CSA week 5 and meal planning

Happy Sunday, all! I am writing from my phone today since it’s football season, so Mr. X has the computer tied up with the Vikings-49ers game at the moment. If any of the spacing or formatting is weird, that’s why! I will do my best to fix it when I can get my hands on the iMac.

We had another beachy Saturday followed by a homemade gourmet dinner, so I’ll have a fun post to share tomorrow. But today is CSA day, so let’s get right to the haul. Boxed up:

And the spread:

-Kale
-Romaine
-Basil
-Parsley
-Swiss chard (another massive bunch)
-Butternut squash
-Peppers
-Armenian cucumber
-Japanese eggplants (3)
-Oranges (3)
-Avocados (3)
-Yellow onion
-Zucchini (3)
-Yellow squash (2)
-Cucumber
-Honeydew

While picking up the box this week, I decided to say hello to the Soledad goat. This week, our friend was Hope, who is two months old and blind.

In addition to the farm, the owners run a rescue, and they take in all kinds of critters. I would really like to visit sometime. Also, I would like to note that Hope does not have a human ear. The angle is weird, but I promise she has a fuzzy, floppy, normal goat ear.

I have decided to be a little loose with my meal planning this week, so instead of my usual schedule, below are some menu ideas:

-Tacos with lentils, avocado, salsa, and cilantro
-Mixed veggie frittata
-Roasted butternut squash
-Kale salad
-Pizza
-Bean stew
-Bean patties or burgers
-Sandwiches
-Wilted chard with garlic

As far as prep work is concerned, today I’m going to cook up white beans and black beans for use throughout the week, and I’m going to make a bunch of pickles for X. I made a loaf of sourdough bread yesterday, so hopefully it turned out tasty (and sliceable). I also need to figure out lunches and get them started.

Finally, here is my tentative workout plan for the week:

Monday – Spin at the Y
Tuesday – Jazz dance at the Y
Wednesday – Run and strength training
Thursday – Active rest or yoga at the Y
Friday – Run
Saturday – Ballet at the Y and probably strength training
Sunday – Rest

As you can see, we’re trying out our local YMCA this week – finally. I’m really excited. Hopefully we will like it and can get enough financial aid to join. I will definitely report back.

Every week, I participate in In Her Chucks‘ “What’s in the Box?” link-up. Click here to see boxes from all over!

Random weekend shots

A lot of other bloggers do photo posts of their weekends, which is something I’ve never really gotten into. For one, I don’t take nearly as many pictures as they do, and — frankly — I don’t do a whole lot. That whole being broke-ish thing keeps us spending as little as possible most of the time. I do have a few random shots from the last few days that I wanted to share, though.

I attended a forum on Thursday that included a free lunch (yay!). They were boxed meals from Quiznos, including a sandwich, an apple, and a bag of chips. Apparently someone managed to design, get approval for, and print thousands of lunch boxes with this glaring typo:

Or maybe I’m being too harsh. Perhaps Quiznos is very philosophical about their food. “Who IS lunch?” It almost seems pro-vegetarian. Almost.

On Friday, I was driving home from Girls on the Run recruitment and saw this not-at-all-ominous cloud of smoke in the distance:

Fun California fact: Shit catches on fire here and stays on fire. This particular blaze was about 10 miles from my apartment, just east of the 405 near the Getty. Yikes.

On Saturday, we decided to beat the heat — 100° outside with no breeze = at least 10 billion° F inside my apartment — by heading to Venice Beach. It was significantly more bearable out there in the direct sun and surf than at home, so this was a big win. Mr. X didn’t want to be in my photo, so here was our view for the burning-our-pasty-skin portion of the afternoon:

The crowds were the perfect size. They were never overwhelming, and I liked being around a decent number of people. We spent a lot of time in the water, which was lots of fun. To the Pacific we sacrificed two pairs of sunglasses, a headband, a hair tie, and three bobby pins. It was worth it, though, even when we got knocked down by waves so hard that we scraped our backs on the rough bottom.

On Sunday, I picked up our CSA share and bought a dozen eggs from the market while I was there. At home, I made us a nice little brunch of Sourdough Pancakes and fried eggs:

I should have photographed X’s plate, since I gave him the prettier (and larger) serving, but by the time I plated mine, he had inhaled his. I used this recipe for the pancakes, but made the following tweaks:

• Halved the recipe to serve two
• Used a whole egg, so I reduced the oil by half again (so 1 egg and 1 tablespoon olive oil)
• Cooked everything in my non-stick pan sprayed with a little oil. The recipe made seven pancakes that were about 1/4 cup of batter each.

For the spices, I dumped in a hefty amount of cinnamon (maybe 1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon), 1 1/2 teaspoons cocoa powder, and a dash of cayenne to make a Mayan chocolate-inspired dish. We topped them with some Kerrygold butter I found lurking in the fridge.

As you can see, my plate looks mangled. I took the first pan of the ‘cakes, which I did a poor job of flipping. I noted it took about a  minute and a half for the first side to cook and then another minute on the other, so the subsequent four pancakes looked much prettier. The eggs also look crazy because they were room temperature, so the whites spread A LOT in the hot pan. They still tasted great!

That’s a glimpse into my weekend. The beach — and seeing our great friends from Bakersfield, who I will mention again tomorrow — was definitely the highlight, especially since the heat was RELENTLESS until Sunday evening. I know I have talked a lot of crap on Angelenos who can’t handle the extreme temperatures, but 100° feels a lot different, even if it’s not humid, in an apartment without air-conditioning than it does in a home with central heat and air. I’m grateful to see highs in the 80s this week!

CSA Week 3

Greetings from Sunday! I decided to treat today like a normal end of the week so that I can really enjoy tomorrow, so even though Monday isn’t a work day, today is a chore day.

So let’s take a look at this week’s CSA haul:

Broken down, we have:

• Red leaf lettuce
• A green that I believe to be chard
• Kale
• Thai basil
• Cilantro
• Yellow onion
• Basket of tiny peppers

• Watermelon
• Eight different summer squashes (zucchini, yellow pattypan, eightball, and yellow squash)
• Two avocados
• Three Japanese eggplants
• Two big fat cucumbers
• Scallions

Next up is my meal planning:

Breakfast (me only): Sourdough English muffins with peanut butter and banana

Lunches (me only): Bean and veggie fritters, salad

Dinners

• Monday: Homemade pizza with Roasted Tomato Sauce, watermelon
• Tuesday/Wednesday: Lentil enchiladas, salad
• Thursday/Friday: Pattypan squash stuffed with black beans, chipotle barley, steamed kale

We actually have quite a bit left over from last week’s box due to the kitchen quietness I mentioned earlier in the week. As a result, we still have lots of cucumbers lying about, so I decided to make fridge pickles for my sexy Latin man. I’m not a fan of either cucumbers or pickles, but he adores both, so this recipe seemed like a good solution. Plus, I met the Hip Girl herself at the farmer’s market earlier in the year, and she was really awesome, so I look forward to giving the recipe a spin.

Also on the food-prep front for today is making the sourdough English muffins. I’m using this recipe, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out! In addition, I’ll be cooking some beans for the week and doing other prep as needed.

Oh, and before I forget, here’s my exercise plan for the week:

Monday — 30-minute run/walk
Tuesday — Total body strength-training
Wednesday — 30-minute run/walk
Thursday — Rest
Friday — 20-minute yoga podcast
Saturday — 5K run/walk
Sunday — Active rest (walk around the farmers market and an easy 20-minute yoga podcast)

Yeah, it’s identical to last week’s. In the interest of full disclosure, I did nothing last week. Nothing. I was having another negative encounter with my wackadoo emotions, so sleep won out over exercise. Not this week, though, since I have decided to try out GymPact. I can’t afford not to work out — literally!

I hope your week is off to a good start, and I’ll be back soon with a new recipe.

Every week, I link up to In Her Chucks’ “What’s in the Box?” series. Check out this week’s edition for produce shares from all over!

