Happy bursts of color.

Today's set of errands yielded this cheery bunch.

 

And different colors in your diet are good for you; win - win!

xoxo, natty ♥

Summer CSA #1.

Here's the haul from this week.

This was our first time with this farm and I'm happy with this spread. The plants we get might be an issue because we have nowhere to put them but I'm thinking about "plant-bombing" the landscaping of our building and just putting them in the ground during the middle of the day when no-one's looking.

And for my own sake of remembering what I do and being accountable : so far we've used lettuce in a salad {boring but good}, chives and eggs in a quiche, garlic scapes {which are just the young garlic plant minus the actual garlic and they can be used in lieu of regular garlic} in black beans and salsa, dried the oregano, and are planning to make mojitos tonight.

There's also a garlic scape/white bean spread I've been eying but I didn't love the recipe so I might make up my own.

This is a weekly CSA and it's full of greens {which don't last long} so we need to be pretty deliberate about making sure we get this all in.

Are you CSA-ing it up this season? Any tips/suggestions on some of this stuff {kohlrabi}?
xoxo, natty ♥

Warmth.

Today brought some freakishly warm temperatures of which I am most certainly NOT complaining.

I got this online, for free, legitimately, I swear. This is also really kind of cheesy but maybe I would love to do all fo these things and check them off the list???

Let's think about some other niceties.
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1} There's a wedding coming up! Becs! & Josh! I can't come up with words to do this justice but suffice it to say, it's an overload of emotion for me as a happy friend.

2} Not to mention...Ellie! & Andrew! are celebrating their special union next year too and, again, I'm feeling SUCH love and happiness for these four wonderful individuals, I don't want to try and describe it because it would be inadequate.
But I'm full of love and I know they are too.
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3} There are some poinsettia and a winter wreath outside of someone's {ours} front {& only} door!!!!

We don't have any natural lighting in the hall which is why these pictures never look that great but I must chronicle for myself here.

4} We received sunchokes in our CSA last week.
They look like scary pieces of ginger.

But when made into a creamy leek-sunchoke soup that is blended together, they taste like a more savory yet less-rich artichoke and it is a divine and decadent dish.
YUM and Woo Hoo to trying new things.

5} Did I mention how happy I am for the friends listed in #1 and #2 above? I really am.

What was your first weekend of Advent like? Are you planning any yule-time activities? I think we may forgo the tree since we're gone most of the month anyway, but I'm rooting for at least something small and piney. Wholefoods is selling ridiculously overpriced table-top live trees that might just be the ticket.
xoxo, natty ♥

Fry.

As for the okra, I fried it. And it was delicious! It was more of a saute and I had olive oil, salt, pepper, a bit of flour, and a bit of milk mixed in. It was half a pound, for the record, and I dashed in some cayenne for ooomph. Wonderful.
I saved half of it though and might just go for that risotto tomorrow ;).
Happy Friday!
xoxo, natty ♥

A discovery and a quandary.

After mass this morning I {predictably} meandered to the farmers market and picked up usual haul {rainbow chard featured prominently} but also snagged something new : okra!

I've had a mostly "meh" relationship with okra though it could hardly even be called a relationship considering I've had the things all of two or three times.

These were so pretty and I was feeling optimistic so I grabbed them and I'm excited to figure out something to do with them later this week. That's the quandary part of this post; are there any okra suggestions out there? I know they can be slimy and I'm feeling afraid of that but I've also heard beautiful things about them so I'm determined to try them at least once or maybe even twice.

Secondly, to go against the order of my post's title, I introduce to you the discovery aspect of my weekend. I think it might of started on Thursday, actually, but that counts. 

It's the Jeopardy phone game.

That's me!

I'm not big on phone games. I got kind of into Temple Run but for me "kind of into" means a week or two's worth of sporadic interest.

I tried to get into Words With Friends and I must apologize to my IRL {HA! I love using this acronym!} friends with whom I've started games because I always forget about the dang things - I'm sorry!!

