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.

A dear reader named Kenzie left a comment the other day asking me to do a post about how I make my salads and what I put in them. Turns out I just so happen to have “Big Giant Salad” on the dinner menu tonight! Here’s how I make a salad that will knock your (and maybe even someone else’s!) socks off.

Step 1: Start with a beautiful head of lettuce. Something OTHER than iceberg for crying out loud please. Red leaf is typically my head of choice, but green leaf or romaine work nicely.  Don’t be afraid to throw in spinach, arugula, dandelion or other mixed field greens too if you’ve got ’em.

Polenta Pizza: Take Two

November 24th, 2009 | Posted by Alison Spath in Dinner Time - (17 Comments)

Friday night’s Polenta FAIL was an attempt to make Polenta Pizza. The recipe I was using called for instant polenta, mixed with water.

But I didn’t use instant, I used this:

Melissa's Organic Polenta

Melissa’s Organic Polenta, found in the produce section at Wegmans. What do you mean this isn’t “instant”. Looks instant to me! Open the package and BAM! Polenta! How can you get more instant than that?

Well, I guess there is in fact an instant variety of polenta because when I added water to this as directed in a magazine recipe clipping, I had very watery polenta that didn’t behave at all like I expected it to. I didn’t make anything resembling pizza on Friday. I made polenta pizza soup.

Zak didn’t exactly get to go home early today due to garlic breath, but he did get home earlier than usual tonight. We loaded the whole family into the car and hit up the pool at the fitness center for some family fun and exercise too.

Swimming is probably my least favorite form of cardio, but I rather enjoyed it tonight. Maybe because I haven’t swam laps since the spring? Whatever the reason, it was a nice change of pace and I swam laps for 30 minutes, alternated 100 yards of freestyle and 100 yards backstroke while Zak entertained children in the shallow end. He got his turn to swim laps while I took cold, wet girlies into the locker room for nice long hot showers on someone else’s dime (forgive me, Mother Earth), blow drying hair and hiding in lockers until dad was done and ready to go.

I started today with a big glass of green lemonade and an article from the Nature’s Market newsletter from Wegmans. This sure put a spring in my juicy step this morning.

Green Juice with Organic Article

Check it out: Younger Buyers Opting for Organic

Be Young! Buy Organic!

That’s right! Be young! Buy organic! To think I pierced my nose on my 30th birthday to prove to myself and the world that I’m still young. Well then let me just pull this sucker out and head to the organic section. Anyone want a used nose screw?

Blogger Mad Libs

June 5th, 2009 | Posted by Alison in Late Night Craziness - (6 Comments)

______! (Curse Word)

flat

This picture does NOT do my rear tire justice but it is as flat as _________ (singular noun).

Thank God ______ (man’s name) worked from home today. I called him on my cell phone and had him come _____ (verb) me up.

I walked/_______ (verb) holding my bike in one ________ (body part) and _____ (number) minutes later ______ (man’s name) arrived.

He brought me a pair of _______ (article of clothing) and said we were going shopping to the _______ (noun) center.

Our loot.

plants