Welcome Baby Girl!

We let them have 4 days to themselves before we descended on Sweetcakes and Sweetcupcake to welcome the little girl into the world. Yesterday we headed over to pay our welcome and congratulations. Our arms were full with meals for the new family, but Sweetcakes had her arms full of something else. Don't let the above picture fool you, I literally jumped to my feet to capture an image of mother and child since Sweetcupcake spent the entire visit curled up in Thatboy's arms.



Sweetcakes arms were full of something equally as cute, but far less squirmy - baby laundry.

Sweetcakes is the first of my friends to have a baby girl. Mertile has a baby girl, but she had the baby back before we reconnected, so by the time I met little Number 2 she was already 8 months old! Sweetcupcake is my first real BABY girl. Thatboy was impressed by how tiny her little 5 day old body was. "That's nothing" Sweetcakes informed us - "last week at this time she was IN MY BODY."

As much as Thatboy and I aren't ready to have any babies of our own yet, I really LOVE visiting my new mother friends - the earlier the better. It's so crystal clear how much becoming a parent changes a person - and not just the fatigue. Sweetcakes and her husband actually got 8 hours of sleep the night before we showed up. There's just a sense of serenity and calm that surrounds new parents. More of a glow than any pregnant woman has. And it's so fun to watch Mr. Sweetcakes playing with his baby daughter and telling us the games they already share. We discussed how lucky Sweetcakes is to have him - he is just so helpful! She told me sometimes she'll go downstairs to wash a bottle and find all the bottles are already washed!

It's always hard for me to leave a friend's house - I love my friends, but we knew we didn't want to intrude too much on their downtime. Sweetcupcake spends most of the day sleeping, which allows Sweetcakes to get a lot done during the day. In fact - Sweetcakes and her husband laughed that Sweetcupcake awoke while we were there. "My parents have been here a number of times and they've NEVER seen her with her eyes open!"

And the mound of food we brought over for the Sweet family - I got bored and started playing with the different features of my camera/camera phone. So these will be very "artsy" pics - but otherwise it's just the same plate of similar type foods which gets old fast.

White Chicken Chili

Veggie Enchiladas

Tropical Enchiladas

Shepherd's Pie

I LOVE this setting on my camera - "fun colors". I use it to take pictures of Thatmom too. She looks good in blue. This is actually a veggie casserole, and the flying saucers are tomatoes.

Black Bean Enchilada Casserole

On top of Spaghetti

If Thatboy had his druthers, the television would be permanently tuned to Fuel TV which features sports like snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing. In fact, most times when I come home to him watching tv, that's what he's tuned in to. As for me, I don't especially swoon over getting to watch these activities live, let alone in the comfort of my own home. We've arranged a happy truce where whoever is on the couch can watch what they want, meaning while I'm in the kitchen Thatboy picks the show, while he's working on his pictures, I pick.

But when we're both on the couch, we try to find a show both of us will watch. Usually this means no Food Network with the exception of three shows - whatever pastry/sugar/cake challenge we can find, Next Food Network Star, or Throwdown with Bobby Flay. There is nothing Thatboy and I like better than rooting against Bobby Flay. Not that we have anything against him personally, and we're both fond of his restaurants, and Sweetcakes and I SWOONED when we got the chance to see him on our trip to NYC in December. But there's just something so arrogant about challenging people that you can do something better than them. I mean, most of the people he challenges aren't jetsetting from one of their restaurants to another across the country, they're hard working, dedicated, working class people who have really struggled to perfect a recipe and gain a loyal following. And you Mr. Flay, waltz right in like god's gift to the spatula?

On a recent episode we watched Bobby challenge Mike Maroni, the godfather of meatballs. Flay began with a meat mixture of pork, sirloin, and veal (what is this meatloaf?) while Maroni stuck with a nice fatty ground chuck for his meatballs. Flay quickly realized that his sirloin caused the meatballs to be too dry. Thatboy and I cheered when Maroni's meatballs took the prize over Flay's. THAT'S how it should be - the credit, awards, accolades should be lauded on these hometown heroes. After all, don't we root, root, root for the home team?

