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csa bag four: lots and lots of greens

csa cabbage

week four: kale, cilantro, napa cabbage, salad mix, carrots, head lettuce

Well, I’m definitely back to eating lots of salads. I’m also excited to make another batch of cilantro pesto. My daughter cheered for more kale chips, which I made yesterday. I don’t expect them to last past tonight’s dinner.

I made saag “paneer” with the turnip greens and collards. It’s amazing how such a big bowl of greens can cook down to such a small amount of puree. I had to add two bunches of fresh spinach from the store to feed four adults. I also substituted extra firm tofu for paneer to make it healthier. The dish got a thumbs up from my mother-in-law, who is from India. Yay!

The napa cabbage found its way into Heidi Swanson’s Japanese pizza recipe with a few modifications. I skipped the leeks and added some shredded carrots and chopped green onions. It was so good I ate my portion straight from the pan – never even added the garnish.

My favorite salad right now: salad greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette, chopped tomato and strawberries, hard boiled egg whites, crumbled feta cheese and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds.

This is starting to sound like a food blog! Don’t worry, I’ve got some knitting that’s almost ready to share. Pics to come soon!

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csa bags two and three

csa cilantro

week two: broccoli, green garlic, radishes, salad turnips, lettuce mix, cilantro
week three: broccoli, salad turnips, purple top turnips, head lettuce, collards, green onions

I need to do a little bit of catch up on my CSA notes. Even though I planned out how to use my veggies the first week, I wound up throwing things together at the last minute in the evenings.

  • Instead of the kale salad, I made kale chips. They are one of my daughter’s favorite and she practically ate the whole batch in one sitting.
  • I was in the mood for Indian food, so I added the radish greens to my Channa Masala for Dummies recipe. Yum!
  • I roasted one batch of radishes in the oven at 350 degrees. I usually roast veggies at 500 degrees, but I was afraid the radishes would cook too fast. Instead, they didn’t get that brown crispy outside my family loves. They were good, but not great.
  • I pan sauteed the second batch of radishes with chopped turnips, broccoli stems and onions. I let them get nice and caramelized, then added the turnip greens until wilted. Yum!
  • That big bowl of cilantro pictured above lasted a long time. I added chopped leaves to all kinds of dishes, but used most of it to make cilantro pesto.
  • After the second week, I bought a salad spinner and it’s made life so much easier!
  • I’m still buying a few organic staples from the store each week: lemons, tomatoes, avocados and strawberries.

My favorite sandwich right now: fried egg over medium with tomato and avocado slices on multigrain toast.

My big plan for this week is to make saag with the turnip greens and collards. I’ve done a little research and even though most recipes use a mix of spinach and mustard greens, saag is technically any type of green. Crossing my fingers on this one!

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our first csa bag

csa radishes

I have a confession to make. I’m giving up on growing summer veggies. I feel kind of bad about it, but I wasn’t having very good luck. I really want to enjoy locally grown, organic veggies during the summer; I would just rather someone else grow them for me.

So I decided to buy a small CSA share from Community CROPS. I opted in for the fresh eggs, too. This week we got kale, mixed greens, salad greens, mint, green onions and radishes. I think I’m going to have to invest in a salad spinner!

csa mint

I’m going to try and keep track of what we get and what I make. Here’s what I’ve got planned:

  • roast the radishes and toss with a mint/yogurt sauce. Idea via NYT.
  • make kale salad from Super Natural Every Day
  • substitute radish greens for dandelion greens in the chickpea salad
    from Super Natural Every Day
  • use the onions in stir fry
  • eat lots and lots of salad!

My favorite salad right now: toss mixed and salad greens with raspberry vinaigrette, chopped tomato and avocado, crumbled goat cheese and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds.

What are some of your favorite recipes using fresh greens?

resource: Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Every Day is my favorite summer cookbook. You can find my previous posts about her book here and here. She has a recipe sampler available here. You can find the above recipes in her book when you “search inside” on amazon.com.

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creative books on my nightstand

signature styles jenny doh shutter sisters guide to shooting zakka style

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about creativity after my last post. I’ve also been spending time with some good books and I thought I’d share them with you. (all links go to amazon.com)

Jenny Doh’s Signature Styles: Some of my favorite artists are in here, as well as a few I’ve never heard of before. It doesn’t focus on their work as much as their own personal style. Although, they’ve each shared a pattern, too. I love reading about what inspires these women.

The Shutter Sisters’ Expressive Photography: I had to get this one via Interlibrary Loan and it was worth the wait. I like how each topic, whether it be portraits or nature, is broken down the same way: approach, perspective, composition, lighting, details and processing. I need to spend more time behind my camera lens.

Rashida Coleman-Hale’s Zakka Style: I’m a huge fan of linen and love pretty much anything zakka. This book contains patterns from 24 different artists. I don’t know if I’ll actually make any of them. I keep flipping through it like it’s a picture book. Coleman-Hale just happens to be featured in Signature Styles.

That’s what I’m reading these days. What about you? Share in the comments and have creative day!

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birthday superhero cape

My daughter’s friend Mason loves Batman. We got him some superhero books for his birthday, but they didn’t seem fun enough. I thought maybe a special cape would make his gift more exciting.

reversible superhero cape

I found some black and red canvas-like fabric in my stash that I thought would be great for this project — wrinkle resistant and durable. Apparently, it’s Ultra Heat’n Bond proof, too. I wound up stitching on the appliques and gunked up my needle in the process. Bah!

