Farm share cooking

This past Saturday I got my second dose of farm share. It included some broccoli, Swiss chard, salad greens, cabbage, turnips, spinach and tons of strawberries!

I did lots of cooking tonight. I made my first recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Chard with shallots and oranges. It was an interesting recipe, and I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out, but I had all of the ingredients, so I went for it, and I'm so glad I did! It turned out to be delicious. It basically involved caramelizing the shallots and oranges and then steaming the chard with it, adding a little vinegar and salt and pepper. It was really good.

Next I took the half head of cabbage and made some coleslaw from scratch. I also learned about salting the cabbage before making the slaw, thanks to Mr. Bittman. So I just put together some mayo, a little dijon mustard, carrots, salt and pepper. It's really tasty and I'm looking forward to having it with a veggie burger, maybe for dinner tomorrow.

And last but not least, I just had to use up all those strawberries! I ended up making enough strawberry shortcake to feed my roommates, too. I made the shortcakes from scratch (sort of, I used pancake baking mix). No one complained and all of us sat out on the back porch enjoying the summer evening and good food.

Earlier this afternoon I finished Studs Terkel's autobiography, Touch and Go. It was a great read and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys American history, biographies or things to do with Chicago. He's a remarkable man, a national treasure and I'm so happy he published this book. He has so many stories to tell, has done so many amazing things. As much as I enjoyed all of the stories in the book, I'm sure there are many more that haven't been told. I can only hope that my memory and wits are that sharp when I'm in my mid-90s. Truly amazing.