If there's one thing I learned from the episode - it's that you GOTTA have fat in your meatballs to keep them nice and moist. So I decided to add a little fat to my turkey meatballs. Now, I LOVE ground turkey in place of ground beef, but I know a lot of people have issues with how dry the finished product is. So I added some ground beef into my turkey meatball recipe and ended up with rave reviews. I served them over whole wheat spaghetti, which I know opens a whole 'nother can of worms, but we can discuss that later.


Mixed Meat-Balls

• 1/2 lb ground turkey
• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup parsley
• 1 onion, minced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• salt
• pepper
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 28 oz crushed tomatoes

1. Combine ground turkey, ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, parsley, 1/2 minced onion, 1 1/2 cloves minced garlic, salt and pepper and form into golf balls.
2. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in large nonstick skillet and cook meatballs over medium heat until well browned.
3. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in saucepan and cook 1/2 minced onion, 1 1/2 cloves minced garlic over medium heat until translucent.
4. Add tomatoes to onion and garlic and bring to a simmer. Add meatballs into the sauce and cook 15-20 minutes.

Cheese Please

I have to say I had been looking forward to these next recipes as soon as I saw them. I mean, what could be better for a cheese lover like me than making their OWN CHEESE!!!!!! Almost as soon as I started reading the book I had already sent away for the cheese making supplies since rennet is impossible to find in San Diego. When it came I almost jumped for joy. Who am I kidding. I DID jump for joy!

As usual with my life right now - this chapter had it's ups and its downs. We'll divide it into "The Good" "The Bad" and "The Ugly."

The Good

Mozzarella Cheese (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

I got all my ingredients ready and went to work. The instructions indicate that you add the citric acid at 55 degrees. At 88 degrees the milk should begin to curdle and then you add the rennet and heat to just over 100 degrees when the milk divides itself into curds and whey. At 88 degrees my milk was just barely curdling, but I added the rennet anyway. As I stirred, I thought "there is no way this is going to separate in the next 12 degrees. I blinked my eyes and POOF I was staring into a pot of clear liquid with cottage cheese-like chunks floating around in it. I swear it was like magic - one of the coolest things I'd seen in a long time!

The curds are H-O-T. Even using the rubber gloves as recommended by the recipe my little hands were burning burning burning. But it was SO worth it as these balls came together in no time flat and it was just incredibly easy. Easy AND cool to watch make? How often does that happen?

Local ingredients used:
None

Summertime Salad (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
This recipe was fantastic, but then again - it's not much of a recipe. And you can't really go wrong with tomato, mozzarella, and basil, now can you? Thatboy decided salt is his new favorite condiment ever. The recipe really lets my homemade mozzarella shine through too so that gives it an added edge.

Local Ingredients Used:
Tomatoes (Oceanside farmer's market)
Basil (Oceanside farmer's market)

The Bad

Friday Night Pizza (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
I know what you're thinking - how can pizza be bad? Start with the crust. I'm no novice when it comes to pizza dough. I've made good dough, and I've made bad dough. This falls into the latter category. Now, I learned the hard way that pizza dough making is usually a weekend activity. (Anyone remember our midnight pizza dinner?) So to say I was a little skeptical of this 40 minute dough would be an understatement. My worst fears were realized when the dough baked and refused to get doughy....becoming more like a giant cracker. Which actually wouldn't be so bad if I were doing something like topping it with a salad, but not so fantastic when I wanted warm doughy pizza.


And once again we were met with a "looks can be deceiving" moment when despite the beautiful toppings, Thatboy declared the pizza bland and flavorless. Which tends to be the feedback I'm getting on a lot of the recent AVM recipes. He actually picked off the mozzarella and just ate that. Which is a testament to my mozzarella making skills - no?

