Mini Naan Pizzas

We found these mini garlic naan at Sam’s Club last week.  We seem to always find something not on our list that we just have to try whenever we shop there.  This time it worked out really well.

We’ve been making more of an effort to eat at home rather than going out to eat, especially when it’s just because we’re in a hurry, tired, or haven’t planned something.  We’re trying to treat going out to eat as more of an event, and less of a necessary thing.  That means sometimes we need something really fast and easy at home.  Because sometimes it’s just one of those days; it’s late, we’re tired, the kitchen is already a mess, we have a million other things to do, etc.  Fast and easy wins the day.

These mini naan pizzas are fast, easy, and delicious.  They’re about the fastest option I’ve found for pizza since the naan is already cooked and you’re really only melting cheese.  They’re pretty similar to the Summer Vegetable Pizza I’ve shared before, but don’t involve the refrigerated crust.  We have also made our own crust using the bread machine, but that process takes about an hour, so isn’t the best option when we need something in a hurry. 

Using the mini naan is great not only because it’s fast, but it’s also super easy to customize them to individual tastes.  I hate mushrooms, but Nick loves them.  I love onions, but Nick prefers not having them on his pizza.  I made two mini pizzas for each of us, and it was perfect for dinner. 

I just used the ingredients we had on hand, and didn’t measure anything, so I don’t have an exact recipe.  I think it would be pretty hard to mess these up, though, and the possibilities are almost endless, depending on the vegetables you enjoy and have on hand.

For these I used a lone squash that was lingering from last week’s produce box, a tomato, some kale from the produce box, a handful of mushrooms, part of a red onion that was left over from another meal, shredded mozzarella cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, olive oil, two garlic cloves, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

Combine the garlic cloves, pressed, in about a tablespoon of olive oil (I just estimated the amount, and it was perfect for four mini pizzas) with a sprinkle of Italian seasoning, and brush over the naan. 

Sprinkle a little cheese over that.

Top with thinly sliced vegetables.  If you’re using kale I recommend putting it on first to keep it from getting too crispy on top.  Sprinkle the vegetables with a little salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning.

Sprinkle some more cheese on top.

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, basically until your cheese is nice and melted and your vegetables are starting to get tender.

Enjoy, while congratulating yourself on having pizza that was faster, cheaper, and healthier than delivery would have been. 

Plant Sales

I really hope you’re not getting tired of all of the plant related posts and pictures.  I’m justifying them by telling myself that most of you who read, or at least comment, regularly live in different regions, countries, or even continents, so hopefully I’m not showing you pictures of what you’re currently seeing in your own backyards.  It’s also my favorite time of year, and I get so excited over the plants and flowers.  This winter seems to have been particularly harsh and long, so I’m even more enthusiastic about plants and flowers than usual.

The local community college has a plant sale every year.  The horticulture program does it.  The plants are things the students have grown, and the money goes back into the horticulture program.  It’s one of the first places GrandMommy took me when she was cultivating my love of gardening.  I’ve gone every year since then (even though the first year going without her was really hard), and it’s something I look forward to every year.  They seem to have mostly vegetables, and the prices are better than the stores here, so it’s a great way to get the vegetable garden started every year.  The sale runs Thursday - Saturday, so I arranged to take a half day off of work yesterday so I could go plant shopping.

We’re changing things up a little bit with our garden this year; we’re scaling way back on the number of tomatoes we plant (we just don’t eat enough of them to justify the number I usually plant), we’re going to try growing corn this year (though it’s still early to plant it), we’re adding a few cucumber plants, and we’re trying a few eggplant plants.  We tried planting eggplant seeds last year, and absolutely nothing sprouted.  We think that’s probably because a certain three legged dog has a habit of rolling and digging in the raised beds, not because our yard isn’t eggplant friendly.  So we’re trying plants rather than seeds, in hopes that Duke won’t destroy those like we think he did the seeds.  We’re also sticking with planting kale, squash, and zucchini, from seeds.  We’ve had good results from that, and aren’t about to mess with a good thing.  The kale seeds are planted.  The squash and zucchini seeds with be planted either this weekend or next weekend.

So I had a pretty specific list when I went to the plant sale yesterday, which was good because I have a tendency to buy anything that looks interesting when it comes to plants.  Here’s what I bought: seedless cucumbers, a type of heirloom slicing tomatoes, eggplant, purple peppers (not on the list, but we like peppers, so I’ll find a spot for them), and two kinds of flowers (pink vincas and a lavender petunia).  I’m hoping the cucumbers do well because I really like the seedless ones, so it would be nice to grow our own.  Of course I’m interested to see how the eggplant does so we’ll know if we were right to blame Duke for last year’s eggplant failure.  I’m really excited about the purple peppers, just to have something a little different.  I’ve finally determined that when it comes to eating raw tomatoes I definitely prefer the heirloom/slicing variety.  I’m actually not a huge fan of Roma or cherry varieties.  Nick doesn’t have a preference other than not grape/cherry, so heirloom it is.

