Back to School

Tomorrow I go back to school. My student teaching begins with several inservice days. I'm not exactly sure what to expect, as my cooperating teacher just learned within the last week that I would be in his classroom in September, instead of November.

For the last few weeks of summer I've been trying to relax and enjoy myself! Michael's mom threw a weekend of showers two weekends ago - a baby shower for Michael's step sister, Liz, on Saturday, and a wedding shower for us on Sunday. We played fun games at the baby shower, and fortunatley, no games at the wedding shower. It was a great weekend, with nice weather, and I think everyone had a good time. Thanks Carol!



I've been baking a lot lately. Especially since I borrowed my parents' bread maker on Friday afternoon.


Friday night I made a loaf of whole wheat bread. Saturday morning I made a loaf of pumpernickel; today I'm making a loaf of white bread, mostly because I ran out of whole wheat flour (I used some to make blueberry-zucchini muffins this afternoon) and hopefully I'll have enough bread to live off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the first few days of school, until I figure out where the refrigerator and microwave are . . .



The muffins are good, by the way. I found the recipe at Cooks.com, and was able to find both zucchini and blueberries at a little farm stand on my way to register for classes today. I didn't have enough flax seed meal to substitute it for the oil, but I did substitute fresh blueberries for the frozen ones called for in the recipe.


I also picked up an Amish-grown yellow watermelon. It's delicious.


Other than baking and making too many recipes with tomatoes in them (okay, really only two - tomato pie and tomato salad - Michael opted for Jimmy John's the other night instead of eating any more tomatoes) I've been spending the last few days of summer doing wedding things (writing thank-yous for shower gifts - although Michael did most of the work on those, organizing decorations, and meeting with the hotel to go over our plans for the reception, and to taste entree options), cleaning (I still haven't gotten to my desk, but I did take about 8 sweaters to Goodwill, along with several pairs of shoes!), and reading. I spent all day on Sunday reading Breaking Dawn. Some people I know really loved the Twilight series. Okay, so a lot of those people were students who I observed last semester during a teaching clinical. But still. These guys were really into the books. Personally, while I can see how appealing the would have been 15 years ago, I just didn't get the whole series. I think Stephenie Meyer is a good writer (and I'm not just saying that because I live next door to the parents of her publisher) but for the first three books, I really couldn't get my head around the relationship between Bella and Edward. I don't want to give up too much for those of you who haven't read it, but I was definitely on Team Jacob, not Team Edward. One of Michael's students said he wouldn't like the ending . . . Michael still has a couple hundred pages to go, so I'll have to wait a little longer to get his reaction. Personally, I didn't mind the ending, but it seemed to me like the series went from being "out there" to being "really out there and very hard to believe." But the ending could have been a lot worse.

I also just read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I wonder if I would have noticed all of the discussion of seeds and agriculture if I had read that novel before I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

And speaking of locavorism - the cover story of the most recent Time Magazine is about eating local foods and moving away from the Big Business of farming!

Time to do dishes . . .

Locavore In Training

I don't have a whole lot of time for a blog post right now, but I really wanted to post about what I've been up to since I bought the Best Book Ever. Barbara Kingsolver and her family moved from Arizona to Virginia, and made a pledge to live off of their own land (or the land of nearby farmers) for an entire year. In March, their food pickings were pretty slim - fresh fruit was limited to rhubarb at the first farmer's market of the season - but as the summer progressed, they found themselves up to their eyeballs in tomatoes and squash.

The whole idea of this project - and the greater Locavore movement - is to encourage sustainable farming practices, and to cut down on the amount of fuel that we're guzzling when we buy bananas in Wisconsin (or Virginia). Kingsolver calls well-traveled food "oily."

Going entirely local doesn't seem entirely feasible for me right now, since I don't have a garden, and school will be starting in a few weeks - I'll probably be very grateful for frozen pizzas with ingredients that have been shipped back and forth across the country a few times before ending up in WalMart's frozen pizza aisle . . . but that doesn't mean I can't start making more sustainability-conscious food choices right now.

Which is why I was so excited that it's Thursday - Farmer's Market day in Portage. I walked down to the farmer's market today with $11.00, all the cash I had, intending to get the ingredients for a couple of meals, at least.