Local Ingredients Used:
Tomatoes (Mira Mesa farmer's market)
Oregano (Oceanside farmer's market)
Rosemary (Oceanside farmer's market)

Eggplant Papoutzakia (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
In my book, this one already had one strike against it given that eggplant tends to upset my stomach. But Thatboy likes eggplant, so I figured he'd be able to give it a fair shake. The recipe was WAY off on this one. When I pulled it out at the designated time/temperature the eggplant was still raw. So back in it went...for another hour.....Considering it's supposed to take 20 minutes to cook, that seems a bit odd. And Thatboy couldn't take more than a bite. It wasn't good at all. Once again, the mozzarella was picked off making our dinner almost entirely mozzarella and tomato....

Local ingredients used:
eggplant (Rancho Bernardo farmer's market)
tomatoes (Mira Mesa farmer's market)

The Ugly

This dinner, combined with the disappointing dinner from the previous night prompted Thatboy to ask if I really had to cook through the entire book. Hadn't we been punished enough? And in truth, there's a big difference between these recipes and those in Garlic and Sapphires. Ruth Reichl lives and breathes food. She gets to sample the good and the bad. She's traveled the world. She understands complementary flavors. The recipes in her book are tried and true. The recipes from AVM mostly come from the head of an 18 year old. Her experiences with food are a world apart from Reichl's and her culinary ability is quite obviously still developing. She hasn't learned to play with flavors and spices, leaving a lot of the food bland and tasteless. She hasn't experimented with tens or hundreds of recipes to find just the right one to include.

So I'm taking a little break from AVM. I'll probably get back to it in a couple of weeks, but for the time being I'm back to cooking things both Thatboy and I enjoy. The timing works out well too, since this Friday we start our "month of vacations." Being out of town always makes it difficult to cook.

Looks can be deceiving

I was REALLY excited for this AVM recipe/dinner since I usually really enjoy spring rolls, and we all know about my new discovery of rhubarb and strawberry baked goods.

A bad omen to start out with, I couldn't find rhubarb anywhere. And I'm pretty sure it's rhubarb season. I had pretty much given up on making the strawberry rhubarb crisp and was at the Mira Mesa Farmer's Market looking for a good fruit substitute when I spied that bright red stalk. Yay! I figured that MUST be a good sign. I should have stuck with my original gut feeling.

The spring rolls were a disappointment. All we could taste was the fresh mint leaves. And the raw veggies were poking out of the wrapper making this a mess, better eaten as a salad.

The crisp was BIT-TER. Thatboy actually thought it was pretty good, but I couldn't eat more than a bite before pushing my plate over towards him.

The goods from the Mira Mesa Farmer's Market:

Tomatoes and Rhubarb

And the recipes:

Asian Vegetable Rolls (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

Local ingredients used:
green onions (Oceanside farmer's market)
mint (Irvine farmer's market)
cilantro (Oceanside farmer's market)

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

Local ingredients used:
Strawberries (Oceanside farmer's market)
rhubarb (Mira Mesa farmer's market)

Meanwhile, wanna hear something kinda creepy? You remember how Thatboy's photographs are being sold here in San Diego? Well, yesterday a couple bought one of his pictures....of me....and they're planning on hanging it in their living room, in place of a television. Wouldn't that give you the heebie jeebies?

Sometimes you just deserve it

Last week we got some unexpected bad news - and seriously people, I am FED UP with bad news. Thatfamily doesn't need any more bad news, we're all full up here. Thatmom is submitting the family for sainthood after all we've been through in the past year.

So this past weekend, I headed up to Thatmom's house for a little spoiling, while Thatboy stayed home to play surfbum with a couple friends who came down for a visit.

Friday I began my assignment of finding a food my 17 year old cat would eat. He's decided he doesn't want to eat anymore....well, he doesn't want to eat catfood. Understandably, he still is a huge fan of cheese, butter, and sugar cookies. We had no success Friday night, but Thatmom said he perked up having me around. Thatmom and my next task was to make dinner, one of her favorites of my recipes - shrimp with peapods. Although, somehow her cooking for me turned into me fixing dinner for the two of us, which is never a problem in my book. After dinner we curled up on the couch and watched Law and Order and cracked each other up. We speak a language, Thatmom and I, that no one else understands, and most of the time doesn't require a word to be said.

