Zucchini Lasagna

August 8th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Vegetable Lovin' - (9 Comments)

Got a lot of zucchini right now?

Two Zucchinis Walk Into a Bar

Yeah, me too.

Did you know you can use zucchini in place of pasta in lasagna?

It’s true.  I proved it tonight.

To start, you’ll need two large zucchinis – slice length wise into 1/4 inch strips. (Think thin!) Place into a colander and salt each slice to start removing some of their water.

Sliced Lengthwise Zucchini Noodles Into Colander

Preheat oven to 350 and set your zucchini aside for about 20 minutes to sweat it out over the sink.

Meanwhile, get to work on your sauce and cheese layers.

Berry Christmas In July

July 6th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Breakfast - (6 Comments)

We were out of town for the long holiday weekend, but I was excited to get back knowing the black raspberries in the backyard had probably started to ripen while we were away.

We didn’t get home until nearly dark last night, so I accepted the fact I was going to have wait until sunrise to see what berry surprise awaited me for breakfast this morning.

That is of course, until I remembered the reason they invented flashlights:

Blackberries In the Dark

to spy on your ripe berries in the dark.

Our latest homeschooling adventure was one called Pick Your Own – and no, I’m not talking “noses” here.  No lessons needed with that one I’m afraid.  We’re already pros.

Strawberry Picking with the Kids

Yes, we went berry picking.  Another day, another field trip – this time for more local, fresh strawberries.  Our third trip in the span of a week for these red bundles of joy got me thinking:  I haven’t always gotten so nerdily excited when it comes to eating foods in season.

Opening Day

June 14th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (4 Comments)

The girls and I hiked, biked and triked ourselves a couple of blocks to our local farmers market this afternoon.

Opening Day

We enjoyed the sites.

Sea of Strawberries

The sounds.

Local Asparagus

(Asparagus speaks to me.)

The signs.

Eat Your Vegetables New Sign

The realization that tonight’s dinner plans were about to be revamped.

Local Eggs

Brussels sprouts can wait until tomorrow.

Dinner Ingredients

Asparagus Frittata

  • A couple tablespoons of olive oil
  • Asparagus and other veggies of choice
  • 8 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons of milk or half and half (optional, but does make the eggs puff up nicely!)

For those of you who could not care less about opening black walnuts, you are welcome to disregard this post.

For the rest of you (three) folks who found your way here by googling “how to open black walnuts“, this post is for you.

(For those you that found your way here by googling “dinosaur eating a barbie”, I’m still working on that post. And if you’re the one that wondered “is it ok to include lettuce spines in a salad”, the answer is still “no”.)

Tough Nut to Crack

February 27th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Life - (35 Comments)

If you’ve been following along, you may recall that I recently spent some time hulling black walnuts.

These black walnuts have spent the winter curing in my cool, dry attic. Rumor has it that black walnuts are really hard to open. Rumor has it this would be why I’ve been none too eager to get cracking here.

Black Walnuts Curing in the Attic

Come to find out that when you harbor black walnuts and don’t crack them, you’ll be haunted by backyard squirrel ghosts; the lost souls of squirrels who died from winter starvation because you deprived them of all the food they would have otherwise stored for hibernating.

CSA = Community Supported Agriculture.  (Not “Can’t Stand Alison”, thankyouverymuch.)

If this acronym is new to you, in short – a CSA is an opportunity for you, the consumer, to get your produce direct from a local farmer.  Find a farm that offers CSA memberships and you can buy a share of their crops for what will hopefully be a bounty of locally grown fruit and/or vegetables from late spring until mid fall – or whatever the growing season is where you live.

What a Nut Job

October 17th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Life - (12 Comments)

“What the hell are those things?” you’re surely saying out loud right now. I don’t blame you. About a month ago I was saying that exact same thing because I didn’t know either.

Gathered

Turns out we’ve got a black walnut tree at this here city residence of ours. Right about this time of year, said black walnut tree drops about 643 black walnuts into my tiny back yard. My hyperbolic guesstimative calculations figure that’s about 25 walnuts per square foot of green space.

Black Walnut Tree

Ratatouille, Ratatouille

August 1st, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (14 Comments)

Whenever I say “Ratatouille”, I always want to say it twice and then the chorus Rock Me Amadeus starts to play in my head.

What? Is that just me?  Probably.

So… Ratatouille. Yeah. I’m fairly sure “Ratatouille” is French for “what the hell am I going to do with all these summer vegetables?”

My mom has been making Ratatouille and raving to me about it during recent phone conversations.  When she described what went into it, I realized that I had every single one of the ingredients in my overstocked-with-produce fridge.  That’s what I call vegetable fate.

Strawberry Shortcuts

June 13th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Healthy Habits - (14 Comments)

In my continual quest to show my brood that food doesn’t grow on grocery store shelves, in conjunction with my desire to save money on produce whilst flying under the child labor law radar, we went strawberry picking this week.

Strawberry Sign

I’m trying to get you to believe that I’m this do-awesome-stuff-feed-my-kids-right-awesomely-incredible homeschooling mom, but really it was about getting the hell out of the house for a few hours and finding something different to do that wasn’t going to end with me paying a bunch of late fees to the library.

Child Labor