Eenie Meenie Miney Moe

I'm trying something new...I have a little box on the right hand side of the page that should say the title of a song...this week it says "Ashes On Your Eyes."  You can click on it and listen to this wonderful song by Deb Talan.  Woo!

So aside from a near-death experience on Sunday, life has been pretty much similar.  The farmer's market has sped up QUITE a bit...we sold all the bread and almost all the cheese!  It was a crazy day, that Saturday.  I do chores in the morning, so I'm up at 4:30, and then go straight to the market.  The market itself is pretty exhausting...talking to people about cheese from 8:30 - 12:30.  I came back to the farm for a few hours, and then headed to Molly's lake house for her birthday party (it was a lot of fun, and I'm going to leave it at that).  I didn't get to sleep until 2AM, so I was awake for 22 hours!  When I was driving back from the lake the next morning, I almost killed myself by skidding off the road (nearly hitting a tree)...it was a good lesson in driving the speed limit.  It was fine, though.  My car was a bit messed up, but some friendly Vermonters stopped to help me and I was able to drive back to the farm.

Most things I've been eating lately are Red, White, and Green.  Red is usually tomato, White is usually some kind of goat cheese, and Green is any number of things, including kale, avocado, arugula, basil, lettuce, etc.  This combo has never failed me.  The colors of the Italian flag are the way to go for simple snacks and meals.  Put three things on a piece of bread and you're set.  The following recipe is not red, white, and green, but it's still delicious.

Veggie Burger of Awesomeness

1 veggie burger patty (I used Amy's...I also like Dr. Praegers/anything that doesn't remind me too much of actual meat) (Or make your own, of course)

Lettuce

Avocado Slices

Tomato Slices

Sprouts (I didn't have them, but it would be delicious...make it and I will live vicariously through you)

Onion Slices

Sliced garlic or garlic scapes

Balsamic Vinegar 

Olive Oil

Salt

Put onion slices, garlic, olive oil, salt, and a bit of balsamic vinegar in a sauce pan over low heat.  Cook gently, until onions are soft and caramelized and sweet and yummy...about 15 minutes?  Cook veggie burger as specified on your particular package.  Top with lettuce, tomato, onions, avocado, and sprouts.  Eat...well, attempt to eat.  It's a bit messy.  

Tomorrow is my day off!  I am going to do laundry, possibly take my car to a dealer in Rutland, maybe bake something exciting, and participate in a Blue Ledge Farm field trip to see Wall-E.

Good night.

Crack Pizza

At Shelburne Farms they even put people in pens.

Hail!!!

My dinner for the past two nights...recipe in previous post.

Remember when you were little, you and your friends used to say that thunder was God going bowling?  Or that rain was God crying?  Well, if that's true, then the Vermont weather God is a bipolar toddler who has frequent tantrums.  Today it was warm and sunny (I think...I was in a cave, so I can't be sure) and then all the sudden it was cloudy, and then it thundered, and then it POURED SHEETS OF WATER AND HAIL THE SIZE OF MARBLES, and then it was bright and sunny and warm again.  In a matter of maybe...30 minutes.  

Our sourdough starter is ready to make bread!  Yay!  Greg made some test loaves earlier this week, and I got to have two of them...and uh...they're basically gone now.  I like bread.  Especially this bread.  I'm pretty sure it's the best bread I've ever had.

Anyway, today we made 7 batches of dough, each one enough to make 4 loaves.  We then shaped them into baguettes and rounds, scored them, and popped them into the oven.  Now there are lots and lots of loaves sitting in a big cloth bag, ready to be sold at the market tomorrow!  Excitement.

Greg made pizza with some of the dough.  I'm pretty sure he should open a restaurant.  It was deeeee-licious.  Yes, I fail as a vegan.  Shut up.

I'm milking tomorrow morning, so I am heading off to bed.  Bed time for Big Bird.  Nighty night.

Quiche Puff

Sorry that I've been an inconsistent blogger lately...but I've been really busy!!!  Sometimes I'm just lazy...like Monday night...and Wednesday...but listen to my Tuesday schedule, and maybe you'll understand why I wanted to go to sleep instead of blahg.  Wake up at 4:30AM.  Milk 5:00-7:00.  Feed pigs and non-milkers 7:00-7:30.  Cheese house, wrapping and packing orders 8:00-4:00PM.  Get in car, drive to Williston 5:00-6:15.  Gymnastics 6:15-8:15.  Drive home 8:15-9:30.  Eat a snack, shower, and sleep!  My Thursday schedule is the same, but I wake up at 7:00.  So maybe now you can sympathize. 

Since today is a Thursday, that means yesterday was a Wednesday, and it was my day off.  I didn't have anything planned except food shopping, but Hannah kindly invited me to go strawberry/cherry picking with her and Livia and Hayden!  If you have ever seen me in the months of June, July, August, September, and October, you know how obsessed I am with picking edible things.  Especially apples and pumpkins and blueberries, but you know, strawberries and cherries are fun too.  In Pennsylvania, especially at Linvilla Orchard, I'm pretty sure that it's cheaper to buy apples in a store than to pick them yourself.  But in good ol' Vermont, I could get tons of strawberries and cherries for only $7 something.  And Linvilla certainly doesn't have a view of mountains and Lake Champlain.  