Saturday we hit up the mall. I was clutching my cell phone in my little hand all morning because I had gotten a text soon after waking that Sweetcakes was about to start pushing out her little Sweetcupcake. Only my friends text from the hospital bed, seriously! I texted Sisterwife who promised to let me know as soon as Sweetcupcake made her arrival. True to her word, I got the message that both mother and baby did exactly what they were supposed to do and everything worked out perfectly. Satisfied that everything had gone so well, I could concentrate on shopping.

Hearing that I was running low on my summer reading, Thatmom picked me up a little something to read this weekend on our first vacation of the summer:

I am so excited!

Then it was back home for lunch and relaxing till Thatbrother came over to go out to dinner with us. Thatmom had been craving a burger since Friday night, and asked Thatbrother if he knew any gastropubs in the area. As a matter of fact, Thatbrother knew of the perfect location, just around the corner from Thatmom's house.


Thatbrother is a frequent attendee at The Crow Bar for drinks, appetizers, meals, etc. So we let him lead the way with ordering. Although, he didn't know about the secret menu, which we only found out about AFTER our meal. Guess we'll have to go back to try that out! There's a huge selection of wines and beers, so everyone found something to imbibe.


How cute are the plates?



We started out with a huge honking bread plate to go with our....you guessed it! Cheese! You KNOW how Thatfamily is about cheese.


The cheese plate here lets you pick which cheeses you'd like, giving a selection of 12 to choose from. We each picked out a favorite - Remember that "Bermuda triangle" goat cheese I raved about earlier this week? Well, it was on the menu, so I couldn't wait to share it with my family who was as enthralled as I was. Thatmom wanted a cheddar and lucky for us, there was a 12 year aged cheddar from Wisconson on the menu. Thatbrother wanted a sheepsmilk cheese, and so we went with the san andres, which was perfectly nutty - an excellent quality in a cheese.


Thatbrother ordered the ahi burger with green bean "fries" which are really just perfectly grilled green beans. He assured himself that someone else would get the sweet potato fries before going with the green beans, because he couldn't choose one over the other.



When I first looked at the menu for The Crow Bar I was SO excited for the duck fat fries. I'd only heard of these delicacies and they're supposed to be a foodie's dream. Thatbrother warned me I'd be disappointed, but we ordered a side for the table anyway. I was thoroughly underwhelmed. They didn't taste any different than regular fries. Bah!


Thatmom got the burger she'd been craving - topped with two kinds of cheese, tallegio and gorgonzola. She loved the tomato marmelade used instead of ketchup.


At the recommendation of both Thatbrother and the waitress, I tried the Cubano. MMMMMMMM. If the duck fat fries underwhelmed me, this sandwich certainly more than made up for them. The cheese was perfectly melty, the pork loin and nueske ham added just the right about of saltiness, and the pickles gave it the perfect zing. The sweet potato fries far surpassed the duck fat ones!

We stopped off for Red Mango on the way home and watched a movie before Thatbrother headed home.

Sunday we met up with Repro, Nissan, Bass, and Mustang for breakfast.



Back when I was in high school, my friend Philly and I used to grab lunch at this tiny little hole in the wall place, Pacific Whey. It was down the street from our school, and had the most amazing sandwiches. Our little sandwich bakery has since expanded with two other locations. The one we went to on Sunday morning still has great food, but this branch has something the other two locations don't - a view!



After breakfast, Thatmom and I headed to the salon for a little mani-pedi pampering. And then came our other big task for the weekend - Thatmom needed a lounge chair and an umbrella for the back yard. So we began a search of Orange County for a store that still carried either. We didn't have much luck, until we came to Lowe's which not only had a lounge chair, but it was even on sale!

Then we went home where I promptly fell fast asleep. When I woke up, Thatbrother was there and everyone was hungry. Thatmom ordered her favorite meal - pizza. When we went to pick it up, I dragged Thatmom into Riteaid where we found TADA - a patio umbrella. For $35! Missions accomplished.