But I love me some Jeopardy, as I'm sure I've made obvious in my past posts, and this game is pretty well made {unlike Bananagrams app; has anyone else been disappointed?}. It's fast, doesn't crash, I've yet to see a clue repeated, there are a ton of great answers, and it involves customizable avatars.

You even get to write your name like the TV show players do.

Do you have any phone/tablet games you enjoy? I have been known to enjoy the Pinterest application, as well as the Etsy one, and I like my bank one {dork} because it's well mapped out.

Also, we went to our local baseball team's {go Nats!} game on Friday night. 

The Nationals played well and I was FLOORED by the presidential race promotion during the fourth inning. I really can't do it justice here in this post and I took no pictures so I think that's good enough motivation to see another game in person and try to use my camera's zoom because I truly MUST record this experience. 

I will say, though, that it involves human beings wearing giant head masks of the Mount Rushmore presidents {and period costumes!} running around the field to try and beat each other. Teddy Roosevelt never wins {but he does maintain a Twitter feed HERE} and they all look like life-sized bobble head dolls. I loved it, to say the least.

Tonight I baked cookies and I'm staring at my drying rack covered in laundry and the windows are open and that's about it for the weekend.

May Monday come nicely your way.
xoxo, natty ♥

Greens.

This morning Mikey and I acquired some more veggies at the farmer's market. I'm totally loving trying some new things. Last week it was stinging nettles.
This week...

...fava beans! And, from the left, tiny cauliflowers, bok choy, asparagus and spring squash. Although the favas will be the only newbies.
Are you enjoying a spring bounty in your neck of the woods? I got some more strawberries too and look forward to the cherries that should be coming in about a month.
I actually didn't cook any of this haul tonight, opting for some left overs from last week's bounty instead. I did triy cooking tofu for the first time aaaaaand : not too shabby!
I hope that your work week starts off delightfully!
xoxo, natty ♥

Farmer's Market Fresh

Yesterday my grandmother and I checked out the farmer's market at the Ferry Building in SF. M and I usually stop in at the start of our runs to use the baño so we don't often just browse; it was quite nice to meander and sample goodies and buy some lovely fresh produce. I ended up walking away with a delectable little hunk of Gruyére, $10 worth of organic white peaches, nectarines and plums, some beautiful chard, a baby head of butter lettuce, several pounds of yellow and green squash and a carton of "real" strawberries (as opposed to fake ones). I think that they're real because they leave on the stem but whatever they're called, they were delicious and we polished off one whole carton on the way home (and then it turns out that in all of their cute-ness I didn't even take any pictures but just devoured them =( ).

From the Port of SF building next to the Ferry, neat SF pier and shipping history. 

People getting their lunch on. 

Pastries and 'kraut = all a girl needs in this world. 

All sorts of crazy and beautiful onions and the most ENORMOUS garlic bulbs I had every seen! No vampires around there, that's for sure.

Pretty colors!

'taters. 

Cruciferous-ness, beauties. 

I really liked their sign. 

Organic donuts! Organic = healthy...healthy donuts! 

For dinner we had some fish that I baked with the squash and that Greek seasoning, I wilted down and crisped the chard with S&P and some nutmeg, and then mac & cheese (the very latter being specifically for my oh-so-sophisticated palate). All in all it was fun and the big city weather was just beautiful, not always an attainable feat on summer days.

I stayed up late writing those postcards and watching Bethenny and we're going to head over to a WG estate sale for kicks. Hopefully I'll get some laundry/cleaning done today (do I ever quit referencing that?) since we're doing our long run tonight in the city and then staying at a hotel as a reward. This is all because I'm leaving for Tahoe mañana and it's so much easier to do long runs together than solo. I actually took yesterday off so tomorrow I'll do like five miles then eight or so in Tahoe on Sunday...hopefully.

Also, here are a couple of things that I want to write about, so this reference is mostly (entirely) a reminder for myself: Fish Head, Tahoe-traveling-food, and Easter in July; more to come!

Happy Friday!