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Fruits and Veggies

We are members of a Farmers’ Market or CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group that gives us a basket of in-season fruits and vegetables each week. It’s a pretty good price, considering it has seriously reduced the number of grocery store visits we have to make. Living with vegetarian, Peter, you’d think that we would eat healthy. No, we really have to force it. 

So each week when we get our basket, we try so hard to use the veggies each week. It is just not possible sometimes. The usual amount is about 6 apples, a bag of string beans, 4 ears of corn, 2 green peppers, a cantaloupe, 3-4 zucchini squash, 4 tomatoes, and some carrots. We generally can’t use it all in a week, so we either give it away to family members or store it in the fridge. 
Tonight I tried to use as many veggies and fruits as possible. Our dinner consisted of stuffed portabello mushrooms (– stuffed with mozzarella and parmesean cheese, bread crumbs, tomato, green pepper, zucchini) and parmesean garlic string beans. 
Then for “dessert,” we had a watermelon, strawberry, and mango smoothie. Just fruits. No milk or added sugar.
Yum to everything!
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She’s Got Legs

The doctor visit this week (August 16) wasn’t too interesting, but I did find out that I have good blood!

They did an integrated serum test to find out about the chances of Down Syndrome and neural tube defects in the pregnancy. Luckily, everything came back negative, which means things are looking good. 
I can’t even imagine how hard it has to be for doctors to have to tell people bad news. I am very thankful for this “uninteresting” visit! 
The ultrasound technician didn’t have to beat me up with the stick today, which was good, because last time, she stabbed me so hard in the gut. I felt it for hours.
We even got a shot of Miss Sassy Legs.
My back is still killing me. I think it’s my sacrum/coccyx area. I seriously have to do these stretches that make it look like I am about to take a dump on the floor. These are the only positions where I get some relief from the stabbing pain. It also amuses the crap (no poop pun intended) out of my husband.
I made these cookies that I saw on Pinterest, because I thought they looked delicious. I didn’t think about the fact that they contain absolutely no flour…they are like diabetes cookies. I only ate one, because I don’t think I could live with myself if I ate more than one right now. I had to send them home with our friend, Matt. I hope I don’t find him in a coma tomorrow.

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Baked Kale Chips Recipe

We joined a CSA (community supported agriculture group which lets your prepay and then you pick a bag of groceries each week) last year and we loved it. I never realized how little I eat vegetables until I was forced to eat them every week in order to clean the veggie drawer of the fridge in preparation of the new week’s grocery pick-up. We normally get potatoes of some sort, squash of some sort, a couple fruits, and a bag of green things. The bag of green things goes both ways…some weeks we get string beans–YAY! Some weeks we get weird greens (mustard greens, dandelion greens, beet greens, collard greens, kale, spinach, etc.–actually…spinach isn’t weird). What the heck does one do with 2 target bags of kale???

I think I figured it out. I am not a country cooking kind of a girl. I generally don’t use a lot of oil, salt, or butter, and I don’t want to use pig fat or whatever it is that makes string beans taste like salty ham.

However, since I have 2 bags of kale in my fridge, I realized I might have to allow one of these things into the mix in order to get rid the kale.

I spotted a recipe for some typical Southern food recipes (bleh), and then one recipe caught my eye: Baked Kale Chips. “What? Baked kale chips? That sounds nasty,” you say? Yea, I thought it would be weird, but it was the most un-Southern recipe I found, so I decided to give it a try. I am very glad I did, too! They are deeeeelicious!

All you need is kale, salt, and a Pam spray or olive oil.

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Cut kale stems apart from the leaves. 
  3. Break leaves into chip-sized pieces.
  4. Spray cookie sheet with Pam.
  5. Place kale pieces on sheet.
  6. Spray kale with Pam.
  7. Sprinkle salt or seasonings on the pieces.
  8. Put in oven for 10-15 minutes–until the pieces start to get a little brown. 
  9. EAT AND MAKE MORE!! 🙂
They kind of resemble potato chips and are not bitter at all. I put some garlic and onion powder on them, too. Yum!