Wild Garlic

{This is what I look like at 7pm on Sunday night after waking up at 6:30am for a 7.5 mile run, Church, laying out, watching Tiger lose the masters, grocery shopping & preping and cooking dinner. eeekkk... sorry!}

Maybe it's because I just finished reading Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, but I've felt so inspired to blog and blog about FOOD! I do not, however, feel inspired enough to cook through an entire cookbook in any amount of time. I loved the movie and I really loved the book, but I couldn't help but think about how expensive the project probably was, especially if you factor in cooking things you don't end up liking? But it would have been fun to have been her friend and invited to dinner at her house. Ok, so pictured above is me with the Wild Garlic! Crazy wild, huh? I had never really heard of it and in my online research I gathered that it was more popular outside of the USA, so measurements were tricky. I decided my first cooking attempt with Wild Garlic would be Wild Garlic Pesto, because as fate would have it...I already had the other ingredients. Most importantly I had a container of raw pine nuts that I've threatened to throw out for a while, but never did. I learned that you don't use the white bulb part of the wild garlic, instead you chop the leaves. The Wild Garlic has a pungent garlic smell {which i love}, and the websites said the taste was mild, but I disagree. Maybe I've been eating jar garlic for too long, but it was strong! {which I also love} I thought it chopped up gorgeously and was just begging for a photo. I bought a little 3-cup food processor that I believe will probably change my chopping life... or at least my salsa life. {made that too, Sunday night} For the Pesto I processed ~ wild garlic, olive oil, toasted pine nuts & Parmesan cheese slivers. I added salt, because the recipe suggested, but I think I probably should have laid off. It is so fresh and delicious tasting. So far so good and I'm very pleased with out FIRST CSA recipe! Stay tuned for the Mediterranean Turkey Burgers I made by incorporating the pesto. Original recipe found here...

Putting my money where my mouth is

As you well know, I made a BLOG with my friends two years ago and decided to make the change to a healthier lifestyle. When I started that journey I was overweight, unhealthy, unhappy, but determined. However, I had NO idea what healthy meant. Two years later, I am NO EXPERT, but my thinking has evolved in many ways.

My health journey progression...

1. Weight Watchers ~ count your points and eat less fat. This totally worked for me! I think in total I lost about 14lbs! Nice jump start!

2. Saw Micheal Pollan on Oprah and she said, "All our food became fat free and we all got fatter!" Considered the idea, what if Fat-Free isn't real food?

3. Read Pollan's book Food Rules to understand what real food was. It's a book that will challenge your thinking & help you learn more about what you're putting in your mouth. Plus you can read it in a day!

4. Evolved to ~ making the best health choices for me and my family at the risk of eating fat & real food!

I think there is much misunderstanding behind food, organics, processed, etc. and even I don't understand all of it all the time. I want to tell you what works for me, and I will on FFC, but please hear me now... I think Weight Watchers is a FABULOUS life changing concept. It changed my life and has changed the life of many others. Case and point... J.Hud! I do live in a world (life & business) where I like to re-invent continuously, so that's what I expanded beyond my original route.

Ok so now that we've chased that rabbit for a while I should probably get back to telling you what I'm really talking about. We joined our local CSA & picked up our first share yesterday!

{Cute market tote courtesy of Allie & monogramming courtesy of Sam}

CSA stands for "Community Supported Agriculture" which is a very fancy acronym for "I pay local farmers to grow my veggies/produce/herbs so I don't have to buy them at the store." I would have taken pictures at the farm, but at the risk of being that weirdo, I refrained.

First share includes...

~Arugula

~Wild Garlic

~Radishes

~Parsley

~Cilantro

~Swiss Chard

~Kale

~Lettuce (can't remember the proper name but it looks kind of like romaine)

I also bought my eggs there, which brings up another story all together, but I'll save that for another time.

In my life, I have never cooked with wild garlic (which is VERY different looking from tame garlic), Swiss chard or radishes. So, one of the most exciting things about being involved in my local CSA to me is to be able to get creative in the kitchen and share with my friends. I am hoping to make some wild garlic pesto this weekend, because I have all ingredients on hand! (How often does that happen without planning?)

Go to this website {Local Harvest} to find out if your community has a CSA. This is a trial run for us and it might make more sense for us to share a share with our friends next season, but we will see! It is a little pricey up front, but as Michael Pollan taught us ~ You can either give your money to local farmers now, or give your money to doctors later. I'm happy to help my farmers.

Will hopefully post recipes soon!