I'VE BEEN EATING

Just in case you were wondering, I have been eating. For the most part, I've even been eating really well. This time of year always makes me crave fresh, not out of a can, vegetables. Saturday mornings, I'll get up really early and head over to the City Market. The outer wall of the market is all conventional fruits and veggies. They save the three middle isles of the market for the local stuff. I try to buy as much of the local produce as I can get away with. It's usually a tad more expensive then the conventional, but still cheaper then the regular grocery store. But I'll buy oranges and mushrooms from the conventional side. There's lots of asparagus and onions on the local side as well as greens and potatoes right now. One evening I made a skillet dish of diced potatoes, green beans, diced marinated tofu and mustard greens. There's a similar dish I make with cabbage, potatoes and Field Roast's Apple Smoked Soysages. I pan fry the potatoes until just about done, then add in the soysage to get the chard bits. Last, I dump in the cabbage with a little bit of veggie broth, put a lid on it and steam until the cabbage is warm. I don't cook the cabbage to death. I like still green with a little bit of crunch. I fixed the mustard greens the same way. I'd never had mustard greens before, but I'm pretty sure I'm having them again. They were delicious.

But the thing I've been most addicted too lately is this beet salad recipe from Whole Living. You can grate the beet and mix it together with the chopped scallions the day before so all you have to do is assemble the salad before you eat it. The first time I made it, I didn't have the cucumber and instead of arugula, I used the mixed salad greens from my garden. I've been leaving out the cucumber ever since. This is my new favorite salad. I can grate the beets in the food processor, dump it all into a giant ziplock and toss it into the fridge and always be ready to have salad. I didn't know I'd like raw beets, but the simple lemon and olive oil dressing makes it the whole thing zing. It's the kind of salad I want to eat every day and making the salad is almost as fun as eating it. Beets are awesome. They stain everything they touch with this bloody purply color. If someone were to walk in before you'd gotten a chance to wipe your hands, they would think you just gruesomely murdered someone. I'm planning on being in a constant state of beet gore just for the thrill of it.