Weekend Things

I am sick.  AGAIN!  For those of you keeping tally, yes that would be three times in 4 months.  I now officially sound like a broken record and frustrated doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling right now.  In addition to feeling frustrated, I feel like someone has been sitting on my chest for the past week, like I can’t breathe from my nose, and like the amount of coughing I’m doing is about to start a fire in my throat.  My staying out till midnight on a Tuesday night probably had nothing to do with my inability to recover at all this week.

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Hannah, Beanie and I saw Mean Girls at Film on the Rocks this week and it was a blast.  Just so much girl power going on!  Not to mention Mean Girls is the best!

I swear I actually do want to feel better, but it’s summer and there’s just so many fun things to be doing on the weekend that I can’t help myself and end up doing everything but resting.  Friday popped up this week and all I could do was spend the entire day trying to convince Joey that we should be taking a half day at work.  I settled for a fun lunch break at Udi’s, which I always forget is pretty close to our office.

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I also always forget just how much I love a good Udi’s sandwich for lunch.  This totally hit the spot.  As soon as the work day was over, I was like “cold, what cold?” and all I could think about was a glass of white wine.  Bur first, we picked up the makings for a new brew — an IPA to be exact — that called for 5 different bags of hops.  I think the most we’ve ever  had to buy for one batch of beer was two bags?  This one is going to be hoppy, to say the least.

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My idea of resting is to only have two glasses of wine and throw an indoor picnic.  We cooked up a delicious dinner, threw down a blanket and picked out a movie from our Netflix queue.  The movie — The Go-Getter — was good, but not life changing and the ending was kind of strange.  At least I was in bed at a decent hour that night, right?

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I think Saturday was what did me in.  We had our company picnic at Elitch’s and there was just no way I was going to miss that.  I hadn’t been to Elitch’s in years and I can’t pass up an opportunity to ride a roller coaster.  Or you know, all of the roller coasters.  Joey hates them but his cousins were with us so I had someone to ride with.  Four beers later Joey was volunteering himself to ride a “loop-di-loop” coaster with me.  He was pretty much done riding rides after that 😛

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I also held Joey’s cousin’s teeny tiny 1-month-old baby for about 2 minutes before he started to stir and I got totally freaked out.  A bunch of our co-workers rode this crazy slingshot ride that launches you a billion feet in the air and then revolves as you come falling back down.  I felt nauseas just watching them all.  I’m all for roller coasters but I would never in a million years go on something like that.

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I’d like to pretend I went home and rested after the park, but my friend Jenn’s mom was throwing a surprise birthday dinner for her and there was no way I was missing that.  Besides, beer and ice cream cake are basically medicine, right?  I’d never had this Tommyknocker Maple Nut Brown Ale but I loved it!  Joey is always making it sound like brown ales are disgusting but he’s so wrong.

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But I guess it’s not the elixir of life either because I basically spent the entire drive home coughing like I’ve never coughed before.  I’m guessing no one is feeling any sympathy for me, though 🙂  I swear I’m making a concentrated effort to take it easy today.  I’m even staying home from a family BBQ in honor of my niece’s birthday, which was this past Tuesday.  I’m totally bummed but I’m guessing no one wants to catch what I have anyways.

Hoping you all enjoy what’s left of your weekend!

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What did you do this weekend?

Do you like roller coasters?

Do you find it hard to take it easy when you’re not feeling well?

CSA Things: It’s Garlic Scape Season!

One of the many things I love about Red Wagon Organic Farm (and we’re only one month in!) is that they are really on top of things.  In addition to keeping their website updated with new recipes,  they send out a nice little email the day before our pick-up to A) remind us about it and B) tell us exactly what we’ll be receiving.  The Sunday before we made our second pick-up, I woke up to an email saying we’d be getting garlic scapes, my favorite, odd-looking, short-seasoned, best kept produce secret.

CSA Pick-Up #2 included:

  • Strawberries
  • Snap Peas
  • Arugula
  • Spinach
  • Radishes
  • Mustard Greens
  • Garlic Scapes

What We Cooked:

You know, sometimes fresh produce is best in its most basic form, which was certainly true for the strawberries and snap peas, which we just ate raw.  I was particularly stoked about the strawbs (my all time favorite fruit).  I can honestly saw both of these were the best I’d ever tasted.  The berries were perfectly sweet and the peas were so crisp.  Pure perfection.

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I bought a bunch of radishes at the grocery the week before we got our CSA so I was interested to see how the farm fresh bunch compared.  They were definitely bigger, crisper and prettier.  The purple-y ones were so cool looking!  We threw them into some simple wraps with roasted red pepper hummus, English cucumber slices and lettuce, which I wasn’t expecting much from but was pleasantly surprised by how tasty they were.

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When we got the mustard greens home, we tore off pieces to taste raw, then looked at each other and said “WHOA!”  Mustard greens have definitely got a great kick to them.  Raw, it had a real horseradish taste to it.  We used it in place of kale in this recipe, which we make all the time because A) it takes 15 minutes and B) it involves pasta and cheese.  This time around we added a couple tablespoons of butter to the noodles.  Butter + mustard greens made this recipe about 10x better.

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I hope this is a safe space to admit I do not like farm fresh spinach.  It’s a little too…sturdy(?) for my taste.  Nothing like the soft baby spinach I get at the store (imagine that!), so I wasn’t all that excited to see it on the list.  But!  I figured sautéing it and hiding it inside a delicious calzone would fix everything.  I was really proud of myself when these turned out to be absolutely tasty.  And I even made the dough all by myself!

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Both the garlic scapes and the arugula went into this dish.  I’m not Julia Child or anything (I’m reading a book about her so I’ve got Julia on the brain lately), but I love this original recipe of mine.  And it was combined with another recipe of mine for garlic scape pesto, which is hands down the best pesto I’ve ever tasted.  It took this already delicious recipe up to a whole new level.

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P.S. This meal was made even more delicious by the fact that I didn’t lift a finger to make it.  Hooray for nights when Joey does all the cooking 🙂

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Have you ever heard of a garlic scape?

What is your favorite fruit?

Pizza or calzones?