Day 51 Spreading The Love and A Little Guacamole

So last Sunday, I revealed how my Grandmother had never tried an avocado, she would buy them, let them rot, and throw them out, she just never knew what to do with them. Today, I gathered the elements, avocados, lime, garlic, and some seasoning, for a trip through the woods to Grandmother's house. Turns out, she was fully expecting a lesson in guacamole making, she had purchased four giant avocados, bringing the grand total to seven, with my contribution. Too much of anything makes me nervous. I only buy enough fruits or vegetables for what I'm presently making, because I panic at the thought of wasting anything and the avocados were ripe, not to mention expensive. This whole situation left me in a tizzy and to further complicate things, my Grandmother had made us both big salads, things were moving too fast. If I added the avocado to the salad, we would be too full for guacamole, but there were so many avocados on the fast track to rotville, it had to be done. OK, so two down with the salad, leaving five, there was no way we would be able to eat ALL of the guacamole before it went bad. We finished our salads and waited....and waited...and waited for snack time, I wasn't hungry and neither was she, but we had to address our bounty. If we postponed the guacamole making session, we would be throwing away a five dollar bill, I knew if I left them with her, she would not cut them at all and I certainly couldn't eat them all in one day! So the lesson began, we used two avocados, made a lovely dip and called my 10 year old cousin to try it. Success, cousin and Grandmother ate it all immediately and scraped the bowl clean, there are now, two new guacamole lovers in the world. My Grandmother now knows how to process them and has one avocado left to do so with, tonight. I took the other two and had them for dinner, crisis averted. I end this day having ingested several very fattening avocados but none the worse for wear, and I have imparted a bit of knowledge on the rest of the world, done and done.
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Day 30 Rhubarb Wishes and Horseradish Dreams

It's true, a major snowstorm is headed for the plains, but that has absolutely no impact on my new plans. Weather be damned it's time to start pondering the garden! It belongs to my mother, but I tell her what to plant and this year, I have an agenda. I am going to do everything in my power to reduce my food budget this summer, by eating as many meals out of the garden as possible. So, I just learned that there are a few things, I can plant in February! Rhubarb, Horseradish, Asparagus, and Artichokes were mentioned and I'm so excited...... I just can't hide it! I'm not certain what to do with a Rhubarb, but I'm sure I can turn it into something edible and I have swirly eyes just thinking of all the shinnanigans I can create with Horseradish. Beautiful, crispy, fresh Asparagus for Easter will be fantabulous, and homemade Artichoke dip will be the double bonus, half flip of spring. The rest of the summer planting is an open door, peppers, tomatoes, and squash are a no brainer, but I want to add lots of things I know nothing about! This will be the most experimental garden yet, I'm stoked!
Dinner tonight is a toss up, I have leftover Borscht but I also have an Eggplant, that's just asking to be diced and roasted with Olive oil and tossed with pasta. Perhaps I'll have both, who says I have to stay in one region for dinner? Russia, meet Italy...in my tummy.
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Day 25 Don't Be Shy, It's Just A Brussel Sprout

Last spring, I traveled home to Kentucky for a wedding and never expected to meet the love of my life, I was blown away the instant we met, and tonight, we meet again. Roasted Brussel sprouts, slightly crispy, salty, sweet, buttery magic. They were literally the best thing I've ever eaten but I've been a little hesitant to make them for myself, because I know they won't compare to the precious baby cabbages, I ate at 732 Social. Tonight I am going to attempt my own version but I am even at this moment stalling in the face of this reunion... I'm a little shy. I am also making cauliflower "potatoes" and marinated mushrooms. I just learned about the cauliflower thing and am really happy that there is an alternative to the starchy wonderlove of potatoes, apparently you can just moosh them up and add milk and butter and whatever else and they taste the same! We'll see, it's worth a try. The mushrooms are old hat, easy, and good with everything, a nice way to round out a meal. These three vegetables came to about 5.00 at the grocery store! That's like two or three days worth of lunch and dinner, for less than a value meal, Score!
I have to say that I learned something else really good this week, one of my families took their kids off of soda and have seen some pretty significant behavior changes in a very short amount of time. See, I'm not making it up! Fancy brown soda water is bad, water is good!

