Meatless Monday - Friday, Week 1

It was an article in The New Yorker, specifically on test tube meat, that prompted Dan to suggest we try eating meatless Monday through Friday. Why not? We're trying to eat more healthfully and it sounded like an interesting challenge.

I think it was pretty successful, although we both accidentally ate meat. I completely forgot when I was out to eat. Dan said he did think about ordering something meatless, but the siren call of a special Italian sandwich was too strong. Oh well, it was just week 1, right?

So far, so good. Perhaps the  most exciting part is trying new recipes. I made a beautiful rice, beet, celery and feta salad for dinner on Monday. Tuesday I was gone (Dan ordered veggie pizza). Wednesday we bad black bean and guacamole tacos. Thursday I made these fantastic red lentil patties with cilantro sauce from Myra Kornfield's book, The Healthy Hedonist. They were so delicious! I'm freezing the leftovers—I will report back on how those hold.

We decided that we would eat fish on Friday, then eat meat (or not...) on Saturday and Sunday. I like the idea of always have fish one night a week—since moving to Maine I definitely have not taken advantage of the ocean as much as I should. Today I got some beautiful haddock at the store—I'm planning on making some Thai red curry dish stew with chard and potatoes for dinner. Can't wait.

CSA Season is Back!

We may have shot ourselves in the foot. Thinking we wouldn't be gardening this year, I signed us up for a CSA from Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport, Maine.

We have raised beds at the house we're renting but the owners mentioned some lead issues. Very minimal ones, but nonetheless they did the raised beds, which is what you're supposed to do with lead. But Dan is paranoid and long story short, I didn't think we'd be planting anything to eat, just flowers.

I decided to get the soil tested in the beds and wouldn't you know, no lead. And then Dan did some research and decided that he would eat the fruit of the plant, just not any leaves (ie tomatoes good, kale bad).

Also, I had put us on the waiting list for the community garden, not thinking we'd get in until next year at the earliest. Of course, we got a spot this year.

So now, we have 6 raised beds in our backyard, 3 beds at the community garden plus a CSA. Eeek!

I was much smarter about planting our community garden (read: I was in charge of seeding...) So there's not much there: 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo, 6 broccoli, 2 fennel, thyme, rosemary, chamomile, 2 boxes of broccoli rabe, red iceberg, wax beans, carrots and zucchini. At home, we're going to put in 3 peppers, 2 eggplant, 3 tomatoes, 1 tomatillo and tons of flowers. We also have strawberries and raspberries.

Our CSA is nice so far. The past 2 weeks have been the same: radishes, salad turnips, arugula, head lettuce, mesclun, chard and spinach. Nom leafy greens. Last week we also got some potatoes from Goranson Farm, which, ironically enough, I'm possibly writing a story about for EatingWell.

So what have we done with our bounty so far? Well really just salads. Which is terrific, of course. Salad season is the best...