CSA Week 2

Hey all. Sorry I disappeared at the end of last week. Things got really busy! Then I spent yesterday at training to become a Girls on the Run assistant coach (and also maybe with a bit of a wine hangover. Oops.). More on coaching soon, I hope.

Anyway, I have some catch-up recipes to share with you this week, but today is CSA day, so I wanted to share the haul:

All together.

Above you see:

• 1 watermelon
• 2 pattypan squashes
• 4 zucchini
• 1 yellow squash
• 1 Armenian cucumber
• 2 regular cucumbers
• 5 citrus fruits — maybe a mix of oranges and tangerines?

And here you see:

• 1 bunch of kale
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 1 bunch of basil
• 2 avocadoes
• 1 bunch of some kind of peppery greens (very bottom) — any guesses?
• 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
• 1 bunch of scallions

I am currently struggling to meal plan for the week, so here are some tentative thoughts:

• Tortilla soup — using scallions, avocado, cilantro, kale, and maybe some squash
• Minestrone — using kale, squash, and basil
• Pasta — using same as minestrone
• Tacos — using same as tortilla soup, minus the kale and plus the cherry tomatoes

That’s all I have so far. Clearly my thoughts aren’t straying far from Mexican and Italian! Here’s my exercise plan for the week:

Monday — 30-minute run/walk
Tuesday — Total body strength-training
Wednesday — 30-minute run/walk
Thursday — Rest
Friday — 20-minute yoga podcast
Saturday — 5K run/walk
Sunday — Active rest (walk around the farmers market and an easy 20-minute yoga podcast)

I did well this past week, though I skipped my Saturday run due to the aforementioned circumstances, and I swapped a couple of days around. I do have to pat myself on the back for my Thursday run this week. I managed to shave 1:30 off my pace for the 2.5 miles I’ve been doing at a time! My pace is still not competitive — we’re talking 11:30 instead of 13:00, due to the amount of walking I still incorporate) — but it’s a big improvement for me, in only a couple of weeks. I also found a new route, which I much prefer to the way I’ve been logging my miles.

Did you have any fitness or kitchen victories this week? Share them!

P.S. Check out other CSA boxes from all over at In Her Chucks! It’s so interesting to see what other people are receiving each week.

CSA wow-za

My day started off way too early. I am very much a morning person, which means it’s a rare night that I’m awake past 11:00 p.m. Last night, however, I got caught up in a flurry of creativity and ended up awake until 3:30 a.m. So not like me! What is like me, though? I woke up at 7:30 and could not go back to sleep. I didn’t fight it. I just decided to rise and take advantage of the creative energy. In the 4 1/2 hours since I’ve been awake, I have altered a shirt, made a headband, gone to the farmers market, shopped at Trader Joe’s and Ralph’s, reimagined my meal plan for the week, and created this post. Phew!

Anyway, I picked up the CSA share at 10:00 this morning, and though my haul was somewhat different than what I posted yesterday, I couldn’t be more excited! Here’s what I got for $25 (you have the option to pay $20, $25, or $40 depending on your ability).

It comes in this handy box:

I instantly knew there was some kind of basil inside. And then you open the flaps to discover:

One giant haul! Let’s break it down:

• 1 bunch of scallions
• 1 bunch of Thai basil
• 1 bunch of curly kale
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 5 Japanese eggplants
• 1 avocado
• 10 pieces of okra
• 1 bunch of mint

And here’s the rest:

• 2 round squashes
• 2 zucchini
• 2 pattypans
• 1 massive yellow squash
• 1 even more massive Armenian cucumber
• 5 oranges
• 1 honeydew melon
• 1 watermelon

Did I mention everything is certified organic, and I only paid $25?!?! I’m so excited!! So what’s a girl to do with all this? Well, my original meal plan will require some tweaking because of the variance, but here’s a basic idea:

Breakfast (me only): Overnight oats

Lunches

• For me: Tuscan Zucchini Pie (recipe to come this week) and watermelon
• For him: It will involve the eggplant and some fresh eggs — maybe a fritter of some kind? Clearly it’s still in the planning stages.

