Hey That’s A Nice Life

This cute cabbage showed up in our farm share today.

Here’s how I’m going to cook it.

CSA Fried Cabbage

3 slices of turkey bacon
1 tablespoon-ish olive oil
1 large onion sliced
1 head cabbage, cut into quarters and then sliced
salt & pepper
apple cider vinegar

In a large skillet cook the turkey bacon.  Remove from pan and cut into short strips.  Since the turkey bacon will not render a lot of fat, add the olive oil to the hot skillet and soften the onions.  Put the bacon back into the skillet.  Add cabbage and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir and cover. Cook until cabbage is soft, stirring often.  Remove lid, add a splash of cider vinegar - up to 1/3 cup or so.  Turn burner to high setting and cook till brown, turning frequently.

A little video of our time in Costa Rica for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Click To Play

We had a lobster bake a few weekends ago.  This pretty little guy made a great dinner.  I love summer.

Answer: Ice Cream

For my bridal shower, my friends Dawn and Chuck gave us a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  I’m in love with it.  Not only is it a great appliance, but it’s pretty and red.  Friends Amy and Wayan gave us the ice cream maker attachment as a wedding gift.

In celebration of Independance Day (and also because we had fresh, delicious strawberries), I thought our first batch of homemade ice cream was in order.

Here’s the recipe I used (adapted from about three or four others I found online):

Strawberry and Lime Ice Cream

Strawberry Mix-In:
1 pint strawberries, hulled and cut into small pieces
1/3 cup sugar
juice from 1 lime
zest from 1 lime

Cream Base:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups half and half

Results: YUM! The lime is really tasty.

Combine strawberries, lime juice and zest, and 1/3 cup sugar. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Then, whisk eggs in a bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the sugar and continue whisking for about a minute longer. Add the cream and milk, stir until fully combined.

Combine the strawberry and lime mixture into the cream base. Turn on the mixer and slowly add the custard.  Allow the ice cream maker to do it’s thing for about 20 minutes, then spoon into a shallow container and freeze for about 2 hours. 

The bowl for the ice cream maker attachment has to be frozen for at least 15 hours before you can make ice cream … so this isn’t a great spur of the moment dessert (unless you have enough room in your freezer for it all the time) … but other than that, it was really easy to make. 

Then, earlier this week Susan S and Maggie gave us a mess of really ripe peaches.  Don peeled and froze them for me and last night I turned them into Brown Sugar, Butterscotch and Peach Ice Cream. 

Next time I am going to try a sorbet. Or frozen yogurt.  Or more ice cream.  I love this thing!

Yesterday Chris and Hampton came over to drop off the CDs with our wedding photos.  I’m so excited to share them with you … but first we have to actually go through them (so I wouldn’t hold your breath). 

Here are a few to get you started:

I know I haven’t quite finished up the wedding posts, and you still haven’t seen the professional pictures yet … but take your mind off those facts by taking a look at these photos from our honeymoon in Costa Rica.

Don and I belong to a CSA located in Midland, Va. and we’ve been incredibly pleased with the quality and quantity of produce we’ve seen this year.  We joined another CSA last year and it was not half as good.  The summer produce is just starting to appear (squash, beans!) and so we say goodbye to the early season greens … but not before having to deal with the dreaded kale.

I know that some people just love it, but we’re not some people.  So I’ve been trying to come up with ways to use it to make it less like kale.

News Flash - No matter what you do, it’s still kale.

Salty, crispy, bitter kale chips.

Last night, I made kale chips.  I had seen mention of this on countless food blogs and it seemed really simple (”Even my kids love it,” claimed blogger after blogger).  To make it, you cut pieces of kale into 2 or 3 inch “chips” then place them on a cooking sheet sprayed with olive oil spray.  Spray a little olive oil on top, sprinkle with vinegar and sea salt and bake at 350 - 400 degrees for 15 minutes or so. 

Easy? Yes.  Delicious?  Eh.

The kale does get nice and crispy.  The chips are really salty.  But, the kale is really bitter because, you know, it’s kale.  We ate it all … but it wasn’t the best part of the meal, for sure (that would have been the buffalo brisket or the horseradish mashed potatoes).

Tonight I am working on a clambake for two.  I chopped up some of the kale and put it in the steamer broth with the potatoes, onions, garlic and sausage and then put some more at the bottom of the steamer basket where you would normally place the seaweed.  I HOPE the kale doesn’t make the broth too bitter since it’s so yummy normally.

Farmer John says this might be the last week for salad greens, too … so we’re having a bit of what might be our last local lettuce for awhile. 

Happy 4th of July!

Sorry for the delay in the recaps, folks.  It’s terrible when life gets in the way of the blog.

So, Don processed.  You took pictures.  I processed. We said, “I do.”  Chris took pictures.  The time had come to get our drink on.

We walked over to reception venue with Chris and Hampton.  Cars were honking and people were hooting.  It was great.

When we arrived I was heartbroken to learn that two place cards were missing - my good friends Lynda and Jeremy didn’t know where they were to sit.  Thankfully, I knew that seating chart like the back of my hand and told them right away they were at the Assateague Island table. Read more…

A trip to the ALL CANDY EXPO got in the way of my wedding recaps and now we’re leaving for our honeymoon in 36 hours.  There won’t be any more recaps until after June 10 or so. In the meantime, check out these two posts about the wedding on the Candy Dish blog.

• The Candy Buffet!
• Recipe for the Cocoa and Chili Rubbed Flank Steak served at dinner.

See you when we get back from Costa Rica!  Take a look at this picture for a better idea of where we’ll be for the next 11 days:

From Lonely Planet, Costa Rica - a book that will be going with us.

We were finally married!  As Cake played our recessional song (which Don started calling the booyah several months ago, as in “Booyah!  She married me.”) we walked down the aisle hand in hand.  We hit the dune path to hide for a moment while everyone else got out of their seats and our excellent mistress of ceremonies, Lynda, passed out some bubbles.

After everyone was assembled, we headed back over the dune into the bubbles.  It was so windy that the guests didn’t even have to blow them out … they just kinda wafted out on their own.

Then we asked everyone to stand together so we could get a group shot.  Here’s our friend and photographer Chris unlawfully jumping over the dune fence to get a better shot.

I love this picture of Chris at work, too.

After the group shots we let everyone head to the reception.  We had hoped the weather would be nice and everyone would linger on the  beach sipping lemonade for 10 minutes while we got our final pictures, but it was just too cold.  In fact, it was so cold that while we got a few good pictures like ones below, we didn’t get everything we wanted - like pictures of Don and I closer to the water, or sitting together in the sand or in the wedding chairs, or with writing in the sand, etc.

I think we got pictures of me with Jaimie, Lynda and Dawn, plus Don with Mickey and Suzanne.  I REALLY hope we got them anyway as those were the people who stepped up to play a special role on our wedding day (like a wedding party without matching dresses and rented tuxedos).

At any rate, it was cold and there were cocktails to be had and amazing appetizers to nibble so we headed off to the cocktail hour. 

Up Next: Cocktails at Sunset