Jonathan of Eat Right at Home included this easy couscous salad in the Mariquita newsletter last week. We had it for dinner tonight, along with hummus and pita, sauteed chard and roasted beets. The most interesting part of the recipe for me was the vinegar syrup used to flavor the salad. It would be fun [...]
From a menu planning standpoint, last week was a disaster. The menu plan was good, but our schedule was all wonky, and we ended up abandoning the entire plan by Tuesday night. We still ate well and at this point in the season, many of the vegetables in our box from Mariquita have good [...]
Last year, when Mariquita Farms included fresh peanuts in our box, Louise and I made peanut brittle. Not really a disaster, per se, but not super successful. The candy was rock hard and I might have chipped a tooth. This year, I am looking for a different way to prepare the peanuts and fortunately Chef [...]
From our Mariquita Farms and Happy Child CSA boxes, we have a lot of apples around our house these days, and since I am newly endowed with braces, I am not eating them out of hand as before. Besides sliced in lunches, I found a few other recipes last week that were quite tasty: Apple [...]
Cathy asked me recently about CSAs and I thought it would be useful to share what I know. Here are the farms we work with regularly: Mariquita Farms - vegetables from March – November. This was our first CSA and will always have a special place in our hearts. Frog Hollow Farms / Happy Child CSA - fruit [...]
The above picture was my brunch this morning after a 30 mile ride with Peggy. Eggs from the girls, plus a spectacular avocado from our Frog Hollow Farms CSA, and a wonderfully ripe tomato from our Mariquita Farms CSA. A little salt, the newspaper and I was on my way to recovery. Do you [...]
Mixed results with last week’s menu – we had some sort of freakish, unseasonably hot weather, which does not put me in the mood for baked dishes like stuffed collard greens. Fortunately the kids came up with a great idea for Monday dinner – crepes stuffed with whatever we found in the fridge. I put [...]
In our box this week from Frog Hollow Farms, we found two kinds of peaches, O’Henry and Cal Red, as well as Summer Fire Nectarines. Apparently, according to the newsletter, there is a bit of family rivalry at the farm about the best peach. Our family decided to take the challenge and we found that [...]
Our box this week from Mariquita Farms contained kohlrabi, a vegetable I had seen before at the farmer’s market, but had not tried myself. I was curious to give it a go, and Julia recommended peeling and eating it raw, like you would carrots or jicama. We tried it last night for dinner and both [...]
After 3 years of writing this blog, I feel as though I am circling back to many of the topics I have already covered. Agretti is a great example. I wrote about it in 2009, in a Menu Plan Monday post. Again in Agretti Spaghetti Two Ways, and again in 2010 in another Menu Plan [...]
Right after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, local friends got to work planning the Bakesale for Japan, a same-day, multi-location event to raise money to support Peace Winds Japan disaster relief efforts. I have signed on to participate in the San Jose event and while I am not sure what I will bring, it will [...]