And since I haven't posted any of my Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes in a while, I'll give you one which also serves as a preview of our upcoming weekend trip! I will warn you that this dish really needs rice or something underneath - otherwise it's pretty much soup with chicken in it. But look at those colors! Gorgeous, right?

Chicken Recuerdos de Tucson (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

Local ingredients used:
tomatoes (from Oceanside farmer's market)
corn (From Oceanside farmer's market)
oregano (From Oceanside farmer's market)
basil (From Oceanside farmer's market)

So dramatic

Thatbrother was born into the wrong family. Name a sport, and he follows it. Without training a day, he ran a 10k and came in first for his division. He plays golf with his friends, was on the baseball team in high school, and is always up for a pickup game of basketball. Normal boys his age get this love of athletics from their fathers. But not in our family. Every one in our family is more interested in theater than sports. Thatmom took part in every camp play growing up. Thatdad was auditioning for Broadway shows, and well, we all know I took my theater love allllll the way through college.

While many other parents had season tickets to baseball games, or college football games, Thatparents had season tickets to the performing arts center. When Thatdad died, Thatmom decided she didn't want to go to the rest of the shows this season by herself. We divied up the tickets for the remaining shows between family and friends.

Saturday it was Thatboy and my turn to see a show - "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," one of Thatdad's favorite movies. During the show it made me sad to think about how he much he would have enjoyed it.

We took our seats and were introduced to the seatholders beside us, who had grown to be friends with Thatparents over the years. Even though their relationship was relatively superficial, they mentioned how much they had enjoyed spending time with Thatdad and how saddened they were by his death. It reminded me how many lives he touched.

The show itself didn't live up to expectations - well with the exception of the flying car which had Thatboy staring, mouth agape like a kid in a candy store. One of the dancers was probably 7 feet tall, and I couldn't watch any dances without becoming completely distracted by his height. Which was probably all for the best given that most of the dancers were out of step with each other. The female lead had such a distinct break between her chest and head voice that it sounded like two different people singing. And then there was the kid who was definitely channeling Carol Channing.........

The other big Saturday plans were a trip to the farmer's market with Thatmom. I main things we were looking for? Asparagus and wild mushrooms for bread pudding. I had explained to Thatmom that we probably wouldn't find asparagus because the growing season is pretty much April. We had decided that a good alternative would be either zucchini or leeks. But low and behold, when we showed up at the farmer's market, there was asparagus everywhere! Must be because of the unseasonably cold weather we had this spring.

No trip to a farmer's market is complete without picking up some strawberries.


My favorite stall in the Irvine Farmer's Markets has the most gorgeous greens and herbs. I always stop by here to pick something up.

That mom was a little disappointed that we weren't going to be using leeks, which she loves. I can't blame her - I love leeks too. So I agreed to pick up some leeks and use them to top our grilled chicken.

The stash:


peaches
parsley
mushrooms
broccoli sprouts
tomato
maui onion
asparagus
strawberries
mint
plums

And the results:


Asparagus and Morel Bread Pudding (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

I was a little concerned about this recipe for a couple of reasons. First because I don't like asparagus. What I didn't realize, was that Thatmom isn't a huge asparagus fan either. I also was 99% sure we wouldn't find morels, and I was right! Luckily I followed Camille Kingsolver's suggestion of using wild mushrooms instead, which we could get our hands on. Thatbrother really liked the bread pudding, but I think it's because it had mushrooms in it. Thatmom was surprised by how much she liked it, given her dislike of both asparagus and bread pudding, but she did note that next time she would prefer it to have some more herbs/spices as she felt it was a little bland. Thatboy felt that the bread pudding met his expectations. As for me? I impressed myself by eating asparagus! They didn't have nearly the bitter flavor I associate with asparagus, nor did they have the mushy texture. It definitely made me realize that a great way to get kids to eat vegetables is to have them help make the dish, because there was no way I was going to miss eating this gorgeousness. And it really was gorgeous!



