girls’ night out & garlic party

Busy weekend ’round here. My talk at the breast cancer walker

information session was quite easy. No one showed 😦

I was able to meet my ‘walker buddy’,  Jennifer & got some of the behind -the-scences information. She mentioned that during the winter she has info sessions with upwards of 30 people, and wanted to know if I felt comfortable coming to one of those.
She asked me if I could bring some of  my quilts that I’ve raffled

‘raffle quilt 2009’

pink breast cancer raffle quilt

which means that I need to start to think of what kind of quilt I will make for 2011…

Then Scott & I went to Plato\’s Harvest Organic Farm for our CSA

the turkeys are getting BIG!!!

shel picking herbs at the farm

Sat night there was a surprise 40th birthday party for a friend that included a Limo trip into  Boston & an award-winning broadway show Rock of Ages ..

SO. MUCH. FUN.

erika and I

my best buddy, Erika & I prior to the limo arriving.

ok.. you’d think that I’d have more pictures of this night.. and trust me, there are pictures, but none that should be shared on the internet 😉

I’ll try to see if I can scrounge some respectable pics up from someones else’s camera to add….

While the girls were in the city.. the boys were making ‘man food’

bacon cheeseburger on glazed donut

Bacon cheese burgers on…. wait for it…

grilled glazed donuts.

This would never happen if I were actually home.

Poor Ali, stuck here with the two of them….

She had Ice cream for dinner 😉

I know, I know… mom of the year, right?

Then Saturday morning we were up early *yawn* to head back to the farm to participate in the annual garlic planting party!!

and it was held in conjunction with the 350 mission

garlic

 

photo courtesy of Shasha Purpura

 

we began with separating the garlic heads  into cloves

this took us almost 2 hours…. we’re talking LOTS of garlic!!

then Farmer Dave prepped the one of the fields for planting

with a couple of cuties along for the ride…

we planted.. and planted. and planted.then we had lunch!!

quite possibly the best lunch that I’ve EVER had.  Everyone’s addition to this pot luck was over-the-top!!

Then we dug for some taters…

My contribution for the day- (food wise) was my

Cranberry-Cashew Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:

cranberry-cashew quinoa salad

1 cup quinoa , rinsed

1 cup chicken stock

3 cups h2O

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup cashews, toasted

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 bunch parsley, chopped

1 bunch mint, chopped

1 small carrot, grated

1 whole lemon, zested & juiced

1/4 cup  canola oil

a few splashes of Raspberry wine vinegar

Kosher salt & pepper

what to do:

In a large saucepan, bring rinsed quinoa, stock, a dash of salt & water to a boil; Reduce to a simmer & let cook for 20 minutes.

if there is any excess liquid, drain it, but don’t rinse.

Add remaining ingredients & toss to combine. Season with salt & pepper.

This is one of those fhb dishes that is delicious hot or cold or even room temperature ( which is wonderful for a pot-luck)

I let the quinoa come to room temp before I wrapped it for the party…..

yum!

what a great weekend!!

 

photo courtesy of Sasha Purpura

 

grilled pork chops with mango -jalapeño sauce

I’ve found that some of the best recipes that I’ve made have been largely unplanned. Scott & I had bought these beautiful pork chops  but just couldn’t come up with an idea for them.

blindly heading toward my fridge without a clue as to what I was doing, I spotted the Greek yogurt.

Then I opened the freezer so see a lonely bag of Trader Joe’s frozen mango chucnks

Hmmm… I was onto something.

I grabbed my trusty blender &  added the yogurt, mango, 1/2 of a jalepeno pepper, chopped , 1/4 cup brown sugar, some salt & pepper a little bit of good ol’ H2O.. said a quick prayer to the cooking fairies & whirred my little heart out.

yumminess was happening..

I added a little bit more water to get a smoother consistency & tasted it.

perfect!

I set aside some of this yummy sauce ( and kept tasting it.. you know just to make sure that the flavors didn’t change int he 10 minutes since I had made it..)

and marinated the pork in the rest of it.

of course being VERY careful to not cross-contaminate with any of the raw pork..

I covered both of these babies & stuck them in the fridge and let the pork marinade all day long.

Dinnatime!!! I fired up my grill & grilled both chops….

OOPS.. hot spot… darn it 😦

pork chop #2…  now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ ’bout!!

dear pork police…

*no pork was wasted in this burning misadventure, the crust of that one side of burnt pork was cut off & the pork underneath was wonderful*

I grilled it to an internal temp of 145.. then pull of the grill & LET REST!!.. this is very important!

I made a salad with some Arugula from Plato\’s Harvest Organic Farm.. I added some slivered onion, goat cheese & slivered almonds. Tossed with a little bit of the marinade that I set aside..

next to the sliced pork & a bit more magic sauce on top..

I think I love mango 🙂

ahhh!! Fall!!!

FINALLY!!  It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve woken to a breezy morning where snuggling under my favorite quilt

with my cup of coffee was even possible….

but his morning was THAT morning!  AHH!!

I started by having this oatmeal

It was overnight oats

1 scoop of chocolate amazing grass ( sounds naughty, dontcha think?)

1 teaspoon almond butter

1/2 ripe banana mashed a bit

1 teaspoon coconut butter

a few slivered almonds on top

When I described this to my sister, Jodie , she said, “OMG!, you had a sundae for breakfast!!”

Yes. Yes, indeed I did!

and it was Oh-so-Good!

Farmer Dave & Sasha from Plato\’s Harvest Organic Farm were looking for some help to harvest an early crop of winter squash, so Scott & I headed out to the farm on this early perfect Sunday morning.

The farm has 2 fields; One that we go to each week to receive our share of our CSA.. and a larger field about a mile down the street. Where the squash were 🙂


After a brief tour of the field.. we set out to pick & polish

BUTTERNUT SQUASH!!

( Amanda, did I just hear you squeal all the way from Florida?)
We  loaded the squash into crates, load them into Dave’s truck & trailer

we had a picnic lunch under the trees. ( we had heirloom tomato sandwiches with a basil-garlic mayonnaise , I didn’t think to take pictures because I was still in the afterglow of my ‘Sundae’ (pun completely intended )breakfast.. but I smashed a garlic clove & mixed it with some light mayonnaise *Hellman’s* and shredded basil , salt & pepper) on our bread from our bread share.. buttermilk honey.

I also mixed some frozen raspberries with some Non-fat greek yogurt (Chobani) & a few slivered almonds on top. Stir it all together & as the berries defrost, they keep the yogurt cold & then whole thing mixes together.. great for packing ahead 🙂

and some unsweetened iced tea

Really, a perfect ‘fall’ day 😉

On another note, hopefully you have found me here from my previous bloodspot address. I’m really liking wordpress!!  There is not anywhere (that I can find) to click a ‘follow’ button, but if you enter your email, wordpress will automatically send you an email whenever I have a new post… Plus, this may be handy in the upcoming weeks.. I foresee a giveaway 😉

I’m off. It’s fondue night at Casa Hagg…. Ryan’s last non-school night for awhile and like his mama.. he loves fondue!!!

Have a happy & SAFE Labor Day!!

xoxo~ shel

%d bloggers like this: