Sunday, July 3, 2011

Gardenburgers

Tonight: Gardenburgers, mac & cheese (soy), dill pickles, and roasted kale.

Tomorrow: Gardenburgers, cole slaw, baked beans, mac & cheese, and dill pickles.

Remind me that I like Gardenburgers brand veggie burgers better than Amy's or Boca or Sunshine. Gardenburgers are sweet and mustardy.

(I didn't take that picture, it's from Google.)

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Clark Park and cherries

Clark Park Farmers' Market was in full summertime glory today. I got....

broccoli
red russian kale
sweet potatoes
summer squash
zucchini
cucumbers
white button mushrooms
cherries (sweet and good!)
cabbage (going to make slaw)

And at Mariposa Coop....

mixed salad greens
almond-milk yogurt
white flour (going to try biscuits again)
bagels
hummus

Clark Park is open again, for the past week or so, after being closed since last fall. Instead of having all benches, they have conversationally-arranged gatherings of orange chairs.


The grass is baby grass, with straw still on it....
And you're asked to not walk on it if you can keep from it....

Sunday, April 10, 2011

mushroom scramble

breakfast (8:30 a.m.) = oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar

brunch (11:30 a.m.) = bagel with scrambled mushrooms

Heat some olive oil and a diced red shallot, along with salt, pepper, and fennel seeds, over low heat. Add 5 small-medium button mushrooms (those small, round, white mushrooms that are easy to find), chopped. Heat, stirring/turning occasionally with a spatula, until the mushrooms are slightly browned on the edges, and you should hear water hissing out of them. Turn the heat off and let them continue to sizzle while your bagel toasts. I did mine in the oven at 400 degrees until it was slightly brown on the edges. Spread margarine on the bagel, then top it with the mushroom scramble. Don't be shy with the olive oil; mushrooms will drink it up. Fennel seed gives the topping a savory breakfast taste.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Saturday food haul

At the farmers' market (about $25)

1 quart button mushrooms
a bunch of collard greens
a bunch of kale
a bunch of winter salad greens (watercress, etc. mix)
1 head of green leaf lettuce
several bulbs of red shallots
10 red carrots
3 bagels
2 brownies
1 quart apple butter

At Mariposa co-op (about $35)

1.5 lbs rolled oats
1 lb penne pasta
1 lb asparagus
1 quart rice/soy milk
a bunch of dulce (sea vegetable)
dijon mustard
Tofurkey deli slices
4 bananas
lapsang souchong tea (bulk)
raspberry leaf tea (bulk)
valerian root powder (bulk)
nutritional yeast (bulk)
1 can of red beans for the food drive at my school
1 can of spicy refried beans for the food drive at my school
6 starter strawberry plants

I forgot to get beans for us (bulk red beans), and I forgot garlic. The winter greens mix and collard greens were the best deal of the day: $2.40 for both at the Pennypack Farms table. I'm into mushrooms for sandwiches again. They're filling and high in protein and they soak up whatever flavors you put on them. With springtime, I'm into sandwiches again, which just always seem like an appropriate food for warm weather. We've been getting hoagie rolls from Fu-Wah, and I bring sandwiches on them for lunch. Mark has been making me a delicious pasta and bean salad for lunch that I just don't get tired of. It saves my life on those long Wednesdays when I have to go out to Glenside for class after school.

Lapsang Souchong tea is now one of my favorite things. It is smoky and sexy. It's campfire tea. Valerian root is for relaxation, including relaxing your muscles, so I wanted to try it to help ease the tension in my neck and shoulders that doesn't let go at the end of the day. Raspberry leaf tea is especially for ladies. I just discovered that the co-op has bulk teas, which is great. I got a lot of the campfire tea for $4, which, a box of 16 Russian Caravan tea bags (another smoky tea) is over $4, and this is a lot more tea than that. I don't know how to use the Valerian root, so I have to look that up.