Local ingredients used:
Spring onions (from Oceanside Farmer's Market)
Multigrain bread (From Oceanside Farmer's Market)
Asparagus (From Irvine Farmer's Market)
Wild Mushrooms (From Irvine Farmer's Market)
Parsley (From Irvine Farmer's Market)
Oregano (From Oceanside Farmer's Market)

"Leafy greens are nature's spring tonic."

I came up against my first battles in cooking through Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. I knew it was going to be a problem after reading the first chapter on asparagus and the short growing season. Although I scoured the farmers' markets looking for spinach for the spinach lasagna, I was pretty sure I wouldn't find it.

Kingsolver explains how to determine what produce is in season by describing a plant she calls the vegetannual - a hybrid which miraculously grows every fruit and vegetable as an illustration of the lifecycle of a plant. If you think of how a plant grows, this makes perfect sense. The first thing out of the ground is going to be the stem and leaves, hence the first produce season is made up of leaves - spinach, kale, lettuce, chard. They wilt and wane when the weather gets warm - and here we are in July.........and it's HOT, so no spinach. (On a side note, I DID find one place that still had some spinach at the Irvine farmer's market - but a day late and a dollar short. The lasagna had already been made)

So I had to decide what to do - should I sub in a different, more seasonal vegetable? Or take the easy way out and head the grocery store where I can find spinach year round. I knew I could use chard, which manages to stick around longer than most other greens, but I thought I might be pushing my luck a bit with serving Thatboy chard two nights in a row, so I relented and picked up some spinach from the supermarket.

My second problem was that San Diego doesn't have a lot of dairy farms, making local cheese a bit hard to find. I knew my local cheese shop got their mozzarella and ricotta from a place in LA and research showed it was exactly 102 miles from my home...just 2 miles over the typical "100 mile radius" that determines if something is local or not. Close enough, right?

Today's Farmer's Market field trip was to Rancho Bernardo's Farmer's Market.

The RB Farmer's Market was disappointing after the Oceanside one. There just wasn't much produce. I stopped off at my cheese shop on the way back.

The stash:

Eggplant
Burrata - seriously they had just unloaded it. There was no way I was leaving without it.
Mozzarella
Ricotta
Bermuda triangle - a triple cream goat cheese. I like to pick up a new cheese every time I go. This one is fantastic on some toasted french bread.
Prima Donna - a gift for Thatmom, it's one of her favorites

And the results:

Spinach Lasagna (recipe can be found at animalvegetablemiracle.com)

I have to say, fresh ricotta in spinach lasagna is heavenly. You wouldn't think it would make that much of a difference but oh golly does it. A world of difference. I didn't even season the ricotta, just spooned it right out of the container. Even Thatboy noted that he prefers meat lasagna to vegetarian lasagna (which is funny given that 90% of the time I make spinach lasagna, just because it's so much faster and easier than having to cook the meat) but he really liked this one. (Don't tell him about the whole wheat noodles...I didn't) He might have even said it was the best spinach lasagna he ever had, but I might have been a little light-headed from the ricotta.

Local ingredients used:
ricotta (from Gioia Farms)
mozzerella (from Gioia Farms)

Ready for a new adventure?

Last year around this time I was reading Ruth Reichl's Garlic and Sapphires. Remember how much fun we had as I "cooked the book" and made all the recipes? Well it's been almost a year, and as fate would have it, I've started another book that revolves around food, eating, and contains a bunch of new recipes. So I've decided it's time for another "cook the book." This one, however, requires a little more of me than stopping off at the store after reading each chapter.

Barbara Kingsolver is one of Thatmom's favorite authors. I remember when I was young seeing her collection of every book Kingsolver had written, neatly lined up on her bookshelf in her office. When I was in high school, The Bean Trees was on our reading list one year, and being familiar with the author I was eager to read it. I've been afraid to change a tire on my car ever since.