We also needed more garden soil, so we went to Lowe’s last night and bought several bags while we were there.  I had to look at the flowers, which leads to me buying flowers about 99.99 percent of the time.  We bought marigolds, yellow snapdragons, pink petunias, and these purple and yellow violas.  The violas were on the sale rack, even though they looked great to me.  I always check the sale rack. Sometimes the things on it clearly need a lot of attention, and I don’t buy those because I don’t have the skill set to nurse them back to health.  Sometimes, though, they seem to be on the sale rack just because the store may have a lot of them, and I’m delighted to buy those.  I’ve planted violas before, and they came back a second year, so I’m hoping these will too.  Even if they don’t I’m pretty to happy to have only spent $3.00 on flowers that were originally around $10.00.

Needless to say, we’ll be spending a large part of the weekend outside plating things, so I’ll probably have more flower pictures over the next few days.

How will you be spending your weekend?  Are you planting anything?  Have you been to any good plant sales lately?

We Signed Up For A Produce Box

I’ve been slowly learning to like vegetables as an adult.  Fresh vegetables just didn’t feature much on the menu when I was growing up, so there were some I didn’t even try until the past few years. 

It’s also pretty easy to get stuck in a rut when it comes to buying vegetables.  I love squash, zucchini, peppers, and onions.  It takes little effort and virtually no thought to use them, so I tend to automatically buy those.  I don’t always think about adding different vegetables to the mix, or trying new ones.

A few years ago we signed up for a CSA, and discovered a whole new world of vegetables.  For the first time in my life, I was planning meals around fresh produce, and trying lots of new vegetables.  We liked the CSA so much we signed up for it every year, and from May through October we picked up a box of fresh produce every week.  Our diet was definitely healthier during those months.  That’s also when I discovered that I love beets.

Unfortunately, the farm we bought our CSA from switched over to just wholesale, and we had a hard time finding another farm that was a good fit for us.  A lot of farms only offered full shares (which is too much for just two people), or didn’t have a pickup location that worked for us.  We decided we would just buy our produce from the grocery store and farmer’s markets, but vary what we bought.  That didn’t last very long, Before long, we were back to sticking with our old standbys.

Then I started reading about produce delivery services.  They seem to be becoming fairly popular.  The concept varies a little from company to company; some seem to be focused more on preventing food waste, some seem to be focused a little more on organic produce, and some seem to be very similar to a regular CSA, but with delivery.  It took some time, but I found one with fairly reasonable prices that delivers to us. 

Their focus seems to be organically grown, and sourcing produce as close to home as possible.  Obviously during some months there’s not much (anything?) being grown here, but they source the produce from farms as close to us as possible.  We signed up in February, and have been very happy with it so far.  I set up an account with a default delivery option, which for us is a small bin of mixed (fruit and vegetables) produce. 

We have the option to skip a week, which is nice for when we go out of town.  We also have the option to customize our bin.  There’s a small increase in price if we choose to customize, but it’s worth it to spend a few dollars more on a week we would otherwise be getting something that we just wouldn’t eat.  I’ve been trying not to customize much, unless there’s something we just truly do not like.  After all, a big part of why we’re doing this is to increase the variety of vegetables we eat.  I’m very happy to know that we’ll be able to customize our bin during the summer, though, when we’re usually inundated with certain things from our garden. 

The orders go in a week ahead of time, so that makes it easier to plan meals around what we’re getting.  It also helps me to know that there’s another bin coming every Sunday; it gives me more incentive to use up what’s on hand to make room for the new produce we have coming.  We’re definitely eating more fresh vegetables than we do when we don’t have some sort of subscription service, so I think it’s working out for us. 

What about you?  Do you enjoy a variety of vegetables?  Do you belong to a CSA, or have a produce delivery service?  Do you have to force or trick yourself into eating different vegetables?

It’s World Vegetarian Day

Today is World Vegetarian Day, a day meant to encourage us to eat our fruits and vegetables, as well as to encourage people to become vegetarians.

I’m not a vegetarian, and neither is Nick, but we have embraced the idea behind Meatless Monday, and incorporate one or two meatless days into each week. Neither one of us are very keen on the idea of totally giving up meat, but we do like the idea of reducing the amount of meat we eat. You can read about some of the benefits of going meatless here from Meatless Monday.

