed!

Last weekend was the annual viewing of Little Women with my friend and her daughters. It used to be that every time Beth died (and she dies every single time we watch this movie; just once I wish she’d resist holding the Hummel baby and not get Scarlet fever, but no, every time she does and then she’s sickly and then she dies. Every time.) that the girls would turn around and watch the tears run down my face. But now, the older of the two girls is now crying right along. Yea!

Yesterday, Friend Carolin and I went to Ikea and the Mitsuwa Marketplace. I love the Mitsuwa Market – I never know half of the stuff that I buy, but I love it. Here is what I had for dinner tonight:

yaki-soba with orange peppers and miso soup

Last night I started knitting mittens while watching Sense and Sensibility. I’m using this mitten pattern (ravelry link) in green and a pinky-purple.

This has been a longer than expected weekend. We had a snow/cold day on Thursday. I was scheduled to go to a conference all day. Despite calling off school, we decided to go to the conference anyway. It was a pretty good conference. I was seated next to a person who apparently has to process everything verbally. It wasn’t so bed in the morning, but by the end of the afternoon, I was ready to pull my hair out. I picked up a few new ideas (from the speaker, not the verbal processor), which is the point, right? I do get a comp day for attending the conference on a non-attendance day. Woohoo.

Yesterday was also a snow/cold day (it seems weird to call it a cold day and have it mean that school was called off, so I’m using the slash…). I slept late, watched movies, knit a ton, and started laundry. I say started because I ended up have six loads. Crazy.

I started out today with:

Coffee and a chocolate croissant (thank you freezer stocked full of food from Trader Joe’s).

Today I watched more dvds, knit more, played piano, did laundry, went to the library, read etc. Lazy day. Just what I wanted. I really need to do paperwork tomorrow. And clean. Ughh.

PS – Michelle, your birthday present is done!

I received the book Show Me How from friend Kristin for Christmas.  This book is so me.  It diagrams instructional steps for how to do 500 different things from everyday things like fixing a leaking toilet to how to fight off a shark.  She also gave me the supplies to tackle 6 of the 500 tasks.  One was for fixing a bike tire with a dollar bill (she gave me a dollar bill).  Another was a bottle of champagne and a foam sword to sabrage a bottle of champagne (I’m not really sure how well it will work, but don’t tell her that!).  I also received balloons with which to make balloon animals.  See exhibits A and B of my new-found skill: