Sweety why is the ratatouille spicy....

So when I saw tomatoes, eggplant, and some kind of peppers I was all happy because that was an excuse to make ratatouille. It is easy, it is healthy and brings back memory of home (france).
I'm the kindof a cook who just make do with what I have. I do tend to substitute remove and add with what I have in my pantry. This is probably why I love cooking more than baking. The latter forcing me to read a recipe and follow it....

Anyhow, I didn't have bell peppers so I used the longish looking bell peperish that I got from my CSA loot. I did taste them a bit before throwing them in with the diced tomatoes, the sauteed onion garlic and eggplant. I didn't want the whole dish to go to waste. The raw piece passed the taste test however 3 whole pepper gave a little kick to my ratatouille.
I served it with some couscous and a pork loin cooked very simply in the oven with a splash or two maybe even three of red wine.

The bok choy were prepared asian style with some chicken and homemade asian barbecue sauce and some white rice.
Brocolis were fed to the kiddos
Salad and cilantro made for a refreshing post mountain bike lunch
Pears were added to homemade pancakes and to a pound cake,as in if you eat a piece you will add a 1lb to your overall weight, tasty treats though.
Aples were served cooked with white saussages.

This week's loot is going to be a bit more tricky

• 1 bunch of swiss chard
• 1 bunch of kale
• 2 boxes of small chery tomatoes
• 2 heads of lettuce
• 6 beets
• 1 bunch of carrots (very very tasty)
• 1 head of brocoli
• 3 persimons
• 8 small plumbs
• More red aples
• 2 grapefruits

Lets see what comes out of this.....

CSA Adventures

So a few weeks ago I decided to give CSA a try. I was very anxious at first especially on the size I should chose and all the stories I've heard on the weird veggies overload. Anyhow after going to a friends house who uses Be Wise Ranch I decided to give it a try. I think the 4 weeks trial cinched the deal.

Today was my first delivery was today. I have to say I couldn't be more pleased with the pickup location which happens to be right across for the school and open from 2pm until 6:30pm!
Anyways I picked up my veggies and fruits and here is my loot:

- 2 bok choy head
- 1 brocoli head
- 6 tomatoes
- 1 pack of cherry tomato
- 3 peppers of some sort
- 1 pack of mixed green
- 1 bunch of cilantro
- 1 bunch of kale (only weird thing I've never cooked)
- 1 eggplant
- 7 pears
- 6 aples
- with seeds grapes

Nothing too weird and fitting very nicely with my whole week menus without being overwhelming...

- Pasta with kale
- Asian chicken with bok choy
- Pork loin with Ratatouille

It still leaves a couple weeks of non veggie centered meal.

To start off the week Pasta with Kale courtesy from Epicurious.com next time I'll do this again with a few tweaks, B asked for bacon instead of the prosciutto I added, more sauteed onion another request from B and finally a splash of white wine and maybe a tad more lemon.

Follow the link for the recipe it was yummy http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Spaghetti-with-Braised-Kale-355213

Look for more CSA-based recipes...

Did I really need something new...

I don't know if I really needed a new sewing machine my guess is probably not. However after reading the post from See Kate Sew http://seekatesew.blogspot.com/2011/10/oh-brother.html I indulged in that exact same machine! Yeah I tried to justify it by reminding myself that my singer was bought 12 years ago when I didn't know anything about sewing machine and spending about 140$ on it. Moreover that machine has given me a heck of hard time lately.... so well I coughed up the 170$ for this machine and it arrived last friday!

I did break the finish a project before starting a new one rule. I interrupted the curtain making, since fall did actually start in southern California, to make clothes for the kiddos.
So I got home on Friday and unveiled this baby. I was a bit am completely overwhelmed by the number of stitches, I have used about 3 of them.
So once my work was done, the kids were fed I dug out a project I started a while back. I made a tunic for MEC which is too wide of course but she likes it and it looks kindof cute... Darn McCall pattern!

On Sunday morning I dug through some more stash of fabrics to make some simple dark blue pants for MAC. I have him a choice for the color of his pockets. I think he chose the more abnoxious of all the fabric and the results is interesting. Unlike MEC tunic it is a bit too narrow and a bit too short!
Lessons, I need 1 to 2 inch to the pattern I made from his pants and I need to be careful when making clothes from a store bought pattern.
I have ePattern for my next two projects... I hope the sizing is good.

Struggling with the posting

So yeah as you may have noticed I haven't posted in a while... well I'm not sure what posting is all about to be honest. Is it my time to brag about all the things I do or just share some of the stuff I enjoy doing.
I'll assume it's more the latter and go on with my posting.

Sadly not a heck of a lot has happened since my last post.... I did do my part in our Half Ironman Relay. We did arrive 6th out of 7 team which was well a tad humbling but ah well. Trained well I could have pulled a better performance but see after like a 4 month break of training, and 5 weeks of almost training what do you expect! Well I did finish the 56M rather flat bike ride in 3:16. I think it is the first time I cross the finish line knowing that there was nothing but I mean nothing left in me!
It is the first time in my entire life I felt my leg burn that much! I mean at the end of a half marathon I'm hurting but it is usually a mix of pain of nausea. This time it was pure muscle burning!

Since then I've tried to stick with the training plan but I'm not really in a racing mode more in a trying to find the right balance mode. This I have to do alone because well I don't do well with no workouts.
I have decided to try to go for at least 4 workouts a week. A mix of swim, run and mountain bike.
We will see how this goes. So far so good.

On the craft front, not too much has been happening. I did finish my first curtain panel. I'm pretty pleased with myself because I took my time, followed direction and it turned out pretty nice. Now I just have to do it three more times!

The problem is that we are going to Seattle for Thanksgiving in exactly 4 weeks and I had high hopes to make the kiddos jackets for the trip! Not sure if that is going to happen but I'd like to try....

On the cooking front, I've been loving making my bread thanks to Made By Rae for the hint on the book yummy and easy recipe in that post http://www.made-by-rae.com/2011/06/its-miracle-i-tell-you-i-made-bread/
I made some plumb jam with a recipe courtesy of http://notdabblinginnormal.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/no-pectin-nectarine-or-plum-jam/
Finally we tried the sour cream pancake recipe posted by http://www.dreambookdesign.com/ in one of her food post and I used half sour cream half plain full fat yogurt and it was delicious! Probably the easiest and best pancakes we ever cooked on a sunday morning....

Now I need to go cook our dinner, roasted brussel sprouts, potatoes and pork chop if the menu doesn't change between the upstair bedroom and the kitchen....