Friday, July 11, 2008

Greens, Greens, and uh Greens!!





Top photo is today's CSA bounty...I am going to get good at my greens before this is over! Today we got collards, chard, spinach, leaf lettuce, kohlrabi, a few pea pods, and some broccoli. I have been surfing through veg web and have found some really great sounding recipes for the chard. One is Tuscan beans and chard which really sounds good to me today, not entirely sure why but it really does. (Plus I have a bean loving friend coming later so she might enjoy some with me!) I have finally felt like cooking and playing in the kitchen again. That used to be one of my favorite things to do on a "weekend" but for some reason I let work beat it out of me! Yesterday, I made loaves of lemon tea bread, two loaves of hand made white bread, a loaf of cottage dill bread (machine) I also did some lemony herb chicken some cheesy potatoes and some garlic and herb wheat noodles. I was on a lemon kick yesterday and was really happy to be herbing everything up with stuff from my yard!!! So here are two bread recipes for those interested...
Lemon Tea Bread
3/4 cup milk 1 Tblsp fine chopped lemon balm
1 tblsp fine chopped lemon thyme
1 tblsp grated lemon peel
2 cups flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt 6 tblsp butter
1 cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup and it is lovely) 2 eggs
Cream butter and sugar and eggs and beat well.
Add dry ingredients and milk. Mix till just blended
Bake at 350 for 50 min.
Glaze: To the juice of 2 fresh lemons (I only had one and it was plenty) mix in just enough confectioners sugar to make a glaze consistency Pour over tea bread while it is still hot from oven.
Cottage Dill Bread
Put these in your machine according to your machine directions
1/2 cup lukewarm water
3/4 cup cottage cheese
1 tsp. salt
2 tblsp sugar
2 tblsp marg. or butter softened
3 1/4 cup flour
1 tblsp dry milk (if I do not have I leave this out with no noticeable effects)
1 tblsp dry minced onion
1 tblsp dill seed ( I used several sprigs of fresh dill from the garden)
1 1/4 tsp yeast
Use Setting 2
Other photos, 2nd is Artist Gwen Frostic's shop/printers. They print her hand carved designs onto all sorts of things and are so inexpensive! The shop itself is something to behold and has many trails behind! All her work was based in nature and is really nice. They maintain a website where you can order online and read about her!
3rd is the Pt. Betsie lighthouse. We were able to tour it and walk to the top for a fantastic view of Lake Michigan. Interesting stories and nice work in progress on it's restoration and very inexpensive to tour I think it was 6 dollars for two adults and two children. The beach nearby is great for rock hounds!!!
The last is our self portrait at Frankfort with another smaller lighthouse in the background. Another fantastic beach on Lake Michigan. More photos of the trip to come we still haven't gotten to show you the Drive in!!!

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