Dinners

• Monday/Tuesday: Black-Eyed Peas with Herbs, roasted okra, and breaded yellow squash
• Wednesday/Thursday: Coconut lentils and barley (recipe to come), Refreshing Cucumber Salad
• Friday: Still figuring this out! It will probably involve black beans, avocado, and cilantro.

And while we’re planning, here’s my workout schedule for the week:

Monday — 30-minute run/walk
Tuesday — Total body strength-training
Wednesday — 20-minute yoga podcast
Thursday — 30-minute run/walk
Friday — Rest
Saturday — 5K run/walk and strength-training
Sunday — Active rest (walk around the farmers market and an easy 20-minute yoga podcast)

As for last week’s plan, I did some switching around and only ended up with three runs (instead of four), two strength sessions (instead of four), and one yoga podcast (on target). I’m still incredibly proud of myself! It beats the heck out of the last several weeks, which have involved no fitness at all.

What’s on your exercise and food menu for the week? I’m off to do some prep work and check on my sourdough (!) for today’s homemade brunch — and maybe pass out.

Recent comestibles

Hello! I am fresh off a 10-day vacation and still working to settle back into normal life. I don’t have anything truly exciting to report at the moment, so instead I’ll share some recent eats.

We recently completed our (preliminary, I’m sure) tour of vegan brunch options with Real Food Daily (the Pasadena location), suggested by Hungry Hungry Hippie. I got the Ava B ‘n’ Cheez Scramble:

And my other half got the tacos that were on special:

Both dishes were good, though it isn’t my favorite of all the places we tried. Our bill was shockingly high. I would still eat there again, though I won’t be rushing.

Another night, I had a light ‘n local dinner:

It featured cherries, strawberries, and spicy guacamole from the farmers market, as well as chips that I made from corn tortillas that were in the fridge. It was joined by a cup of fresh mint (also from the market) tea. Delicious!

The tofu obsession I mentioned before has been hanging on strong. This lazy tofu scramble was completed by local plums and more fresh mint tea:

For the tea, all I do is pour boiling water over six or so mint leaves and let them steep. I like to lightly bruise the leaves first with my thumbnails to draw out the flavor, but it couldn’t be simpler.

On the last night of vacation, we enjoyed some leftover portobello chili on top of baked potatoes:

Then we doctored them up. His (with sharp Cheddar, salt, and pepper):

And hers (nooch, pepper sauce, and black pepper):

Perfectly filling and delicious.

In related news, I’m now on a new vitamin regimen prescribed by my doctor to combat my migraines. I love having a doctor who doesn’t jump straight to “medications” and instead experiments with vitamins. Here’s the daily swallow:

In addition to my once-daily multi (the brown-ish one), I am now taking 400 mg of magnesium (the two big white ones) and 400 mg of riboflavin (the four little yellow ones). It takes two gulps, but it’s natural and has no side effects — well, other than neon yellow urine (TMI, and thank you, riboflavin!). So far, mostly good, though I know it takes three months to judge whether or not a medication of any kind is working.

So that’s my edible update for today. How have you been?

Goat lurve

Happy Monday, everyone! How’s the day treating you?

Mine started off with a short jog and then breakfast:

That is the laziest tofu scramble to date (tofu, nooch, salsa, and a sprinkle of cumin) alongside some Rainier cherries from the Hollywood Farmers’ Market, plus green tea with jasmine. Perfect way to refuel from the exercise and to get the week off to a good start.

Speaking of the market, check out me with my new friend:

This is Blondie, a six-week old kid. After a moment of uncertainty, she began to nuzzle my arm. Goat lurve.

And speaking of this week, I’m seven days behind, but today starts my participation in the Summer Shape Up 2012 from Fitnessista. You should join me! Nothing like a little mutual support.

On the agenda for the rest of the day is:

• Working (obviously)
• Grocery store
• Cooking and meal prep for the rest of the week

Tonight’s dinner will be a variation on this Spinach-Zucchini Soup, one of my summertime favorites, featuring tons of tasty, local produce.