One of our favorite meatless meals is veggie tacos. They’re quick, easy, and delicious. I don’t really
have an exact recipe for them. I just use whatever combination of vegetables we happen to have on hand, which is usually squash and zucchini (especially during the summer). I always add chopped onion and bell pepper (usually two different colors) and a handful of fresh cilantro. Saute the vegetables in olive oil, just until they start to soften, then add a package of taco seasoning, and cook according to the instructions on the package. I also add a can of beans, usually kidney beans or pinto beans, whatever we happen to have on hand. We also like to have rice in the tacos. In addition to being delicious, the rice helps absorb some of the sauce and keeps the tacos from falling apart quite so easily. Top it with a little shredded cheese, and you have a delicious meal.

So what about you, are you going meatless today? Are you a vegetarian? Do you participate in Meatless Monday? What is your favorite meatless meal?

Kohlrabi

Last year’s CSA boxes introduced me to a few vegetables I’d never tried before.  No surprise there, really, since I’m a little late to the vegetable eating party.  (I spent many years with green beans and lettuce being about the only vegetables I would eat.) 

One of my new experiences was with kohlrabi.  I had never seen or heard of kohlrabi before it showed up in our first CSA box.  I thought it looked more like something out of a sci-fi movie than something off of a farm.  Fortunately, the farm has pictures of the more unusual veggies to help folks like me figure out what in the world we have. 

Once I learned that I was in fact in possession of kohlrabi, and not something left behind by a UFO, I turned to Google.  I learned that kohlrabi is basically in the cabbage family, that it comes in a few different colors (isn’t the purple pretty?), that the leaves are edible and can be treated basically like any other green, and that you’re really only limited by your imagination and culinary preferences when it comes to preparing and serving kohlrabi. 

Garlic and olive oil are my main go-to things in the kitchen.  If in doubt, I tend to sauté it in garlic and olive oil, and maybe add a little Italian seasoning.  I love garlic and olive oil, and most of the time it’s a good fallback plan.   I decided that garlic and olive oil would be my plan for the kohlrabi.

It had a texture very similar to potatoes (or apples) but smelled a lot like cabbage.  Cabbage isn’t my favorite thing, so I decided on a lot of garlic at that point.  Because the texture reminded me of potatoes I decide to go with a sort of home fry approach.  I just fried pieces of it in the olive oil with lots and lots of garlic, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. 

It turned out alright.   It had a little more of a cabbage flavor than I liked, but it was alright. Nick liked it a little better than I did.  We basically agreed that it’s something we can eat when it comes in the CSA box, but not something we’d choose to buy on its own.

We also tried tossing some chopped kohlrabi into vegetable soup.  I didn’t care for it.  I thought it gave the whole soup too strong of a cabbage flavor.  Nick thought it was okay. After that we pretty much stuck to the original home fry way of preparing the kohlrabi.

The greens were no problem.  We seemed to have some sort of greens in pretty much every box, so we just cooked a big pot of whatever greens we had on hand almost every week, or sautéed them and served them in quiche. 

So what about you?  Have you tried kohlrabi?  Do you like it?  What’s your favorite way to prepare it?  Do you think it looks a little sci-fi?

CSA

We joined a CSA program for the first time last year, and liked it so much we’ve joined again this year.  If you’re not familiar (I wasn’t until a few years ago), it stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is designed to help farmers and local consumers.

Basically, you (the consumer) pay for a share of produce in advance and then receive your share on a weekly basis once the growing season begins.  The benefit for you is that it’s usually far less expensive than what you would pay at the grocery store or farmer’s market, and you know where your food is coming from.  The benefits to the farmer are being guaranteed their money, having funds available at the beginning of the growing season, and sharing some of the risk.  There are no guarantees as to what or ho w much you will receive.  In a bad year everyone gets a little less.

Despite the fact that last year was considered a bad year (it rained incessantly, so some crops were ruined), having a CSA share was a really good experience for us.  We were able to sign up for a half-share, which is more than enough for two people, the pickup location was very convenient, and we both tried a few vegetables we had never had before.  We also ate a lot more vegetables than we ever had before.  The boxes varied some from week to week, depending what was in season, so there was plenty of variety.  The 

produce was organic, and was all very good quality. 

The first box was a little overwhelming, just having a lot of vegetables at once and not having a clear plan as to how to use them, but we learned to plan meals around vegetables and found some great recipes online.  We also had some great vegetable soup.  And we just ate a lot more vegetables, which was a very positive change for us.

It’s exciting to see what the box has every week, and try to guess what will be in the next box.  I also really liked that we were more conscious of eating vegetables while we were getting our box.  I’m really looking forward to this year’s share.  We should be getting our first box sometime in the next four to six weeks, and I can’t wait to see what it has.  

