Category: House and Home

An end of summer second attempt at a window garden

If you’ve been following closely, you’ll know that I recently downsized from a house back into an apartment.  While I love the apartment, I can’t say I don’t occasionally miss having a little plot of land to dig in the dirt.

To fill the void, I spent a good portion of my summer digging in someone else’s dirt.  A lot of it.  I worked at Midnight Sun Farm this summer and got free vegetables in return.  We also planted a little window garden at the apartment.

Which was really beautiful.

Until it died.

Record heat, no rain, and too many jobs were the culprit in killing the little window garden.  But fear not, I managed to save the marigolds for a little while, and one of the pansy plants lives on!

Using the basil plant I got in the CSA box a few weeks back, and two geraniums I picked up at the farmer’s market last week, and the garden is back in action and looking lovely.  As I write this I’m gazing out my sunny dining room windows, past my little pink geraniums toward Chicago’s far north skyline, and thinking, life is pretty good, Lauren.

P.S. Seeing as I killed a bunch of Marigold plants, I thought now would be a good time to save seeds for next year. Inspired, I made this rather shoddy video showing you how!

Video: How to core and quarter tomatoes

I spent a lot of my Labor Day in the kitchen with lots and lots of tomatoes.  I bought 10 pound from my local farmers market and though my intended sauce turned out like juice (this is the topic of another post, perhaps), I thought that it would be fun to start a tiny little how-to video series!

I have tons of recipe books, but sometimes instead of browsing through index after index I find it’s just easier to google stuff that I want to know instantly.

So here I am on the YouTube, in my teensy apartment kitchen (hey, a lot of awesome stuff comes out of that little room…), giving a quick lesson on how to core tomatoes.  The video is tiny, like my kitchen, because it was taken by iphone… but you’ll get the idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRWf4ryei5c&feature=g-upl

So, what do we think? Yay? Nay?  Want more of these? Let me know!

There’s a burning in my soul…. oh, it’s just the salsa.

Tomatoes are so delicious.  I can eat them whole. Like apples. For about two days.

When the tomatoes started arriving in my CSA box, I jumped for joy and literally squealed.  It’s a BIG deal for seasonal eaters when the tomatoes are ready.  I think I ate one with every meal for the first couple days, and then as swiftly as my excitement rose it passed.

A couple days ago, I just stopped being in the mood for tomatoes.  Without enough supply to justify a full-on canning session, I looked back to my box and thought, wow, this could be an opportunity to use up the onions, garlic, and jalapenos too!  So I threw together this beautiful and really, really spicy salsa.  My hope is that with a few days in the fridge will take the edge off, but if you like hot, THIS is the salsa for you:

Spicy Garden Salsa

Ingredients:

  • About five big tomatoes, cored and chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped
  • 1/2 C. onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3-4 jalapenos, seeded, de-veined, and chopped (or, keep a few seeds in if you dare) *
  • Splash of vinegar
  • 1 TB sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. cumin

Mix up in a bowl and eat it.  Or, store in a mason jar in the fridge and eat it later.

* Tips:

If you’re smart, unlike me, you’ll wear gloves when dealing with hot peppers.  I didn’t and then scratched my forehead and it was still burning 30 minutes later…

There are plenty of great recipes for canning salsas to increase their shelf life.  I just chose to do a quick fridge-worthy salsa because I was short on time, it’s really hot in the kitchen, and I figure this will be in my stomach before long.

And,

Salsa is not just for chips!  Use this to add flavor to your tacos, eggs, or make a sassy and refreshing salad by adding it to cubed fresh watermelon

What happened to What’s in the Box? and, a recipe for tacos

I’ll tell you what happened.

I couldn’t keep up.

and then I went on vacation.

and then, I thought, those posts just didn’t seem that interesting to me anyway.

So I ditched the weekly updates on what arrived in my box of deliciousness and opted to spend the time eating said deliciousness instead.  What has resulted is perhaps one of the most culinarily creative summers I’ve had to date, and a REALLY conscious effort to not let anything go to waste.  Once you’ve weeded carrots with your own hands you’ll never let them turn flimsy and brown in the fridge again.

So now comes that point in the post where I share a recipe, and although I can’t take credit for the nifty taco shell because I saw it on The Garden Pantry‘s Facebook Page and had to try it.  The rest?  Leftovers.

Lauren’s Leftover Taco Night

Ingredients:

  • Corn tortillas (make sure they are good quality and extra soft)
  • 1/2 lb. Ground Turkey
  • 1/2 packet taco seasoning
  • 1 onion, diced
  • shredded cheese
  • sour cream
  • avocado
  • cilantro
  • lime
  • whatever veg is in your fridge: I used lettuce, scallions, cherry tomatoes

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375 deg-F.  Using a muffin pan turned upside down, press tortillas into the notches and spray with cooking spray.  Bake 10 minutes for cute little crispy taco shells.

