Rain Rain Go Away

Told ya I’d be back. It is now Sunday Monday of after another over scheduled weekend, and I am trying to catch up back to last week.

Anyways, it rained last Monday, hard a few times, and I managed not only to bike to the University library and home again without getting significantly wet, I also drove out McFarland to pick up a book donation, and managed to get those boxes into the library before the rain really hit. And the basement only leaked a little bit. Tuesday I went to yoga by car and then met somebody for a walk and didn’t get rained on. But I had a haircut at 4:00 and around then the rain really started and the basement really leaked. Shop-vac-able. That is more than I can sop up with just towels. And it was extra frustrating because it didn’t seem that bad early in the evening, but when I went to check at 9:30 it was bad. And it hadn’t really stopped raining yet, so hard to clean up because it was still coming in. But by about 11:30 it was mostly dried up and the worst consequence was that I didn’t sleep very well. I kept thinking I heard more rain falling and getting nervous about the basement. And I also didn’t get as much done on CSA recipes as I would have liked.

CSA recipes? Last fall my CSA announced they’d be stopping doing the full May to November season, with 26 weeks of boxes, but would do a 4-box season in June, plus amp up the number of strawberry and tomato U-Picks they do. I thought I mentioned it someplace on this blog but can’t find it. (If you find it let me know!) All this meant I thought I wouldn’t be doing any recipes for them this season, but turns out we’re doing a kind of “recipe-lite” for the short season. In prior years I’d always do one or two original recipes (most some of them are here; I have a lot of saved files littering my computer desktop that are recipes I’m supposed to add, and see Tipi’s newsletter here, with lots of recipes); originals meant cooking something based on the week’s veggie box, photographing the dish, and writing it up. Then there’d also be 5-6 searched recipes, where I’d find an online recipe using the week’s produce, link to the recipe and a picture, and add a head note with tips, substitutions, etc. For this short season, we’re only doing the 6 searched recipes. So less time consuming than the originals. But I still only got 3 of my 6 done Tuesday evening because of having to clean up flooding.

So the boxes have started and and the first one’s lovely (see below), though I wonder if I should have signed up for all four. I think my feeling was, shit, if they’re only doing four, I’ll take all of ’em, but that still means a box per week, when I have always done every other week before. Plus these early season veggies can be less preservable, like lettuce, but of course I can freeze blanched greens. And rhubarb.

Wednesday was another Jasper day. We started off with a stroller walk to the bagel store, and we stopped at a playground where coincidentally there were about a thousand kids. And parents. I think it was some kind of end of school playground meetup. With donuts. This is the playground with one big kids play structure and one that’s better for little kids. It was a little tough to keep track of Jasper with so many kids around. Most of them were older and able to get around on the structure without too much worries about them falling off although there were a few kids Jasper’s age. One whose mom was watching him like a hawk (like Jasper’s grandma) and another who seemed a bit abandoned, but who didn’t fall off of anything, thankfully. Also thankfully Jasper was happy with his apples and the bagel stick we bought and he didn’t get too interested in the donuts.

We played in the screen room with the kitties, and had lunch, and generally had a good day although no nap, until we went to the co-op by car and he conked out in his car seat on the way home. He seemed ready for a nap after lunch, he put his head down and wanted his bottle and books and cuddle, but then just didn’t go to sleep in his crib.

I’m a little out of whack day-wise here since the CSA box was Thursday, and Jasper came Wednesday. And the recipe writing was Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Tuesday, in between my walk and my haircut, and the rain, I rolled up these filo cheese twists thinking I could pop them in the oven when I got back from my haircut, for dinner. Trying to use up that box of filo that I was afraid woulda been damaged by thawing and re-freezing during the stormy weather right before Memorial Day. It was fine. And the twists were good although we all liked the sesame ones better than the everything bagel topping ones.

Other cooking experiments include the King Arthur Swirled Rhubarb Bars, that came out a lot better the second time. I think I put in too much flour the first time and the rhubarb kind of sat on top instead of sinking in. With less flour the bars are cakier and chewier. I have now made them a third time, too, and was careful about the flour, and they came out more like version two than one.

Friday morning Susan and I walked to Colectivo and it was sunny and nice. And still nice to bike to my eye doctor’s appointment, a quick check up for the clinical trial I’m in for laser treatments for high eyeball pressure with no other symptoms of glaucoma. And I’m doing good there – pressure staying well under targets. Neither of the two people who examined me wore gloves which kinda bothered me but when UW Health sent me the survey I caved and gave them a 3-Fair on safety and did not add specific comments. After, I swapped my bike for the car and bought kitty kibble and litter, and few random other groceries, like brown sugar for more rhubarb bars, but I completely forgot white sugar.

I made stuffed shells for dinner with some of the spinach the shiitakes from CSA in the filling. The sauce was basically Marcella sauce made with a can of tomatoes I had in the pantry and the last jar of tomato puree that I made with CSA U-Pick tomatoes and froze last summer, that I found when defrosting the freezer. It was really good sauce and I was hoping there’d be some extra, but it only covered the shells.

Then it was another rainy Saturday and another overscheduled weekend. Saturday was market in the AM, getting rained on biking home; West HS graduation in the afternoon; prep the cuke soup for the Historic Madison food history thing to be on Sunday afternoon. Sunday was get up and walk quick for coffee (the overleaf is flowers that Susan & I saw on Friday NOT blooming, now blooming on Sunday); make rhubarb bars 3 to take to Al & Emma & Jasper’s cookout; make breakfast. Then pack up and head to the food history event. That I had been kinda stressed about, but turns out I did not need to be. They asked us to make 125 samples, which I did, but there were only about 50 people there.

What else … we bought flowers for the table for when the graduates came back for gluten-free cake with chocolate frosting (no pics of that cake). Here’re the petals dropped on the back stairs when I took them out to the compost.

And here’re the graduation photos.