Food Fun #3 - Urban Farm & Feed

In my quest to eat more healthy, I joined a farm share. How it works is I paid for farm fresh food from May to October. Every week I have a pick up with a variety of farm fresh foods. Urban Farm & Feed is a family farm that does not spray their food and they raise happy chickens! Each week I receive a dozen eggs and several veggies with a newsletter with recipes.

Several times I have received food that I have no idea what it is! I just post pictures of the veggies on Facebook and my knowledgeable friends clue me in as to what I have.  For several weeks I have received peas (in the pod) kale, radishes, turnips, lettuce, Arugula, and a variety of herbs and edible flowers.

I have made cards with pictures so I can learn to identify them each week and I add some recipes to
the cards. Still not sure what to do with collards or chard, but we have had some fun with learning new recipes. Tonight my son-in-law decided to make kale chips!

Recipe:
Wash, dry and clip the steams of the kale. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lay the kale leafs out on a pan and drizzle oil on the leafs, add a little sea salt, and bake for 10-15 minutes. It is that easy and taste like sheets of dried seaweed. I liked it!

While he was making that I tried my hand at Roasted Baby Turnips, a recipe that was on our Urban Farm & Feed news letter called "Farmshare Weekly."

Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a bowl, whisk 1 tablespoon of vinegar with 1 1/2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard (I just used my dried powered mustard), one minced scallion, 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley, and 1/4 cup of olive oil (I used my coconut oil.)  Season the vinaigrette with salt and pepper. 

Heat a rimmed baking sheet in the oven. Cut 12-24 baby turnips (2 pounds), stems trimmed to 2 inches; quarter them if they are large. In a bowl, toss the turnips with the 1/4 cup of oil and season with salt and pepper. Spread the turnips on the preheated baking sheet and roast for about 18 minutes, until tender. Transfer the turnips to a platter and let cool. Drizzle with the vinaigrette and serve.

I have made these twice now and really like them. The kids came over for dinner Sunday and my daughter likes spinach leafs over lettuce leafs. We just happened to have some strawberries and blue berries on hand so she made a spinach salad with just the leafs, strawberries, and blueberries. We had some raspberry vinaigrette dressing on hand but I think she ate it plain!

It sure is nice to have the fresh fruits and vegetables in the summer time.

Food Fun #2

So today was a big day for our family. My youngest daughter and her husband had a gender reveal party letting us know what their twins would be. The hardest part was I had to make the cakes, so I knew before anyone else. That is a lot of pressure! Even getting dressed was hard because I was worried if I wore anything pink or blue someone would read into the clothing choice ;) so I wore black. Safest color choice I had. It was a lot of fun with family and friends.

As American's, anytime we gather it gives us the opportunity to eat. Usually we make bad food choices at gatherings and eat lots of chips, pop, munchies, etc. It makes it hard to make good food choices when there are more unhealthy foods surrounding you. This is one area I have been working hard on. We have a lot of family dinners. Some of the foods we have used instead of the standards for these gatherings are mashed cauliflower instead of potatoes, more salads, healthy multi-grain chips instead of regular, and instead of candy I try to serve more snap peas, peppers, fruits, etc.  Of course there is on occasion the soda pop or cake. But what I am discovering is there are a lot of healthy, tasty, and filling choices out there.

Today at the party we served strawberry/grape kabobs, and raspberry/blueberry kabobs, and hoagie sandwiches on wheat rolls. That is a huge improvement from the past. I try to have a lot more fruits and veggie choices.It is a start at eating healthier and serving healthier food to my family. I really loved the raspberries, for me that is saying a ton. Just in case you missed it along the way, I have never been a fruit eater!

But the best thing about today was finding out that I will be adding another grandson and my first granddaughter to the family! So yep, I ate some cake. The answer is moderation and control. A piece of cake is not going to ruin your eating habits. A piece of cake daily or even weekly might. So don't deprive yourself, just choice wisely and be happy about your choice. Regretting you ate something general makes you feel worse and doesn't help our self-esteem. So load up on the fruits and veggies and take your cake too, just make it a smaller piece!

 Baby Gender Reveal  
video of the revealing

Food Fun #1

My goal with this site is to do three posts a week. On Tuesdays I will try to write something motivational, Thursdays it will be about the food and recipes, and on Saturday/Sunday it should be about exercise. Since I have not started that yet and I am lacking in posts about food, I thought I would write something now.