Brown the ground turkey in a skillet coated in non-stick cooking spray over medium high heat.  Add the taco seasoning and diced onion and cook until onion is soft and translucent.  Place turkey aside on a plate covered in paper towel to drain oil.

Prepare your tacos in the shells.  with the meat on the bottom.  Add your toppings, squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top, and pour yourself a margarita.

 

What’s in the box: Week 3/4

With being in San Francisco since Tuesday, most of my CSA box is still at home in the fridge.  But I managed to make some bang up meals before I left.

Ravinia date with myself:

An on-the-fly Spinach Artichoke Dip used up all the spinach I had left over, plus cream cheese in anything is delicious.  Simply sautee the spinach until wilty (add a little water to the pan so it doesn’t burn.  Mix with a jar of drained artichoke hearts and equal parts cream cheese and sour cream.  I took this beauty on my Ravinia picnic before attending the live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion and paired with grapes, crusty bread, homemade pickles and a bottle of red.

Shrimp Something-Or-Other

In an attempt to throw as many of my box ingredients as possible in the same dish, this delight (not being facetious) started off with sauteed onion, kohlrabi, garlic scape and kale with a bit of soy sauce and a bit of adobo seasoning.  I added ramen noodles and shrimp that were sauteed separated in butter, and was pretty much the envy of my Facebook newsfeed for the evening.

I’m thinking that at some point it would be helpful to find actual recipes to complement the ingredients that I find in my box, but honestly, I’m short on time and seem to be doing just fine throwing a little of this and a little of that into a pan and seeing what comes out.  Maybe that’s the beauty of having fresh produce around all the time… it tastes amazing no matter what you do with it.

If only baking was that easy… but what with it’s chemical reactions and such measuring cups and recipes come in quite handy for that…

What’s in the box… week two

Each time I visit Midnight Sun Farm my back hurts less.

Although, I have to say those ladies who spend all day long bent over in rice paddies must have hamstrings of steel.  My typically workload on farm this time of year consists of weeding…. lots and lots of weeding… and after a few minutes of bending over my legs start to bark and I’ve now started in on the “crawl on your hands and knees” technique.  Very elegant.

What really excites me, though, is when I see the things that I’ve weeded (and a few things I’ve harvested and washed) showing up in my CSA box.

In my box this week were:

  • getting the rainbow chard ready

    salad mix

  • two heads lettuce
  • one bulb fennel
  • green onions
  • rainbow swiss chard
  • Hakuri sweet turnips, and
  • spinach

So, what became of this random box of green goodness?

I made several salads and another stirfry, but the true prize of the week was Frittata Night with my friend Kelly.

I totally made this recipe up based on something I’d seen Chef Giada do on the food network….. this is not really at all close to the recipe, so, it’s a Lauren original, and delicious.

Lauren’s spinach and chard Frittata

Ingredients:

  • 2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
  • 1 small onion, sliced or diced (depending how onion-y you like it)
  • 3 sweet turnips, peeled and cubed
  • 1 small bunch rainbow swiss chard
  • 1 small bunch spinach
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/4 C. half and half
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 – 4 oz. shredded mozzarella cheese
  • bacon bits (the real stuff, not Bacos, people)
  • 2-3 green onions
  • 4-6 sprigs fennel leaves

Directions:

Add 2 TB vegetable oil to a high sided saute pan and heat over medium heat.  Add potatoes and cook until slightly softened and translucent (maybe about 5-7 minutes… just prep the other stuff while you do this and check on them occasionally, turning down the heat if they are starting to brown).

wilty greens ready for the eggs

Meanwhile, separate the leaves of the chard from the woody stem and chop the stems.  Add chard stems, onions, and turnips to the pan and cook another 2-4 minutes.  Add the spinach and chard leaves by the handful, and mix until the greens become dark and wilty.

Whisk the eggs in a bowl with half and half and and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables and lower heat to low.  Cook about 5 minutes, covered, and add shredded cheese, bacon, fennel and green onions.  Return lid and cook until the cheese is melted and eggs are set.

I served this gorgeous thing with a side salad of spring mix, kidney and garbanzo beans, strawberries, sunflower seeds, leftover radishes and dried cranberries.  That, and about a bottle of red wine….

And it looked like this:

Lauren’s spinach and chard frittata with strawberry salad

This, friends, was a night to remember!

photos courtesy of Kelly Rose

A quick plug showing some lovin’ for Bloglovin

Much like Mailchimp is the sarcastic, hipster version of Constant Contact, I recently came across Bloglovin as an alternative reader that’s equally witty and totally user-friendly.  I won’t faun over it like I did Workflowy, but if you’re looking to coral all your favorite blogs in one place, this might be the reader for you!

 Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Cheers!