Saturday, July 31, 2010

But where's the geekery?

I'm beyond awful at RTS games.  I can't even count anymore how many times I've started to play Warcraft 3 and given up. 

But using my big fancy computer to play Frontierville and Plants vs Zombies is starting to feel... wrong.  Just wrong.

CSA harvest 7/31 - and a duck!

Here's what I got from my CSA this week!  I'm a member of The Full Plate Farm Collective, and I pick up my produce at one of the farms, so I get to pick and choose what I want.  This week's score was particularly colorful so I figured I'd take a few photos.  Maybe I'll make this a weekly thing.

  • 1 giant zucchini
  • 4 yellow summer squash
  • a "heaping quart" of green beans
  • a couple handfuls of carrots
  • 4 onions
  • 1 pound of tomatoes
  • a bunch of kale
  • probably too many Japanese eggplants
  • 1 head garlic

Can you believe I get that much awesome organic produce for around $20 a week?  

The green beans were an extra special surprise, since they weren't listed on the email.  I saw Tyler Florence make some roasted green beans with parmesan cheese this morning and thought "oh man, I wish I was getting green beans!"  And now I did.  =]

Here's a closeup of that zucchini, with my hand for reference.. it was at least twice the size of all the other zucchinis in the box, and I was so excited that I got it.  I'm not sure why, now that I think about it, I just found it amusing at the time.

Holding the Droid steady with one hand notsoez.
And because I'm obsessed with all things purple, a closeup of the eggplants.  They had no limit on them this week, so I grabbed 5.  Then a few minutes later I grabbed 3 more.  Finally, once I was done picking out everything else and was about to leave, I noticed more space in my bag and thought "OMG NEED MOAR EGGPLANT" so that's why I have 11 (eleven!) of them.

Mandy and J are visiting this weekend!  They're outside taking pictures of a deer and/or a cat right now.  We went to the Farmer's Market this morning, and this is my one and only purchase:

A whole duck!  It's organic, pasture-raised, and weighs 4.4 lbs.  I've never cooked duck before, but there was a really detailed guide in Martha Stewart Living a few months back that I tore out and saved, so I'll follow that and do my best.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Epic burgers

Have you ever wondered how much of your favorite stuff you could fit on AND IN a burger?

Tonight I made cheddar and bacon stuffed jalapeno burgers with avocado and mayo.

I'm trying to lose 25 pounds.  After several weeks of crappy eating, I'm going back to what works for me - one big, primal, low-carb meal a day.  I've had a killer headache (we call that the "low-carb flu") and wanted to make myself something awesome for dinner, and use my brand new Le Creuset pan for it

Isn't she pretty?  It's the 3.5 quart braiser/casserole, in Cassis.
I started out by chopping some bacon (thank goodness for kitchen shears) and cooking it.

Her first batch of bacon!  It's quite a milestone.
I mixed 1.75 lbs ground beef with 2 diced jalapenos, lots of onion powder, lots of black pepper, some chili powder, and a little garlic powder.  I shaped it into 8 really thin patties.  I smushed cheddar and bacon between two patties, sealing the edges, to make 4 giant burgers.

Don't know if you can see it, but the top one has a little bit of a leak.  It didn't matter much.

I served Husband's on bread with mayo, field greens from our CSA, and avocado.

Mine was basically the same, but without the bread, and with a lot more field greens.  Look at that cheesy bacony goodness in the middle!
I ended up eating two of them.  That's 14 ounces of beef (raw weight) if you're counting, and about 1.5 ounces of cheese and 2.5 slices of bacon.  I'm sure the pan has finally cooled down now (that thing stays warm forever!) so I should go clean it.

On another note, now that I'll be posting pictures here and not just facebook, maybe I should start using my real camera instead of my Droid.  But you have to admit, those aren't terrible pictures for a phone.

Welcome!

This blog will include all kinds of musings on my life, and lots of pictures of food.  I love food.

I enjoy cooking, and consider myself a better-than-average home chef, whose only downfall is sometimes getting TOO creative.  I cook with real, whole, natural foods for the most part.  I eat a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet, the sort outlined in Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint.  I avoid grains, beans/legumes, and sugary things, so you won't see many of those here.  I study nutrition as a hobby.. that's how much of a nerd I am.

My other interests include video games, sports (especially football - expect fantasy football rants!), hunting, and comedy.