First CSA lunch!

A co-worker and I share a box from a local farm, a community supported agriculture scheme. We get ours from Elizabeth Telling Farm, and we got our first share this past weekend.

A salad with lettuces from the share; roasted sweet potatoes and ramps (ramps from the share) with a faux-brat, cut up; steamed wax beans with cajun seasoning; and sugar snap peas sauteed with garlic.

Jeff has the same lunch, but with a real brat and a slice of bread instead of the salad. This may be the first time since I've been making him lunch that we have something that's so similar.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Super-simple lunch

After a long, hot weekend of pretty much never-ending work, I went with a simple lunch today:

Cucumber mango salsa on brown rice, steamed broccoli with a white balsamic vinagrette, spicy! radishes from our garden, and a mango-peach tofu dessert thingy.

The dessert thing was an impulse buy at the grocery store where we stopped for beer to assist us in working in 90+ degree heat. It was only OK. I won't get it again.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

What we did on our (kinda) vacation

Jeff put in some palms that are hardy in our climate. The big one is a Chinese fan palm and the shorter one in back is a pygmy date palm.

The date palm is barely hardy here, but it's in a very protected spot, so we're hopeful. And yeah, Jeff put up the hammock. :)

I've been wanting to add some more storage and counter space to the kitchen for a while. The dresser was one I picked up at a thrift store and then painted. Next weekend, we'll touch it up and seal it. If we give it a week, we can see where the hard-wear spots are and seal accordingly.

You can also see the really cute curtains I recently made. (And my giant pile of lunch toys. They'll go in the dresser once we clean out another cabinet. :)

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Technorati tags: home

Asian festival

We stopped by the Asian Festival yesterday. It was good, but a little too spread out to really pack a good punch. It was held at Franklin Park, which has some beautiful plantings, too.

Bachelor buttons in the perennial garden:

Little boats:

Waterlilies:

A very patient hound dog watching the boats and ducks:

Hanging on one of the stalls:

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The front garden

We've been hard at work on my half of the front yard this year. You might remember that last year, we focused on Jeff's creepy garden, full of succulents and tropical-type plants. My half of the garden was a wild mess last year, so it was time to put some effort into it.

We added a small water garden to one corner. It will have a solar-operated pump by next week, when it arrives in the mail.

A close-up of what's in the little pond. Two water lilies and a plant I forgot the name of. :)

Our happy, happy pinks, moved several times over the four and half years that we've owned the house:

An iris that bloomed yesterday, right after a rain shower:

And our on-the-front-steps herb garden:

More photos are more stuff blooms...

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Technorati tags: gardening

Kaylee as pillow

It's been far too long since I've posted a pic of the dogs. Here's two out of three.

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Technorati tags: dogs

Comfort food lunch

(Just to be sure I didn't forget to take a picture before I ate it, I made this last night and took a photo at home. :)

It's been a really crappy week at work, so I felt I needed a comfort food lunch. It was yummy.

Spinach and radish salad from the garden; whole-grain pasta with Trader Joe's faux-meatballs and dressed with olive oil and herbs from the garden; steamed broccoli raab from the garden with red and yellow peppers, seasoned with salt and pepper; and whole-grain garlic bread.

I'm having great fun with the garden this year - it's nice to be successful. We've been doing work on the non-vegetable gardening, too. Hopefully I'll get some photos of that this weekend.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Oops!

I was so hungry I ate my lunch without photographing it!

I didn't really taste much of it, either, but it was curried kale and mustard with apples (you saw them earlier in the week); broccoli slaw with a soy-ginger dressing; and two each faux-chicken nuggets and faux-corn dogs with ketchup. So you didn't miss much. :)

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Technorati tags: lunchtime

Quick lunch

Had a bit of a panic last night with my iPod, so my lunch isn't as good as I would have liked. Kind of ran out of steam at the end.

A basic stir-fry (though with some kale and spinach from my garden!); rice and orange-soy-chili sauce for the stir-fry; grapes, baby dills, a hardboiled egg and chili sauce; and jumbo raisins and a little box of Japanese chocolates.

Good, but the last two boxes were uninspired (though the pickles were yummy!)

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Birds

(still emptying the camera of photos taken while my computer was in the shop)

A fledgling robin in our yard, tempting the dogs to eat it:

Sparrows bathing in the fountain at the main library:

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Tuno salad!

Oh yum! I finally made tuno salad with my tuno, and it's delightfully yummy!

Curried kale and mustard from our garden with granny smith apples, tuno salad on spinach, crackers for the tuno salad, and fruit salad with mint.

The fruit salad is a little boring looking, because I realized too late I was missing anything red. But it was yummy!

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Sweet pea shawl

I'm finally getting around to posting this... A photo of the sweet pea shawl from The Happy Hooker that I made for my husband's grandmother.

It was a simple pattern, but I didn't much enjoy making it. Plus, I think it's just not quite the right size for most people - too long on the front edge. I wouldn't make it again, but the recipient liked it, so I guess that's the important part.

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Technorati tags: crochet

Veggie garden photos

Hey, I got my computer back, so finally I can show some more pictures of the veggie garden!

Radishes and carrots, nearly ready to be harvested:

Sugar snap peas and spinach:

Kale:

The broccoli raab, finally doing something other than growing gigantic leaves:

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Technorati tags: gardening

Last lunch of the week!

After as busy as work has been lately, I finally have one project completely off my desk, and four more that can actually handle me being gone until Monday. So I'm taking tomorrow off to play in my garden and actually get some crocheting done. Or maybe just lie around with the dogs and read.

Today's lunch was simple, but yummy.

Sauteed mustard greens (from our garden), veggie stir fry, strawberries, and rice.

The mustard greens really do taste a bit like mustard - just a little tang and hint of heat. They're going crazy in the garden, and I'm just trying to keep up with them! It's a pretty nice problem to have, actually. :)

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Singapore noodles two days in a row...

But the recipe is up now! You can find it here.

In the side box, salad with a mix of greens from our garden, carrots, red onions, red peppers, and mung bean sprouts with a toasted sesame, soy & ginger dressing.

In the main box, a baby rice cake, grapes, strawberries, Singapore noodles ringed by quartered tofu puffs, and steamed broccoli and red peppers.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento

Singapore noodles

"A local place makes these, but they're really greasy. Mine aren't so much.

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp canola oil
1/2 cup diced onion
3 cloves minced garlic
1 cup diced red pepper
1 cup diced carrot
1 cup green beans, cut into 3/4" lengths
1 cup mung bean sprouts
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp sweet curry powder*
1/2 Tbsp hot curry powder*
4 cups rice thread noodles, softened according to package directions

1. In wok over medium-high heat, heat oil, then cook onion and garlic until onio begins to soften.
2. Add in pepper, carrots, and green beans and good until the veggies are crisp, but cooked.
3. Stir in bean sprouts, soy sauce, and curry powders and cook for two minutes.
4. Stir in noodles well and cook for two minutes.

*Or your favorite kind. It should have a hint of spiciness, but not be overwhelming.

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Technorati tags: recipes

Mish-mash lunch

We have tons of food, but nothing that called out to me thematically, so it's kind of a jumble today.

Singapore noodles; a salad with greens and radishes from our garden; tofu puffs stuffed with red onions and peppers; and chocolate covered grapes and strawberries.

Work is still insane, and we really don't have any internet access at home right now with two computers in the shop. Things should slow up by mid-week, though - and barring a total and complete disaster, I'm taking Thursday off.

I'll try to get the Singapore noodles recipe up this week. No promises, but I'll try!

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Cleaning out the fridge lunch

A little bit of a weird combination, but tasty nonetheless!

Sweet chili sauce for dipping; hardboiled egg with some almonds; three faux-meatballs; fig newtons and jicama with salt and lime; and carrots and green beans with margerine and Florida pepper.

Egg is surprisingly good with chili sauce!

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento

Tapas lunch

I had a coworker over last night for an emergency decompression (we drank wine and bitched about work), and I threw together some tapas to soak up the booze. Today, I get leftovers.

Chips and mango cucumber salsa; tuno turnovers with shitake mushroom dressing for dip; and tofu puffs and baby carrots for dipping in the leftover dressing.

The cucumber mango salsa is almost perfect. I got it from some new little drinks-and-recipes book from the library, though I've altered it a bit each time I've made it. I think that the next time I make it, I'll have it to where I want it: perfection!

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Hey, Fiona!

I'm eating your kale!

Rice with roasted corn, cilantro, salsa and sour cream; kale and mustard greens (both from our garden) sauteed with red onion and garlic; spinach (again, from our garden), with hardboiled egg and sweet & sour dressing.

Where's the fourth container? Well, due to a camera snafu, I was forced to eat my fig newtons and raisins as a pre-lunch snack.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Look! Radishes!

So remember when I said that even though I was busy, I was going to try to keep up with the blogging? Apparently I lied.

But I present radishes from our garden to appease you. They're super-tasty and I don't think I can ever eat the ones from the store again!

So, we had a busy weekend. I cleaned out the guest room and sewing room, then made curtains for the kitchen. They're very cute, but no photos quite yet. I have an idea that I want to implement for the kitchen, and when I'm done, I'll show you everything.

Also did a lot of yard work. No photos of that, either, but that's kind of boring, so you don't mind. :)

And, to add fun upon fun (and to explain that the whole not-blogging thing isn't entirely my fault), neither Jeff nor I have functioning computers. Last week, Jeff's decided to stop accessing the internet. So this weekend, I took pity on him and said he could use my laptop. Now it's not working, either. I'm not saying there's a connection, just, you know, saying there's a connection.

Sigh.

So, lunch!

Hard-boiled egg, celery, carrots and radishes from our garden (!); Singapore noodles with a slice of lime; orange cauliflower with a generic Thai seasoning, and strawberries and a couple fig newtons.

The Singapore noodles are nearly perfect, and would have been much closer if I had actually picked up rice noodles rather than bean noodles when I was at the store. In my defense, they look almost exactly the same when dried. :) And that's the last of the strawberries. Sad.

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Technorati tags: gardening, home, misc, lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Yum!

Took myself out for lunch at Flaming Wok...

Steamed rice with green beans and mixed veggies (broccoli, onions, carrots and lots and lots of cabbage).

Very tasty. Flaming Wok is one of my favorite places to treat myself to lunch.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime

Even faster lunch

A really quick thrown-together lunch that was still pretty tasty. And I at least got to take my whole lunch hour by closing the door and refusing to open it.

Roasted red pepper, kalamata olives, sundried tomatoes, and goat cheese for the pasta (with parsley garnish); steamed green beans with faux-butter, salt, pepper and a slice of lemon; and strawberries and a strawberry daifuku.

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento, mrbento

Quickie lunch

I am working my ass off at work, trying to get three websites working and laying out a book - all in about a month. So if I'm a little busy, that's why. I wolfed down my lunch today, but it was still pretty tasty.

Kiwi, sauces for noodles and meatballs, faux-meatballs, noodles with peppers and green onions, and steamed carrots with Florida seasoning from Penzey's.

The faux-meatballs are from Trader Joe's and even meat-eaters love them. Get 'em if you can!

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Technorati tags: lunchtime, bento

Oops

So ... I took a photo of yesterday's lunch, but I never got around to downloading it and stuff, so ... oops. It wasn't very exciting, so you didn't miss anything.

Things have been crazy busy at work now, and it being spring, home is busy, too. I promise to try to be better than I was this past weekend about blogging.

My lunch should be tasty today, so I will definitely get the photo up. I should have taken a photo of the lunch I made for Jeff - it was very stylish. Yes, I've started making lunches for him, too. He eats better that way. :)

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Technorati tags: misc