I found fresh basil at the first stand I saw - which was very exciting, because somewhere in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle there's a sentence about how actual fresh basil is unbelievably better than even fresh basil that you can buy in the grocery store. (I wanted to type it out for you here but I can't find anything about basil in the book's index - available online only - and I flipped through the book a few times looking for the passage, but can't find it. Besides, you should just read the book yourself!) The most exciting thing about the basil that I bought today is that the huge bunch only cost $1. I would have had to get 3 or 4 of the little plastic containers at the grocery store to get this much basil - and Kingsolver is right, the taste of the fresh stuff is unbelievable.



Unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at comparison shopping at the farmer's market. Yet. I'll get there. Today I shelled out $3 for a single heirloom tomato.



I spent the rest of my money on some early apples, garlic, and fingerling potatoes. I wanted to make Caprese salad, so I had to run to the grocery store for fresh mozzarella, and I decided to stop by the little farm market that's always set up in the Culver's parking lot down the street from the grocery store - I've gotten great tomatoes, blueberries, and a couple of onions and cucumbers from them. The best part is that they're right on the way to the grocery store, so I can get all the fruits and vegetables I need before I spend money on oily produce.

Michael and I did a taste test, comparing one of my $1 Flynt's Farm Market tomatoes with the $3 organic tomato. Michael preferred the Flynt tomato. I think the heirloom tasted a little bit tangier but I guess I'd have to go with the Flynt tomatoes next time.



The Caprese salad is great. Michael did a taste test, and the basil is really so amazing that I had to take it out of the salad and chop it a little smaller to make it less potent. Yum!


I'm not sure how far I can go with eating locally this year, but next summer my dad might expand his garden (which is already producing a ton of squash in addition to yummy beets, awesome green beans, lettuce, and lots of different kinds of tomatoes), and Michael and I will probably buy a share (or half a share) from a CSA farm.

I'm very excited about making environmentally responsible food choices. I guess I'm just going to have to say goodbye to banana bread (and it's too bad because I just found/created a really great recipe for banana muffins using all whole wheat flour - instead of just half - and local honey instead of sugar, plus I substituted flax seed for the oil, and they turned out great - with the addition of a little vanilla and chocolate chips) but I'm looking forward to zucchini and pumpkin muffins in the not-too-distant future!

Distracted

I wanted to start a blog in part because I spend too much time reading blogs. Some of the blogs I read are written by people I know well and love dearly. Other blogs are written by complete strangers, and have very little to do with my own life (although I do sometimes get awesome recipes from bloggers I have never met).

Strangely enough, just as I started my own blog, I got so busy that I although I've been racking up things to write about, I haven't actually put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, or somehow emitted little electronic (?) signals that make my words appear on the internet for all two of my blog readers to see.

First, there is that pesky dog to groom. Okay, he's not pesky, he's a little four-legged cloud, according to a local woman who sells soap at the relatively tiny Portage Farmer's Market. (If you're from a large town or small city, you would laugh at the postage stamp sized Portage Farmer's Market that lasts a mere four hours on Thursday afternoons, but if you happen to hail from Beaver Dam, the Portage Farmer's Market just might overwhelm you with all 20 or so of its booths.) (Really, I only spend about 30 minutes a day on Oliver, but dog grooming is still a relatively new phenomenon in my life.) (Like jogging.)

Plus, last week Michael and I noticed a new store in town. It's called Books and Beans, so from the name alone, I was insanely curious, and Michael knew he shouldn't let me near the place unsupervised. I wandered in early last week, just to see what they had, without plans to buy anything (except maybe a cup of coffee . . . ). I felt a little bit silly browsing the Young Adult section, but I'm trying to keep up on the books that are being marketed to my future students (which is why I have a two-month old email from Amazon in my inbox with the subject of "hottest books for teens" or something to that effect, and is also why I'm sort of reluctantly in the middle of the Twilight series). I was, of course, the only customer in the store, and I was afraid the lady behind the counter was going to start looking at me funny, so I moved on to the adult section. (Okay, I also noticed that I had a pile of three books in my arm and I wasn't sure how I'd be able to pay for our wedding limo if I kept going at this rate . . . )

Amid several pieces of fiction that looked like they'd make great book club selections, I found a nonfiction book by the novelist Barbara Kingsolver called "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." I'm not sure why the book called to me. The shelves were sparse, but there were many other titles that my eyes simply passed right over. (The shelves are sparse because the book store opened on August 1, and the owner thought it would be wise to get some consumer input before stocking her shelves with . . . well, I can't think of a book that I wouldn't want to buy . . . but other customers might be more discriminating.

