itty bitty cabbage and jack daniels

it's a new week and i'm feeling fully recovered from my easter gluten. and can i just say thank goodness?!

anyway, so we got our CSA from Harvest2U again last week and it was another good one! i definitely feel like we are getting our money's worth from our weekly harvests. i love that we can support some local growers, but we hugely benefit.

this week was kale (mmmm), romaine, beets, collard greens, radishes, the cutest little head of cabbage ever, sugar snap peas, and delicious tangelos. as usual, i took all the tough greens (beet greens, radish greens, collard greens, and kale) and cooked them down southern style. apple cider vinegar, honey, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper, bacon, and onion. it means our giant box of greens gets cooked pretty far down, but i have no complaints. (harvest2u posted that we would be getting some good stuff this week, and change up the massive amounts of greens. this is what eating seasonally means though - it's spring, so the greens are everywhere.)

teeny tiny cabbage. i ate it with a piece of fish one day - it was a one serving cabbage!

so you ask where the jack daniels mentioned in the title comes in?

right here. jack daniels is gluten free and i wanted to try to honey kind. (i'm a southern girl, when i drink, it typically is good ole jack daniels.) i mixed it here with some coke, amaretto, and cherries. the whisky is good: i didn't think it would be strongly flavored, but the sweetness and honey flavor really come out.

on another drinking note, i got a special order from Teavana the other day with the new sakura green tea blend to commemorate the cherry blossom festival in japan. the website description is "An enchanting green tea blend, enhancing the clean refreshing taste of cherry, pineapple, mango, rose, and hibiscus. The Kyoto temple's Sakura blossoms in full bloom make the spiritual coupling of floral and fruit come alive as rose and hibiscus intertwine with lively cherry, mango, and candied pineapple.
Bright and lively cherries and hibiscus blend with soft rose and mango." it's a fruity, pink and very nice. it's not overpoweringly sweet either. in fact, i added a little sweetener. look at this lovely color!

i learned to make soap recently with a friend. the lye is a little scary, but it was so fun! i learned a lot and had a blast visiting. we made all kinds! honey almond oatmeal, chamomile ylang ylang, peppermint coffee, sweet orange green tea, and wintergreen.

it still has to cure so we can use it without getting chemical burns, but they smell great and i'm very excited!

i ate some of this

almond meal crust steelhead trout with lemon and greens.
and this

korean-seasoned ground beef on CSA romaine leaves with icebox pickles. this is a super simple recipe: cook some finely diced carrots in a pan with a little sesame oil, then add ground beef and brown. season with plenty of soy sauce, honey, salt, pepper, garlic, and red pepper flakes. cook until the sauce is sticky and just about gone. we always eat these with tons of rooster sauce or red chili paste. yum!

finally, skyler's lunch!

clockwise from banana: banana (slightly more ripe than skyler likes); plain greek yogurt with raspberry jam; salsa with avocado mixed in; sugar snap peas, radishes, carrots; whole wheat blueberry fig bar; grilled chopped lemon and herb chicken breast on top of plenty of southern-style greens.

that's all, folks!