Cooking and Crafting

Today was spent cooking/baking, crafting and doing laundry. About a week and a half ago, I got a Boxed Greens produce box. I figured I'd eat off this while Shawn was gone on his backpacking trip last week. Well, I ended up going out the first two nights he was gone and then getting sick and eating not much of anything for several days. So, now I find myself with tons of produce that must be eaten (and some I had to throw out). Now it's time to get creative with the cooking. Which is fine, because I was getting bored with our meals lately anyway.

Last night I created a "fly by the seat of my pants" meal for dinner. Shawn wanted a steak, so I got that going, sliced up some red potatoes (from the produce box) and got them sauteeing. Hmmm, now I must use these yellow squash, so I added them to the potatoes along with some garlic, salt, pepper and a little paprika. I still had no meal for me, other than the potatoes and squash concotion, so I kept thinking. Ok, I'll add a zucchini...hmm here's a can of chickpeas...toss in some cinnamon and oh yes, cook some couscous. Perfect. A little veggie and couscous dish for me/crazy side dish for Shawn. It was actually really good.

Today, I knew I had to use up the bananas from the box. First I made some banana pancakes (before you get all excited about my new found banana love, I had mine sans banana slices). Next up, banana bread. Good, bananas used. Now which vegetables to use for dinner. I decided broccoli and tomatoes were up for tonight and cooked up some Spicy Broccoli Pasta, a recipe from my Willamette Bistro cooking days, which I modified a bit. It was pretty tasty. Here's the recipe:

Spicy Broccoli Pasta

1 lb bowtie pasta
1 large bunch broccoli, cut into pieces
5-6 green onions, slicecd (you could also use white or red onion...I went with what I had)
1 tomato, diced
1/2 cup red wine or rice wine vinegar
1/4 c olive tapenade (you could also use chopped olives)
1/2 t oregano
1/2 t red pepper
2 T olive oil
1/2 c breadcrumbs
asiago or parmesan cheese for garnish

Boil water for pasta and cook as directed. To save time (and pots), throw broccoli in for the last 5 minutes. While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in a saucepan and saute green onions. When onions are soft, add diced tomatoes, olive tapenade, vinegar, oregano and red pepper. Simmer. Cook breadcrumbs in saute pan with olive oil until crispy. Toss all ingredients together and serve with a little asiago or parmesan cheese.

I still have to use up another tomato, bunches of swiss chard, one more yellow squash and some mango. Dinners will defnitely be veggie heavy this week, which is fine by me, but Shawn might protest a little.

As for the crafting end of the day, I spent some time organizing a bit in my scrap room, purged a few supplies, then got down to business. Created this page, using the pictures from 07-08-09 and the Playground kit from Studio Calico.


Also worked on this page full of American Crafts goodness:


Here are a few pages from the past couple weeks that never got posted on the blog:





Now I'm off to water plants and put sheets on the bed. Hoping for some more crafty time tomorrow. Happy Sunday!