We've been running out of money pretty much every week as we catch up from winter heating bills, unemployment, and the general January-April money curse, so we've gotten creative with food a lot. Mark's payday was yesterday and not a moment too soon. Yesterday, I actually brought four slices of cheap white bread and a container of apple butter to spread on it for lunch. Thursday, I brought a bag of raisins and got a bag of pretzels and a very sad banana at the 7-11 near the school. Pitiful. Back on top of things now. I tried to be conscious about what would last the longest, with the exception of the Tofurkey slices, which were a splurge. The quart of button mushrooms, with greens, vinegar, mustard, and onions, will be great for sandwiches for lunch. I'm sure I can sweet talk Mark into making me another pasta salad. I still have lots of raisins, and the rolled oats are $1.02/lb, and a lot of bang for the buck, with high protein, calcium and iron, and very filling for breakfast (or dinner). Adding raisins sweetens the oatmeal and ups the calcium. Cheap pasta sauce from Fu-Wah, along with the cheap white bread for garlic bread makes for a good, cheap, filling pasta dinner. We also have plenty of whole wheat flour and black pepper for gravy, and Mark perfected a rice-and-gravy dish this past week that is ridiculous-tasty. I don't know what the hell I would do without Mark's mad cooking skills. My life would be sadder and less fulfilling. And then there's the love. That makes things better, too.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Saturday

Farmers' Market this morning:

Sweet potatoes
Crimini mushrooms
Red beans
Sweet onions
Red, orange and white carrots
Collard greens
Lettuce from York County, where it snowed last night

Breakfast this morning:

Sesame seed bagel with hummus, and coffee from Green Line Cafe across the street from the farmers' market, where I watched dogs walk by with their people and people shop at the market and street canvassers canvass.

Pictured above: Take-Out from Desi Village. I don't remember what the main dish there is called but it was basically mixed vegetables over rice. Also in the picture are vegetable pakora (veggies battered and fried) and vegetable samosas (peas and potatoes with cumin in a pastry shell). The green sauce is hot and the red sauce is sweet and smoky.

Co-op later for: bananas, raisins, English muffins, soy milk, nuts, and tea

Sunday, February 20, 2011

$18 at mariposa co-op

3 bananas
3/4 lb organic flame raisins
1/2 lb pecans
3/4 lb carob chips
32 oz soymilk
16 raspberry-leaf teabags
and
a 3.2 oz raspberries-in-dark-chocolate candy bar

Sunday, February 13, 2011

something to make a pot of on sunday and eat all week

I thought I had a picture of the Whole Grains and Beans Soup Mix from Bob's Red Mill, sitting on the shelf at the co-op, but it looks like I have a picture of the 13-bean one instead. Too bad. Anyway, the one we are having today is the beans & grains one. I once had a cookbook all about beans and grains. Back in Marlinton. It went the way of many of my possessions when I transferred myself from Marlinton to Charlottesville to Philadelphia.

The 13-bean soup was fine, but I prefer the Whole Grains and Beans mix because it has about a zillion different grains in it, and the texture is perfect for a stew, which you can flavor a la American cuisine with onions and garlic and herbs (which is how we're having it today), or I would think you could have it curried, with big chunks of potato, which is how I'll have it when I make it myself.

The Whole Grains and Beans Soup Mix contains:

small red beans, pinto beans, lentils, red lentils, whole oat groats, brown rice, triticale berries (wheat), rye berries, hard red wheat, pearled barley, kamut khorasan wheat, buckwheat groats and sesame seeds.

One serving has 19 grams of protein, 15 grams of dietary fiber, 2 grams of fat, and 30% of your recommended daily iron.

I like the words hard red wheat. They make me think of a field in winter that was the setting of a few scenes of a book I read as a kid, which I remember nothing else about. I like the words triticale berries. They remind me of Quest for the Faradawn by Richard Ford. Who doesn't like to say pearled barley? Buckwheat groats is growing on me.