Anyway, this book is so great I'm going to post about it later . . . right now Michael wants his computer back. And seeing as how it is his computer, I suppose I ought to give it to him. (But I totally won't after we're married - because then it will be my computer too, right?) Just kidding sweetie!!

Bon Jovi Rocks

In preparation for my wedding, and also because it's something I've needed to do for a long time, I'm trying to get in shape. My most recent get-in-shape efforts started when I was ordering a couple of books from Amazon.com. These books were exciting in and of themselves - they deal with using young adult novels in the literature classroom and using "literature circles" (think mini book clubs) in the classroom. I'm totally excited about these strategies in the classroom, and was going to buy the books no matter how much Amazon charged me for shipping - but Amazon conveniently told me that if I spent $4 more in my order, I would avoid a $7.95 shipping charge, or something like that. So I began to browse their bargain books. (I have been shopping on Amazon for at least 10 years but that was the first time I'd noticed the bargain section. Maybe it was new?) I found Bob Greene's Get With the Program for $5. I ended up saving money by buying the book, and when it arrived in the mail, I had a ready-to-go plan for getting in shape.

Yeah, weddings can be cause for major stressing out. But I wanted to get in shape the right way, not the crash diet way. So I read Get With the Program cautiously, keeping an eye out for too-good-to-be-true promises. I didn't find any. The Program is hard work - lots of aerobic exercise, then careful meal planning and eventually strength training. I was eager for the strength training part, but not so much for the aerobic exercise . . . but I decided to do what the book suggested anyway.

And amazingly, I became a jogger. Okay, not a great jogger. In fact, I'm a pretty poor jogger - I'm still thrilled if I can do better than a 10-minute mile - but at least it is a start! The first time I jogged, I made it a few blocks from home, and walked part of the way out of sheer exhaustion. I had timed myself, and this complete outpouring of effort had taken exactly seven minutes. There must have been something wrong with the clock!

After another jogging session or two, Michael started jogging also. He was much better at jogging than me, but we decided to jog together. In the beginning, he would take a different route than me, to get a longer jog in. But as time went on, we started to be able to go the same distance - and we kept increasing the distance every day. When it was still a struggle to go .75 miles in one outing, I remember saying "by the end of the summer I want to make it to Kwik Trip" (which is a gas station about 1.25 miles down a path near our house). About three weeks ago we made it to Kwik Trip. We can now jog over 3 miles in a night, if we want to.

Therein lies the rub. I have made it to the final phase of the book. I have reached the strength training portion, which I enjoy, but it makes the jogging harder. And Michael is doing is last week of grad school for the summer, so he has tons of studying to do . . . so last night I jogged for 1.25 miles alone, and walked home because my knee/shin/ankle was sore (from the strength training) and I was lacking motivation.

Tonight I knew I was going to have to jog alone again. I had already taken Michael away from his studies for an hour and a half beating him at Scrabble. (Okay, I beat him once by a few points, then he creamed me as revenge.) I really didn't want to jog, but I also didn't want to sabotage my efforts to get in shape. Fortunately, a little band from New Jersey stepped in to provide my lacking inspiration. I have a Gazelle, which is a low impact aerobic machine thingy (technical term), and sometimes I get in some of my 150 aerobic minutes a week on the Gazelle instead of jogging. (I prefer jogging because it is a more natural activity and I have a better sense of progress when I see the fast food restaurants flying . . .er . . plodding by.) Since it was 10:00 by the time I had finally gotten ready to exercise (I put my work-out clothes on at 8:30, did my 3 sets of four kinds of crunches, plus some other "functional exercises" as Greene calls them, and then spent an hour goofing off on the computer) I opted not to jog in the dark by myself. Being proud of myself for overcoming my inertia was not enough. I still needed help to get moving.