Have a great Monday!

Sunday thoughts

It is 10:30 in the morning, and my day is off to an exceptionally wonderful start. I hopped out of bed at 8:00 ready to run — literally — which is a good thing, since I have my second 5K in two weeks. By 8:30, I was out the door. Since I’ve been slacking off with training, I decided to enlist the help of my Couch to 5K app and did Week 4. I am not ashamed to admit that it totally kicked my butt. I am out of shape, but pushing myself this morning felt wonderful.

Afterward, I stopped by the apartment to grab my market bag, some moolah, and a warmer shirt and then headed back out on foot. I needed to make a detour to break a large bill, so I grabbed some lavender tea at Groundwork:

Groundwork is about half a mile from home, and it has sensational coffee, sandwiches, and looseleaf teas. However, I tend to find the service unfriendly at best. Today was a nice surprise, though. The guy was very nice and accommodating. Today was my first tango with their hot teas. They give you the hot water, and then you go scoop your own choice of a dozen or more looseleaf varieties into little bags. It was fun and oh so tasty. I almost mixed my lavender with Earl Grey, probably my favorite combo, but I plan to make coffee later, so I wanted to limit my caffeine. Next time, though!

After that, I headed straight to the Hollywood Farmers Market. Today is far from an example of a perfect, sunny SoCal day:

But there’s something about the moodiness in the sky that makes me feel happy, vibrant, and alive. It is just cool enough out for a bit of bite in the air, but not enough that I was uncomfortable in my running clothes. Plus, I love walking the longer-time Angelenos in their coats, scarves, and hats when I’m wearing crops and a tech shirt.

There is so much beauty around us every day, and it can be so hard to see it, but I can’t help but find the joy in little discoveries:

Yes, on the same street where these bloom, all full of fire and delicate strength, it’s normal to smell a little human urine. And yes, two blocks up is the hustle and bustle and weird commercialization that is Hollywood Boulevard. But today, today I feel centered on enjoying what is around me, even in the big, scary, dirty city.

Do you spy the sign in the distance? That’s the view from the end of my street.

Today I want to breathe in life and breathe out negativity. Today is a new beginning. Today I stop to smell the roses.

Today I celebrate a month of marriage with the greatest guy in the world. Happy Onemonthiversary, baby!

Sunday Sunday

I’m more than a little in love with Sundays. I have quickly fallen in love with the Hollywood Farmers Market, so that fine day, I started over there around 9 a.m., when it opens. On the way, I made a stop to check out the YMCA. A nice employee named Bernard gave me a tour, and oh my goodness, it’s gorgeous! And huge! They have so many cool classes — tons of cycling, ballet, yoga, jazz/modern, capoeira, and even adult MMA. Plus, it’s about three blocks from home, so we can hit up early morning, evening, and weekend classes easily. I am excited to get signed up!

I then made my way to the market. The sky was overcast, so I’ll save a photo tour for a sunnier day. I did, however, see this dude:

Monster violinist, natch.

Here’s this week’s haul (minus a head of lettuce that I somehow forgot to photograph):

• A dozen cruelty-free eggs — $4.50
• 3.5 lbs (most not pictured) blood oranges — $6
• A pint of cremini mushrooms — $5
• One pomegranate — $1
• Loaf of bread — $4.50
• Unpictured lettuce — $1.50
• TOTAL: $22.50

These blood oranges are insane. I think they  changed Mr. X’s life. The mushrooms are destined to become toppings for the pizzas I mentioned planning to make this week.

Here are my goals for the rest of my Monday off:

• Pick out classes to try out at the Y this week
• Clean the kitchen
• Research how to stain our dresser
• Get started on laundry

What’s your favorite food discovery lately? I was overjoyed to find these juicy, tart/sweet blood oranges right before Christmas. I used to eat them like crazy in Italy but never found any that approximated their deliciousness in Oklahoma. These locally grown beauties have been a welcome find.