The cape is reversible and I toyed with the idea of adding a Husker N or Mason M on the other side. His mom suggested Spiderman. Of course, it wasn’t until after I finished that we both realized Spidey doesn’t wear a cape. Oops! I spent a lot of Saturday mornings watching Super Friends. I should have known that!

reversible superhero cape

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to make a cape and now I have. And of course, after all of that, he was more interested in the books. Kids. Gotta love them!

cape tutorial: I used Georgia Leigh’s free cape tutorial and freehand sketched the pattern onto my fabric. She also has applique stencils available. I traced my own because I wanted the Batman logo to match the new Dark Knight logo that was on one of the books.

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how to: blind hem stitch without a special foot

Last week I had to hem a pair of pants and I was so excited to use the blind hem stitch for the first time. I checked out a few online tutorials and everyone started out with the same thing: you’ll need a blind hem foot, switch to your blind hem presser foot, first you’ll need a blind hem foot that has a guide.

Huh? When the women demo’d the blind hem stitch to me on my machine, she did not use a different foot. So, I did a little bit of experimenting with some practice fabric. Here’s the hem.

blind hem without a blind hem foot

Here it is folded back. I pinned it in place.

blind hem without a blind hem foot

I did some practice stitches to figure out where the fold should be positioned for the best result. I used a magnetic seam guide to mark the best position. Painter’s tape would work just as well.

blind hem without a blind hem foot

What you want is for the hem stitch to just barely catch the fabric…

blind hem without a blind hem foot

…so when you look at the right side, the stitches are small little dots. When you use matching thread, they’ll become practically invisible.

blind hem without a blind hem foot

And that’s it! No special foot needed. I took a picture of my guide position for future reference. You could write it in your manual or just leave the painter’s tape on your machine if you are going to do a lot of hemming.

resources: This video does a good job of showing how to fold your fabric before hemming. This is a great tutorial for hand-stitching a blind hem, which is a nice alternative if you are in the mood for a little bit of hand work.

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save paper: craft coupons on your phone

I was headed to the craft store this morning and realized I forgot to print my 40% off coupon. I really didn’t want to drive all the way home so I asked the cashier if she could just use it from my phone. “No problem!” she said. Awesome.

Think of how much paper we could save if everyone who had a smart phone gave up printing coupons!

I don’t like posting without a picture, so here’s the little frame I bought today. Isn’t it cute? Perfect for a little girl who likes pink and little purses.

pink purse picture frame

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i finally bought a craft book from japan

I love looking at photos of Japanese craft books online, but I’ve never really felt compelled to buy one. Then I got sick, slowed on the crafting front and spent way too much time on ebay. (I’m feeling MUCH better, by the way. Thank you for all of the well wishes!)

japanese crochet book

I saw this book and immediately fell in love with the cover. Isn’t that blanket motif beautiful? I got even more excited as I scrolled through the sample pages. Here are some of my favorites. (All photos from the ebay listing.)

japanese crochet book

japanese crochet book

japanese crochet book

Now comes the waiting for shipping from Japan. I’m already impatient!

resource: There are lots of places to buy Japanese craft books online: etsy.com, ebay.com, yesasia.com and amazon.co.jp. The best site I’ve found to track down ISBN numbers is Crafting Japanese. If you’re just interested in browsing, search for “japanese craft book” on flickr for tons of eye candy.

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gift bag resolution

After my daughter was born, we had a huge supply of gift bags. Most of them were pink, but we had our fair share of gender neutral and holiday bags, too. It’s been over three years, but I’m almost finished using them for gifts.

Honestly, it felt like my stash would never be gone. When I got close to the end of my pile, I started thinking about how I would wrap presents in the future. I did a little bit of research on the web and found some startling statistics about gift wrap.

Wrapping paper, from an ecological point of view, is a pretty worthless use of trees. Each year in the United States, 4 million tons go from logs to landfills to make wrapping paper and holiday shopping bags, according to the Clean Air Council, a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization.

Once I got past the shock of 4 MILLION TONS EACH YEAR I read something even more unsettling. You know how some people throw wrapping paper into their fireplace?

Decorative wrapping paper, much of which is made in countries such as China that have looser environmental regulations, can contain lead, synthetic inks, plastic film, chlorine or metal-based foils, which release toxic and carcinogenic compounds into the air when burned. Metallic paper may or may not have a greater environmental footprint than other types, but it’s certainly not meant to be inhaled. Who’s most vulnerable to this indoor pollution? Children, whose systems are still developing.

You may be able to recycle gift wrap depending on where you live, but metallic accents, glitter and too much tape can make them un-recyclable. Plus, if it’s unsafe to burn, is it really safe for your child to be tearing it apart?

handmade fabric gift bag

So, I’ve resolved to only use fabric gift bags and plain recyclable paper going forward. I really like how my first fabric birthday bag turned out. Does anyone want to make this resolution with me? There are some great ideas to inspire you over at That Little Bit Greener.

resource: Quotes taken from this Washington Post article.

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reuse-or-recycle package labels

reuse recycle envelope labels

Usually I just handwrite this message on my packages, but sometimes I forget when I’m rushing to get things in the mail. Now I have labels! I printed them on the back of already used paper and just slip them under the packing tape. I suppose you could print stickers, but that’s too involved for me. Until I find a way to seal packages without packing tape, this will work just fine.

The image is a striped, felted sweater. I’m thinking of making some with holly leaves and berries for the holidays.

resource: I also made a template for you! Please download it and use it often!