Zero Waste Food Challenge: Day 1

Well, we did fairly well. Everyone ate every bite of breakfast, took one food item at a time, and finished drinks. Half a dish of fruit salad came home from Rachel's lunch, but I know that often the kids don't get enough time to finish lunch. I ate leftover mashed potatoes and fruit salad for lunch. Adam finished his dinner (very petite servings, sometimes I feel like I am that guy on the food network who plates food in tablespoon portions, only without the beautiful garnishes). Rachel spent thirty minutes eating a peach and a tortilla while waxing poetic about Maine history and then refused to eat most of the rest of dinner. The kale and cheese burritos rocked (and I am not a huge fan of kale. but how can you go wrong with lots of cheese?). Well, only Ben and I would endorse that statement.
Food waste for Day 1: 1/4 c. milk that went bad (although it was a couple of days before it's date), small amounts of dinner, about a quarter cup of fruit salad, and 1 crust belonging to a nameless peanut butter eater.

The garden is coming along!

CSA Week 1

Today we picked up our first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share from the Brewer Farmer's Market. We are doing a full share with Nettie Fox Farm this year. We bought produce from Molly a lot last year and I was always happy with the quality, so when we decided to switch CSAs this year we went with her.
This week's produce:

what WILL you do with all that kale? this picture is at a funny angle because I had to hold onto him while I took it-- still not so steady with the sitting thing.

 This week's share: 1 lb salad mix, 1 bunch radishes, 1 head pac choi, 2 bunches kale, 1/2 lb arugula, 1 bunch green garlic, 1 baby head lettuce, 1 bunch radishes, and 1/2 lb spinach









Tentative Menu Plan for this week:

1. Kale-Cheese Burritos with Blender Hot Sauce (adapted from Moosewood)-- 1 bunch kale, green garlic
2. Father's Day Meal: Roast Chicken, Spinach Salad, 5 minute artisan bread (we're having company, so I'll roast two chickens)
3. Giant Salad with leftover chicken, radishes, 5 min bread
4. Arugula Pesto on whole wheat pasta, tossed salad
5. Chicken Soup with Kale and White Beans (made with final leftovers of chicken)
6. Shrimp Stir-Fry with Pac Choi/ remainder of green garlic, brown rice
7. Kale Chips

Gardening: Spring

Well, since spring came kind of late this year, I'm posting this in June. We just got our garden planted over the last two weeks, which is crazy late. There are no pictures with the kids because I was so busy whenever they were out planting with me (planting in Sam-nap-sized intervals).

I decided to focus on just a few things this year, mainly herbs and tomatoes. We will also do a fall garden of greens: spinach, lettuces, and arugula. I decided to start one small new area of perennials: a rock garden with succulents. I always bite off more than I can chew with perennials so I wanted to keep it simple. I got a hens and chicks plant and some sedum at a neighborhood sale, and added some portulaca. The kids added the rocks.





Rachel planted a lavatera from the same sale, and we added a chive plant to our herb area from our friend Cynthia's garden.






We got our tomato and pepper plants from Snakeroot Farm at the Orono Farmer's Market.  I'm excited about the mostly heirloom varieties we picked for this year, with the exception of the sungolds that are kind of like an addiction for me. Here are the varieties they grow at Snakeroot: from these, we will be growing Black Cherry, Frosty's Heart, and Paul Robeson. We are also growing Joe E. Parker peppers, which are apparently hot when raw, but mellow when roasted. We planted the tomato plants with basil, marigold and dill seeds to do some natural bug repelling.

this was a hot, dry day... unlike most of the days lately.

I could not find any herb starts at the Orono Farmer's Market, so I ended up at Sprague's because I did want locally raised plants. I got lettuce leaf and purple basil and  bouquet dill. With these, I planted cilantro seeds.

 
What did Picky 1 and Picky 2 want to grow? Sunflowers and zinnias. So I went out and bought seeds, a variety pack of sunflowers and zinnias (pumila, or cut and come again-- an 18-24" tall variety with big blooms).

Here is a map. We grow our garden in rough quadrants so that we can rotate the tomatoes each year. Ben already dug our compost (and some extra) into the plot, before we added the tomatoes. We'll add some more in a few weeks.

Greenish Challenge Updates

1. Still walking to school.

2. Getting ready to start the Zero Food Waste Challenge tomorrow, when we get our CSA share and shop for the week. I thought we needed to talk with the kids a bit more about what this would entail, so we have been doing that at meals. I also want to start with a clean fridge.

I think our strategy will be to do even smaller portions than usual (we already do pretty small portions, since we have the Uber Picky Eater problem at our house). My other goal this year is to eat, freeze, or give away every item in our CSA share this year, so we will see how that goes.

3. We're mulling over what to do next. Not using the drier? A week without the car? Only local protein for a week or two?

My kid has better hand-eye coordination than me.

Adam is playing soccer and he is actually pretty good at it. We sit around and marvel at this because Ben and I are both, well... challenged in the sports arena. We can run and ride bikes and I can swim decently, in the sense that I could survive for twenty minutes while I waited for rescue in the deep sea (or at least in an olympic sized pool). I can sometimes throw a basketball into a basket. But I spent my teen years avoiding volleyball with a passion and never played a team sport in my life.

But he's actually pretty good-- he kicks the ball, runs fast, and follows his coaches' directions. He has scored goals in both the games. It is fun to watch him get excited and run so fast.

The soccer mom stereotype thing feels weird, though. No minivan, though. not yet.

Potter!

Reading Harry Potter has been an obsession with Rachel for about a year now.

 

When she started hearing way too many spoilers from other children, I decided to let her read the whole series (I had previously announced she would have to stop at #4). When she started (inadvertently, really) giving spoilers to Adam, we decided to read the whole series as our bedtime reading, for as long as it took. We started on December 1 with my sister reading the very first pages of Book 1. Since then we have made steady progress (and have watched some of the movies, too), and this week it finally happened: we came to the end of the 800-some page Book 5. 870 pages, to be precise.

Now, I hate to stop reading once Voldemort gets involved. We had about 100 pages left as Harry and the crew were arriving at the Ministry of Magic. I couldn't see a good place to stop coming up. So we decided to try a Potter Pizza Night: with all three family members able to read HP taking turns, a large pizza from Angelo's, and some patience with JK Rowling's extensive descriptions... could we finish the book in one evening?

We had some minor detours (namely, a fussy baby, and Ben getting delayed at a meeting an hour away). But we diligently began reading just after 5:00 pm. With one five minute break (to get a piece of pizza into the first dinner reader).... we finished at 7:58pm.

Now on to Book 6....this weekend or next, we'll have our finishing celebration for Book 5. Which means a special HP themed snack while we watch the movie. For Book 4 we had Gillyweed Burritos (not popular, although I loved them) and chocolate broomsticks (chocolate dipped pretzel rods, extremely popular). What to fix for #5.....

Greenish Challenge #2: Zero Food Waste

An update on Greenish Challenge #1: with the exception of one day when the kids had dentist appointments, we have walked to school every day, both ways.

Now on to #2: zero food waste for one week. I think it is going to be tricky to get the kids ("I don't LIKE that"; "what, crusts?") on board with this one, but I am going to try. Goal will be to use all leftovers (within 48 hours, because I am freaky about food poisoning like that) and not to throw out any produce.