I grew up in the Oakland, California area. Totally a city girl. I remember in grade school we had an assembly where they brought in a cow so we could see where milk really came from! We did have gardens from time to time, but my mom was a meat and potatoes type of cook. Never had a casserole at home.

Most of my cooking skills I gained in college or after I was married. I married into a farming family. They grew a lot of  potatoes on their 100 acre farm but also had a beautiful little garden. I learned a little and even grew corn and zucchini a few times.

I love vegetables, but never cared for the texture of fruit, so my diet has never been the best. So I am making changes, slowly, but they are happening. To take care of the lack of fruit in my diet, I started juicing off and on about a year ago. I love the flavors of fruit, just not the texture. I try to get up and juice one apple, one pear, one orange, pineapple and carrots in the morning. When I am adventurous I throw in a little kale. I really love this combination and crave the fruit when I go with out it. It is a great way to get my daily allowance of fruit in one drink.

This year, I decided to try my hand at growing some fresh herbs and vegetables. I put in a very small garden that seems to be doing well.  Last night I made lasagna and used all fresh cut herbs in it. WOW, what a difference from the store seasoning packages and it is a lot healthier too. I also enjoy sauteing onions in coconut butter and then adding mushrooms. Makes a great side dish if you like mushrooms!

Recipe for the week:

(Recipe from Urban Farm & Feed in Murray, Utah)

Sauteed Red Russian Kale with Paprika
2 Cups (packed) kale ( center ribs and stems removed, leaves course chopped)
1 Tbsp Olive Oil (divided)
1/4 Cup chopped onion
1/4 tsp Paprika
Generous pinch of dried Red Pepper

Cook kale in large pot of boiling salted water until wilted, about 5 minutes. Transfer to colander; drain. Heat 1/2 of the olive oil in a heave skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon paprika and crushed red pepper; sprinkle with salt (I use sea salt)  Add kale and saute until heated through, about 4 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper and more paprika, if desired. Transfer to serving bowl; drizzle with remaining 1 Tbsp of oil and serve.

I actually liked this. It reminded me of a Korean spinach dish I make. Now you know what you can do with kale!

Enjoying Exercise #2 - The Dirty Dash!

 

The hardest of the 5K's I have planned for this summer is the Dirty Dash. It is a mud run with obstacles. It pushed me to the max when I did it two years ago, but I am a glutton for punishment and love to do things with my family.

 So even though I am out of shape and with no real preparation, we headed off to the 5K.This was difficult and I really did push myself, but I did it! I went through mud up to my waist, climbed over a cargo net, and stepped in a hole and face planted in the dirty water. But I did it!

I am thankful for a family that supports me and helps me when things are difficult. I am glad I physically can push myself. My bursitis did not act up at all. I did wear the wrong shoes. Pebbles made their way into my shoes and tore up the skin on top of my toes.  

We took our time and made it a positive experience for our team. It was my daughter-in-laws first 5K.   It was the hardest 5K for my daughter. Luckily we had Eric to pull us up, push us over, and cheer us on. When I climbed the rope wall, I realized I could get to the top but not make it over. My body just couldn't do it. I climbed down the way I went up and walked around it. Did I fail at it? No. I did my best and saw my limits.

In the end, we were all winners. Messy winners but winners none the less.

So the lesson here? Push yourself. Try new things even if they are hard. And be easy on yourself if you can't do everything.

The best part of this 5K?  Being with family and the showers!

Enjoying Exercise #1 - First 5K of the Summer Done!

I can walk but I can't run. Jogging is even pushing it for me. It doesn't help when you're top heavy and try to jog either, if you get the picture. So to have fun with exercising and get my family involved, I started doing 5K Walks.

My daughter, six year old grandson, and I just finished the Electro Dash. It is a fun night run with lots of lights and music. We were a bit out of shape for the first one this season, but we did it! It took my daughter and grandson about an hour and 15 minutes. I did it in about 55 minutes. We were thankful that her husband came alone for the ride and to cheer us on. When we got to the half-way point, they were out of water. So we texted my son-in-law to meet us with water bottles. He was a life savor!

We had a good time with all our glow sticks and the positive atmosphere around us. Walking is one of the best exercises you can do. It only takes 1/2 hour 3-4 times a week. Start slow but walk!

Now it is time to get ready for our next 5K The Dirty Dash. This one is going to wipe me out.