ELC Day Twelve (plus Community Garden Update IX)

Whew, what a long week this was! After I did that panicked buying at the farmer's market last Saturday morning, I checked the refrigerator tonight and realized that I haven't eaten hardly any of it. I ate leftovers and salad all week because I didn't have time to cook.

This morning I went to Tate St. Coffee House, where I picked up a fruit bar for a mid-morning snack and a slice of broccoli quiche for my lunch. Tate St. Coffee House gets its baked goods from Spring Garden Bakery, its bagels from Best Bagels (which Becky thinks is a chain, but we're not sure), and its tarts and savory pies from one of my favorite vendors at the Greensboro Farmer's Curb Market, Nora Glantz. I'd be willing to bet that her broccoli pie had at least some local ingredients from the market in it.

When I got home I went out to the community garden and spent some time weeding and side dressing everything with some very fine composted manure. The tomatoes are finally looking healthy and happy - stocky little fellas. I put up all my tomato cages and I still need to buy 22 (!!!) or build some wire cages. I will have a lot to contribute to the Plant a Row for the Hungry program this summer. Hope they're hungry for 'maters.

There are a few of either the green lettuce or endive plants that I had given up on coming up. I don't remember what I planted where. The peas are just not that into me. The broccoli, kale, and friends are looking great and I picked some kale, along with a bunch of lamb's quarters in the uncultivated areas of the garden. And a few cherrybelle radishes.

It was pretty late when I began dinner, and the chicken breasts I thought I had thawed out for dinner turned out to be chicken backs and neck, so I'm making stock even though I didn't want to do that tonight.

So I chopped up the kale, three spring onions, minced a clove of elephant garlic, sliced some white mushrooms and sauteed them in some olive oil and sprinkled dried basil all over it. Cooked up some organic penne rigate, tossed it all together with a dollop of the olive oil/herb mayonnaise I made earlier this week and grated parmesan/reggiano.

Fed a taste to husband who refused to eat more, although he said it wasn't bad. In fact, it is very, very good but he's being a juvenile about food tonight. It happens from time to time. It was probably the mushrooms. He's particularly weird about them, even though he likes them.