From Our Garden

We planted a vegetable garden for the first time this year.  It’s fairly small because I wasn’t sure how it would do, or how much we’d be able to keep up with.  Honestly, I had my doubts about the seeds ever sprouting.  I don’t exactly have a green thumb.

My husband’s grandmother definitely does have a green thumb, so she has helped a lot with the vegetable garden.  Were it not for her help I don’t think anything would have made it, but with her help we’ve been fairly successful.

We planted bell peppers, banana peppers, lettuce, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes: cherry, Roma, and heirloom.  The lettuce started off great, but didn’t really do much.  We basically ended up with enough for a small salad.  The squash has been doing fairly well, but even the small ones are full of really big seeds.  I think I will try a different kind next year.  The zucchini has been slower.  I’m not sure why because it was planted at the same times as the squash, and is right next to it.  We’ve picked a few squash, and we now, finally, have one little zucchini.  The banana peppers have done well; we’ve picked about eight of them.  The bell peppers are just coming in now.  We’ve picked one full size bell pepper, and there are lots of baby peppers on the plants.  The tomatoes are thriving!  They’re all doing well, but the cherry tomatoes are almost taking over.  We’ve been making lots of tomato dishes and have been giving tomatoes away as well.  They’re so good, and it seems like more are ripening every day right now.

I’m so proud of our modest gardening success. I’ve never grown actual food before.  I planted an herb garden last year, and that was enough to make me want to try vegetables this year.  It’s just a great feeling to grow your own food.  I definitely want to plant a vegetable garden again next year, and I think it’s going to be a little bigger than this year’s.  

It's A Gamble

Last week’s CSA box is going to be the last box for a while; at least until August 22^nd, maybe August 29^th.  We’ve had truly insane amounts of rain in our area, and it has destroyed some of the crops.  They’ve re-planted some, and are hoping for the best.  There will still be about 11 weeks (boxes) to go when it picks back up, and they are hopeful that they will go well.

We knew it was a gamble when we signed up for the CSA; that’s part of the benefit to the farmer - that the consumer shares in some of the risk.  We knew that going in, so it’s not as disappointing as it might have been if they weren’t very up front and honest about that possibility. 

I will miss getting our box for the next few weeks.  I like the market that we pick up from, it’s small but neat and kind of quirky.  We’ve also started to get to know the people from the farm a little bit.  They recognize us on site now, and we’ve met their dog when he came to the market with them.  It’s just a pleasant part of the week, and I will miss that for the next three weeks. 

At this point we’re still planning to join this CSA next year.  I haven’t been very diligent in posting pictures of the boxes, so I’m sharing a few of them in this post.  We’ve received squash, zucchini, blueberries, chard, kale, various lettuces, green beans, peas, tomatoes, kohlrabi, beats, and so much more.  I think (assuming my math is right) that even with missing three weeks of boxes it works out to about $24.00 per box, which is more than we initially thought it would be per box, but I think is still a pretty good deal.  The produce is all organic, and it’s extremely fresh.  I still feel like it’s a good value, and we’re definitely eating more vegetables now, which is worth something in and of itself.  Like I said, it’s a gamble, and we knew that going in.  

Last Week’s CSA Box

Our CSA pick-ups began last week.  I love it so far!  Last week’s box was filled with various lettuces and greens, including tat soi, mustard greens, and several others.  We also had a nice bunch of green onions. 

Salads featured heavily on our menu last week!  We’ve found that chopping all of the greens into small pieces makes for a wonderful salad with great flavor and texture.  I love adding the mustard greens to salad for a peppery flavor.  I also sautéed some of the greens in olive oil for a delicious side dish.  I didn’t measure anything, but here’s the basic recipe: 

About five or six cups of washed, shredded greens (mustard, Swiss chard, tat soi, etc)

Olive Oil (enough to barely cover the bottom of the pan)

2 – 3 chopped green onions

Fresh garlic, pressed or chopped (3 – 6 cloves; I used 6 because we love garlic)

Salt & Pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat.  Add garlic, stir for about a minute, then add everything else and sauté for about 10 minutes. 

Enjoy!

The half share seems very generous so far.  It’s advertised as being enough for two to three people per week, but seems to be a little more than that.  We ate a lot of salad, had the greens, and gave some away to my parents (they had enough for my mom to give one of her co-workers a salad) and Nick’s grandparents.  Nick took the last of it to work last night to share with his co-workers. 

I’m hoping it will last, but we noticed that we ate a lot more vegetables last week.  There’s just something about having a whole box of organic vegetables that is making us very conscientious of using them up.  We planned meals around vegetables, which is a somewhat new experience for us.  We were also mindful of giving away what we couldn’t use, so as not to waste anything.  That was one of our concerns when we signed up for the CSA, but I’m happy to say that everything from our first box was consumed and enjoyed.