C to tha SA

The first few weeks of the CSA were a bit rough, between rain and hail, but we've still been getting plenty of greens each week, rain or shine- even if the emphasis lately seems to be on the former. Last Thursday when I picked up our share I did so in a heavy afternoon thunderstorm. The farmer, Luke, was kind enough to let me take refuge under his awning with the veggies.

Soaked to my bones

 I stuffed the saddle bags of my bike with heaps of freshly picked, wet, dirty veggies (my favorite!) and pedaled home as fast as my little wet legs would take me. Here's a picture of the share for the week:

Clockwise- spinach, rainbow chard, basil, snap peas, breakfast radishes

 Since it was time for a late afternoon snack after pounding out 3.5 miles as fast as possible on the bike, I decided to take advantage of the fresh spinach and make a smoothie.

 I had about two cups firmly packed, so I processed that first and then added raspberries, coconut milk, a magical banana, chia/flax seeds, and some ground ginger.

 Pretty much as soon as my food processor stopped, the sun came out. Perfect timing for a picture!


The basil was put to good use in a pasta sauce, and the chard was dumped into another smoothie. The snap peas are excellent raw, just the way they are, but hummus is a worthy companion. I grated a few of the radishes into a salad, and the remaining few are hanging around waiting for a dinner to take part in. Tomorrow we have another pickup- I wonder if this one will be rain or shine?

Breakfast is Hard. Make it Easy.

I've never been a big breakfast eater. I was usually not hungry, so I'd skip it, and then eat at around 2 p.m. when I was ravenous. I had slumps in energy this way, but it was just so hard to eat when I wasn't hungry. Bobby finally convinced me about a year ago to just start trying to eat something small, even just a piece of fruit. I did that for one week, and all of a sudden I started waking up ravenous. My metabolism kicked up, my energy evened out, and I didn't get cranky headaches late in the day. I'm a bit believer in eating only when you're hungry, but this experience showed me that sometimes one may need to kick start things. Now I couldn't skip breakfast if I wanted to, because my growling stomach flat out won't let me.

All that being said, I'm still not going to tuck into a mound of food at the crack of dawn. A light and simple breakfast is still easiest for me to eat. As a result, the first meal of the day (after a big glass of water) usually looks like this:

 My standby has become either an apple or a banana, sliced, sprinkled in apple pie spice (this doesn't have sugar) and chia seeds. I round it out with one tablespoon each of almond butter and peanut butter. The "rules" of combining proteins don't really apply as long as you're eating a varied diet, but I like to eat almond and peanut butter together because it is a complete protein, and if I'm eating one or the other, I may as well eat them together. This gets me through my morning run, or an hour of power yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays mornings. After those activities I'm much more interested in a larger meal. Plus, between the chia seeds and the nut butter I get a good head start on protein for the day, and the fiber of the apple keeps me full through my morning workout. Last but not least, a day started with apple pie spice is guaranteed to be a bit more awesome than a day without, right? Right.