I wasn't quite sure what to do with all of the fruit that I had collected, but I found a recipe for strawberry bread...like banana bread, but with strawberries.  Of course, my version substituted every ingredient besides the strawberries...whole wheat instead of white flour, agave nectar instead of sugar, egg replacer, Earth Balance instead of butter...oh, and I didn't use measuring cups or spoons.  You can imagine how it tasted.  Like shiit-ake mushrooms.  Actually, it's not that bad, just a bit floury.  I'm obviously not including the recipe for that, mostly because I have no idea what I did.  I really need to start following recipes again.

So exciting news!  I mentioned it in paragraph #1...I am doing gymnastics again!  I go twice a week to a gym in Williston called Green Mountain Gymnastics, and I'm part of an open gym program for middle school/high schoolers, neither of which I am.  The coach is going to be a senior in college, though, and she's really nice, so I feel fine.  Woooo for getting back in shape!  Yeah, about that...I feel like I've been run over by a tractor.  It's been more than I year since I've done gymnastics, and my body is protesting, loudly and painfully.  But it's ok!  It feels great to be back in the gym.

This is what I've been eating for dinner recently, because of my strawberry surplus.

Salad is Cruise Control for Awesome

Salad:

Any type of mild lettuce you like, washed and torn into pieces

ARUGULA....mmmm

Sliced strawberries

Small pieces, crumbles, of goat cheese (I used our herbal chévre)

Diced avocado

Sunflower seeds

Dressing:

2 parts Good olive oil

1 part Good balsamic vinegar

Maple syrup

Salt

Garlic scapes

For salad:  Combine everything in a bowl.  Duh.

For dressing:  Whisk together olive oil and vinegar.  Add a little maple syrup and salt to taste.  Slice garlic scapes into tiny thin disks and add to mixture. 

Pour dressing over salad, grab a fork and a good book, and head on outside.

Weekend with the Parents

Sorry for not posting when I said I would.  I'm a bad bad blogger.  Oh well.  Who reads this thing anyway?  

I was a bit too busy to post over the weekend because my parents collected me on Friday and we set off for a whirlwind tour of Burlington and the surrounding area.  The first day was really amazing...we stopped off to look at Shelburne Farms.  It's this GARGANTUAN estate built by a man who had married into Vanderbilt money (you know, the family with the railroads).  You walk into the Farm Barn and it feels like you're entering the courtyard of a medieval castle, complete with turrets and a bell tower.  It was utterly gorgeous.  The first thing we did was get a snack...a veggie platter with fresh little carrots, baby beets, and radishes from their garden, homemade hummus, their fresh baked bread, and Shelburne farms' cheddar.  "Wow," is all I can say about that.  After we finished, we went and looked at the animals, including a colossal brown swiss cow.  I could have sworn she was part elephant.  I am going to have pictures of lots of these things, but I haven't received them yet.  

We drove around some of the property and saw this Hummer:

Which made us laugh.  

For dinner that night we ate at American Flatbread in Burlington...it was delicious.  They use all local and organic ingredients whenever possible, so I felt good about throwing my veganism to the winds.  We buy their pizza at Whole Foods, and it was really exciting to eat at the actual restaurant.

  

Saturday was the Burlington Farmer's Market, and it was AMAZING.  There was a ton of produce, especially strawberries and lovely greens.  I bought some rainbow chard and garlic hummus (from a vendor called "Chick Peace").  Then we met this guy, Dylan, who is a sort of family friend type dude...it's complicated.  Anyway, we know him, and he has an organic vegetable farm called "Digger's Mirth."  Isn't that a great name?  Doesn't that just invoke images of the earth laughing up vegetables?  I like it.  Dylan took us to the farm and gave us a little tour.  It was beautiful, and really interesting.  And he gave me some adorable little carrots!  I took some pictures...

  

We had reservations for Black Sheep Bistro in Vegennes, because it was highly recommended by Hannah and Greg.  It was far away but worth it.  There was a lot to see on the way down and the town of Vegennes is very quaint.  I got curried asparagus soup and a spinach beet salad.  Mmmm.  Oh, and Ben and Jerry's for dessert!  Cinnamon Buns ice cream in a kid cone.

For breakfast today we went to a crepe place called The Skinny Pancake.  The place was very cute, and had the potential to be delicious, had I not ordered something vegan.  Who orders something uncheesy in a crepe place?  That was dumb.  Ah, well.  I'll know for next time.  

And then it was time to go!  

And now I'm watching the Olympic Trials, angry that I'm not at home in the stands.  Grrrr.

One of the Girls

Picture: My drawing!  I have the artistic skills of an very talented toddler!  It looks a bit better in person, but not much.

