Little Texas Love Nest: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

I love my CSA

How gorgeous are those veggies?! And if you think they're as beautiful as I do, you should have seen the rainbow chard we had this week. I wanted to put it in a vase in my living room, but I went ahead and cooked it up like this instead. It was scrumptious! We've been getting a box of veggies like this for the last 6 weeks and I couldn't be happier with them. They come from the family farm Scott Arbor in Seguin, not far from here. We went in the fall and helped plant garlic and had a good time, as long as Willie wasn't trying to eat rocks! I love planning my meals around what veggies we're going to have and I"m looking forward to picking this box up after work and making a big yummy salad to go with Pioneer Woman's pasta puttanesca.

A couple times the boxes have contained more than we could eat in a week and I've gotten to preserve some radishes and turnips by lacto fermenting them so we can enjoy them a little at a time.

Are you a member of a Community Supported Agriculture group? You can find one near you by searching here. I strongly recommend it. It encourages us to eat locally and in season and sometimes stretches my creativity by forcing me to try new recipes with veggies I don't make all that often. I had no experience with Bok Choy before (that's what Joi Choi is up there) but now I've made it a few times and we really enjoy it, especially with this Salmon bulgogi recipe. Summer veggies are my favorite, I can't wait to see what's in my box then!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Thirsting for the Lord

Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." -John 4: 13-14

Thirst is something I'm thinking a lot about lately. The word comes up frequently in scripture in a literal sense as a thirst for water, and also a thirsting only God can quench. I think in my life I try too often when I am thirsty to turn to something besides that which will really quench it.

Scene: I'm at home and feeling thirsty, what to I do? Well, that depends on what time it is, but I'm most likely to grab a cup of coffee, a soda, a beer, or if I'm trying to be healthy maybe a tea or juice. It's most assuredly not water except for in the middle of the night when I have to have water by my bed.

Scene: I'm feeling a little low, a little bored, like something is missing. What do I do? Play with Will, turn on the tv, turn on the computer, go outside, work. I'm trying more and more to turn to God when I am thirsting for him, which is what that "something's misisng" thing really is, I think.

So my focus this Lent is to try to retrain myself to recognize thirst as what it truly is, a desire for something that my body (or my soul) truely needs, and to quench it with the appropriate thing as opposed to covering it up with a lesser substitute. In that effort I've given up drinking anything except for water while reading what the Bible says about thirst and turning to the one who will give me eternal life.

It's been on since Ash Wednesday last week. I went around and around on whether I would count Sundays as an exception and I know there are different thoughts on that but on the word of a deacon at church, I decided to have a cup of coffee with Brian yesterday morning. Today I'm back to water alone and find thoughts turning to God with much more frequency.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Pinning it Down {1} Valentines

This is my first time to participate in the Pinning it Down link up going on at Everyday Snapshots but it is not nearly my first time to make or do one of the many, many pins I've collected! I think I might be going overboard with how much time I spend on Pinterest, but I say often, all my best ideas these days come from there. I look forward to showing off more finished products in the future. Today, though, I'm bringing together some of the pins I have decided to do in honor of Valentine's Day.
First, I ~~copied~~ was inspired by this pin to create a Valentines mantel. I put it together before hosting my sister in law's wedding shower a few weeks ago. After the party I removed all the kitchen gadgets from the arrangements and returned my cookbooks to their shelves. All the lovey heart decor stayed. I love the idea of painting the ordinary glass jars to look like antique blue mason jars, I'll be using them a lot in the future. I know I'll have another reason to use the coffee filter roses too.

When I was a kid, my mom and I used to recycle my broken crayons by melting them down in muffin tins. Apparently that idea is still around only made much cooler by the silicon baking molds there are now. When I saw this pin I knew I was going to use the idea somehow. I planned on making star shapes to give to my mom's and sister-in-law's 4th grade classes for good luck before the STAAR test. Who knows, maybe I'll make a set for my own class, but freshmen might not appreciate them as much. As a test run I went ahead and made Valentines ones like in the picture for the kids in Will's Kindermusik group and the daughters of my friend, Will's babysitter. Here's how they turned out.

Not forgetting Valentines for the adults in our life, I made a batch of this raspberry freezer jam. It's sweetened with honey and oh so delicious! I made a blueberry batch for us to keep.

Ok, one more! Wishing I was a better photographer, I tried to recreate this picture with my own chubby cupid baby. We had fun planting kisses then taking pictures, but I don't think they turned out very well. Still, I used one shot to make cards to send out. I know there are a lot of pins with advice for improving photography skills, so maybe I'll work on that next.