When I saw Kingsolver's latest book in the bookstore I was surprised to find it in the nonfiction section. I took a closer look. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - A Year of Food Life. It's the story of how Kingsolver and her family picked up and moved from Arizona to Virginia and attempted to live off the land for a year. Locally grown, caught, and killed food - including that produced on their very own farm. The idea is intriguing and romantic. Almost Rosseauian (is that a word? As in, relating to the French philosopher Jean Jaques Rosseau, and returning to a state of nature.) I immediately added the book to my reading list, but it's taken me until now to begin it.

The idea of "local eating" or localtarianism or locavores isn't a new idea. I'm very behind on the trend. And I want to preface this by noting that I am not plannig on going local. There are plenty of people who have taken a "1 month challenge" to eat locally and that's not where this blog is about to go. However, I did figure that as long as I was going to make these recipes, I would do my best to try to use local ingredients.

And I'm pretty lucky. In San Diego, there's a farmer's market every day of the week but Monday - and since it's summer, many of them are even in the evenings! Now, because the book takes place over a year, not everything is going to be available to me during these summer months. I'm still going back and forth over whether I'm going to sub in supermarket finds or try to find substitute produce - you'll have to stick around and find out.

I decided to start this new adventure on my way up to grab a bite to eat with Sweetcakes. I stopped off at the Oceanside Farmer's Market to pick up ingredients for the first recipe - Eggs in a Nest.

I like to read aloud to Thatboy - even though he hates it and most of time ignores me. The first section of the book I read aloud to Thatboy was about heirloom tomatoes. Thatboy HATES raw tomatoes, but the spoiled brat has decided he loves heirlooms. He'll only eat heirloom tomatoes. If I serve tomatoes in salads, or on sandwiches or burgers his first question before determining if he'll eat it is "Are these heirloom tomatoes?"


So what did I end up with?
corn
chard
basil
oregano
rosemary
cilantro
strawberries
tomatoes
and multi-grain bread
not pictured: chocolates!!! It's not a San Diego farmer's market without chocolate, we have so many artisan producers down here.

And then it was off to meet Sweetcakes. Since it's been a few years since I've lived in Orange County, I forgot what a zoo parking in San Clemente was. Sweetcakes wasn't very familiar with the area either so we both ended up being the exact same amount of late. Sweetcakes picked the restaurant and the view was definitely worth the parking troubles.

For both of us, it was our first trip to La Galette Creperie, but the older couple seated next to us informed us that this was one of their favorite restaurants.

Sweetcakes ordered the Farallon - mushrooms, chicken, herbed potatoes in a honey rosemary sauce. She loved it and kept offering me bites - but I'm not one to get between a pregnant woman and her food. If you look closely, you can get a glimpse of Sweetcupcake - who is waiting to make her arrival any day now. In fact, I kept having terror visions that Sweetcakes would go into labor during our visit.

I had the Caprese, one of my favorite combinations.

Mozzarella, roma tomatoes, basil, and basalmic dressing. There is something SO good about fresh mozzarella. I decided that I was going to pick some up from my cheese store as soon as possible.

It was all too soon when we realized Sweetcake's meter was probably long overdue and it was time to say goodbye. I have a feeling I won't be seeing her again until Sweetcupcake's arrival.

As for my first Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (AVM) recipe, it was a complete and total sucess. When I told Thatboy we were having poached eggs, chard, and brown rice he told me he thought it was going to be "too healthy." When I told my friend Tesseract what I was making there was a long pause on the other side of the phone line before she cackled "yeeaaaahhh....you let me know how that goes."

I have to admit, I wasn't incredibly excited about the idea...until I started cooking it. I LOVED how colorful it was! There is something about eating a meal that has so many colors of the rainbow - red tomatoes and chard, orange carrots, green chard, and white onions. Then it was just so darn cute with the little eggs in their spaces. Finally, there was the taste. Simple, but SO good. Thatboy said I had to call Tesseract back and tell her "I loooooved it, Thatboy looooooved it and you really missed out. So there." I didn't call her back. But I do enjoy when Thatboy enjoys a meal so much. Especially when he tried to tell me he doesn't like a main ingredient...like chard.

Eggs in a Nest (recipe available at animalvegetablemiracle.com)
Local ingredients used:
Chard (from Oceanside Farmer's Market)