Because Hannah and Greg are artists, they have a studio on the 2nd floor of the New Barn.  It's beautiful and bright and stocked with easels and brushes and pastels and the like.  Today I felt like doing something vaguely artistic, so I climbed past the eagerly bleating goats on the first floor and up into the studio.  And then I looked around, feeling very much out of my element.  I grabbed a pencil, paper, and chair, and sat down by the window to sketch what I saw.  I tried my very best and STILL ended up with a drawing that could have come from my 2nd grade portfolio.  I like it though.  I actually put a lot of thought into it, successfully captured some things.  Like how the sky looked before a recent storm, and the way the fields sometimes look like a patchwork quilt, and the different layers of the mountains.  I gave no thought to perspective...the goats are as big as the trees.  Ah, well.  I showed it to Hannah and Greg and they managed, admirably, to make positive comments without laughing.  Quite impressive on their part, I think.

Then I had an urge.  I had an urge to know what it's like to be a goat.  I went downstairs, climbed the fence, and sat down in the middle of the pasture.  I picked a blade of grass, I put it in my mouth, I chewed it thoughtfully.  Then, suddenly, I was surrounded by a small herd of young goats, who seem to think that everything is edible.  Everything.  My shirt, the ties on my pants, my fingers, my hair, my ears, my nose.  I'm surprised that all the features are left on my face.  If the goats had their way, I would be a naked, earless, noseless, fingerless, bald young woman.  Eventually their nibbling tickled too much and I had to stand up.  I discovered that being a goat mostly consists of standing around eating grass, baahhhhh-ing at everything that moves, and running in and out of the barn for no particular reason.  It's an action packed life.

Remember when I made those soba noodles with almond butter sauce a few weeks ago?  I found an interesting recipe on Orangette for soba with a peanut lime sauce.  I've adapted it below:

Soba with EXCITING Sauce

Organic, All Natural Peanut butter

Lime juice (I didn't have limes, so I used lemons)

Olive oil

Soy sauce

Cayenne pepper

Powdered ginger

Chopped Garlic 

Nutritional yeast, obviously

Water, to thin it

Soba noodles

Daikon or regular radishes, sliced thin

Lamb's quarters, spinach, or bak choi, sliced thin

Carrots, sliced thin

Whisk together all ingredients for sauce until it turns into something sauce-like.  It'll be lumpy for a while, but keep stirring and it'll become smooth.

Boil soba noodles for about 2 minutes, until al dente.  Drain and rinse in cold water.  Put in bowl, mix with veggies and sauce.  Enjoy!

I have felt entirely uninspired for the past few days.  You may have noticed that.  I think that I am going to make this a Monday-Wednesday-Friday blog, that you can stop by on your way to check xkcd.  If you don't know from xkcd...that would sadden, but not surprise me.  I wouldn't have the faintest idea of what those four letters represented if I hadn't met Susanna and her posse of webcomics.  You'll have to do the research yourself, though.  I don't want to make it too easy to discover.  

Just...Don't Drop The Soap

I worked from 5 AM until 4 PM today.  That's 11 hours.  The great thing is, it barely feels like I'm working.  It's amazing.  Who else has a job like that?  Only me.  

Tomorrow is my day off, and then my parents are coming up to visit from Thursday to Sunday.  Very exciting!  

I'm not quite sure why, but I am happy to an extreme degree.  Which is nice.

For dinner, I had tempeh tacos.  I made some more tortillas from the leftover dough I had, and then made a filling.

Barn Swallows

Tempeh Tacos

Tempeh, cut into 1/4 inch strips

Sliced red bell pepper

Sliced onion

Sliced mushrooms

Spinach

Red pepper

Curry powder

Nutritional yeast

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Avocado slices

Heat oil and add peppers and onions to pan.  Saute until onions are softened.  Add tempeh and mushrooms, cook until tempeh is golden brown.  Add spinach, heat until wilted, season with soy sauce, red pepper, curry powder, and nutritional yeast.  Fill half a tortilla, top with avocado, fold in half and eat!

I'm going to have a midnight (midnight = 9:00) snack of whole wheat tortilla + maple syrup + peanut butter + banana.  Goodnight!

Short But Sweet

I am trying to think if something especially notable happened today...

Can't think of anything.  

Actually yes!  Milking went REALLY well today.  I finished in a very reasonable amount of time...it probably took me about 1.5 hours.  

And another thing!  I bought these amazing looking, perfectly ripe strawberries at the co-op.  I ate them, and then decided to call them "S.O. Strawberries."  S.O. standing for "Spontaneous Orgasm."  That's how good they are.  I started to eat them just by themselves, but then I remembered the bar of Lake Champlain dark chocolate that I had also purchased at the co-op.  I melted it in a makeshift double boiler and dunked the strawberries.  A few of them got a sprinkling of spicy pumpkin seeds.  Yummy.  

Also, it was the most gorgeous day, 78 and breezy.  

Happy Monday.