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Day 23 Apples Shmapples

Today, I returned from the grocery store with something new, apples. I know, apples are as old and as common as the snakes that push them. Apples are new as far as my grocery list is concerned. I do not prefer them and generally just like to look at them or smell them in candles, but this week, I am going to eat them, along with a bunch of other fruit. I am adding fruit to my repetoire and I'm going try and choke some down every morning. Before I stopped eating out, I rarely consumed fruit, aside from the occasional grape or strawberry, but since I am broadening my experiences, I'm going to find a way to make apples enjoyable and edible. I'm thinking smoothies may be the way to go on this one, which means I may have to get up earlier, not neccessarily a bad thing. Breakfast is the one meal I miss grabbing on the way to work, every day I used to have an egg and cheese buscuit from McDonald's, a hashbrown or two, and a big fat Coke, so greasy, so buttery, so full of fizz and sugar. Ok, enough of that! I'm proud to say that I was 5.00 under budget for groceries today, coming in a 95.00 which should last for about 2 weeks! I am rocking the money saving vibe with this project and still had money left from my last paycheck (a new thing). I also attacked the fridge and have a lovely open space for the tons of vegetable projects scheduled for this week....including the one I've been eyeing from afar. So, my goals for this week, face my fear of fruit, create some new recipes, and celebrate my monthlong victory! Only 11 more to go!

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Day 22 I Spy a Dirty Beet

I found them, I found the beets, I was secretly hoping that farmers had stopped growing them and I would not have to keep my promise to make nice with them. I did not buy them, because I'm not ready to make the Borscht yet and I wouldn't want them to go bad or anything, but I saw them and they were dirty and bulbous and well, beety. Tonight, I will secure the recipe and tomorrow, I will approach them again, maybe from a different angle. In other news, last night I watched the documentary, No Impact Man and I am super inspired to take my experiment a little further. I will not go as far as eliminating electricity or forgoing toilet paper, but I like the family's approach to food. They ate only fresh, unpackaged food, such as fruit, vegetables, and food from the bins at Whole Foods. I don't know that this will be a 100% possibility for me to do, but I would like to make at least 80% of my food from fresh ingredients, I think that's a great idea and very healthy to eliminate the processed junko. I agree with the thought that there are many things that people can do to help the environment but it's impossible to do everything. Picking several things that serve the purpose, still has an impact on the earth. I feel the same about food and health, most people won't cut out fast food for a year, but maybe someone will cut down to once a week and drink more water or think twice about taking the kids to McDonald's and instead make a picnic of fresh from home foods and  have an hour of quality time together in the grass. The more we pay attention to what we eat, the less likely we are to eat garbage, I'm not your mother and you don't have to listen to me, but don't eat garbage, a nice lasagna is so much more satisfying!

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Day 20 Nothing Beets a Bowl of Borscht

I have deep table rage of several foods, oranges, dill, and beets being the top three. I specifically hate pickled beets, as those are the only kind I've ever tried. When I was a kid, my mom would put pickled okra and pickled beets on the table every night for my step-father. I hated pickled okra because when I chewed it, it felt like a glob of vaseline in my mouth, but beets, they were on a whole different level of nasty. Every night, someone plopped a pink gelatinous disk onto my plate, staining the very purity of my mashed potatoes or molesting my bread with it's tacky fuchsia juice. The taste, can only be described as dirt, beets taste like dirt and I know because I have eaten dirt and it tastes better than a beet. So, I have established the fact that I hate beets, but I am going to experiment a little in the next week or so. I am going to tap in to the tiny Russian chef, who lives in my brain and try to make amends with the ominous beet. It wasn't the beet's fault that it was pickled and I'm thinking that could be the wrench in our relationship, so, I am going to make Borscht, which I'm pretty sure is not pickled and traditional black bread. I feel that I must attempt new stuff, during this experiment, because I want to learn as much as I can about creating for myself. If I don't know how to create for myself, then I will depend on convenience and that's just not healthy. Also, maybe I will still hate beets after the Borscht, but maybe I will love them and I'll have another recipe to add to my collection. After that, I may turn my attention to my most despised food, Oranges, that's a whole nother post.
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Beet