Fortunately Michael gave me an iPod for my birthday. And fortunately I've put a few of my Bon Jovi songs onto my iPod. (Not all of them. Putting songs on an iPod takes forever. Does that drive anyone else crazy?)

Yay Bon Jovi. I spent 40 minutes on the gazelle and got to listen to most of the Bounce album too. Jon, you're the inspiration . . .

If your sisters jumped off a cliff . . .

What on earth am I doing starting a blog?? I have a wedding to plan, I’m going to begin student teaching in less than a month, and I have a goofy, fluffy dog to groom daily!

Nevertheless, everyone else is doing it (that is to say, my sisters . . .), so I figured I ought to start a blog too.

So what am I going to blog about?

Life, I guess . . . just like every other blogger, even if my life is exponentially less interesting. Stay tuned for my thoughts on cooking, book reviews, wedding planning freak-out moments, dog love, student teaching stress, and hopefully some cool pictures too.

I had the idea to blog the other night when I created a really yummy dinner (and dessert) with all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of the meal. (It occurred to me, but dinner smelled delicious and I didn’t want to take the time to find a camera with a working battery.) Next time I will, I promise!

Dinner wasn’t anything special, but it hit the spot in the middle of summer. I started out with a salad with fresh basil, tomatos from a local farm stand, and fresh mozzerella, drizzled with balsamic vinegar. The main dish was a frittata that I modified from Betty Crocker. (Betty Crocker's Cookbook: Everything You Need to Know to Cook Today. Wiley Publishing Inc., 9th ed. 2000, p. 207) Mine had new potatoes and onion from the farmer’s market, three cloves of fresh garlic, mushrooms, more farm stand tomatoes, a cup of spinach from the farmer’s market, eggs, marjoram, pepper, and Swiss cheese. Michael and I love this dish, but this time I actually measured the ingredients, and it turned out much better. The first time I made the frittata I was just trying to get rid of some spinach, and I ended up using too many potatoes, too much spinach, too much tomato, and too many mushrooms (which aren't even in the recipe). The result was that the eggs, when poured over the top, failed to cook all the way, and I had to flip the whole thing over and cook it upside down for a few minutes. More is not always better!

Betty Crocker's Fresh Spinach and New Potato Frittata:

6 eggs (I used 5)

2 Tbsp milk

1/4 tsp dried marjoram leaves

1/4 tsp salt (I omitted this salt and added pepper instead)

2 Tbsp butter (it works just fine with cooking spray)

6 or 7 small red potatoes, thinly sliced (2 cups) (baking potatoes also work)

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup firmly packed bite-sized pieces spinach

1/4 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained and sliced (I substitute a real tomato or two)

3 medium green onions, cut into 1/4 inch pieces (I use a white or yellow onion)

1/2 cup shredded Swiss cheese (2 oz)

(I add about a cup and a half of mushrooms and 3 cloves of garlic too)

1. Beat eggs, milk, marjoram and 1/4 tsp salt; set aside (I used 5 eggs and omitted the salt).

2. Melt butter in 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add potatoes to skillet; sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt. Cover and cook 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. (I cook the potatoes, onion, mushrooms, and garlic together).

3. Stir in spinach, tomatoes and onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, just until spinach is wilted; reduce heat to low. (I've already added the onions by this point.)

4. Carefully pour egg mixture over potato mixture. Cover and cook 6 to 8 minutes or just until top is set. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and cook about 1 minute or until cheese is melted.

Yum! This dish works for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

For dessert I made a mixed berry pie. Michael requested a pie on Saturday night, and rather than stopping at Perkins and buying one, I offered to bake it myself. I used two cups of strawberries, one cup of sweet cherries, one cup of blueberries, and half a cup of blackberries. Betty Crocker’s fruit pie recipies usually call for six cups of fruit, but this was a good amount for my 9 inch pie dish. I added ½ cup of flour, and about three or four tablespoons of sugar. I spread about two tablespoons of chopped butter on top of the fruit. I can’t make pie crust (especially because I do not own a rolling pin) so I had to rely on Pillsbury for my crusts. I have a rolling pin on my wedding registry, so I may have a chance to improve my crust-making skills in the future. (Michael will gladly be my pie crust guinea pig!)