Salad, chik'n sandwich, and CSA veggies

What better to do with only a week of school and an unstarted 20-page paper due Monday than to update my blog? Nothing of course!

This Sunday was the first pickup for my community supported agriculture (CSA) group, which my family joined this year. As a shareholder in a local farm, my family gets a delivery of local organic vegetables each week. Luckily for us, the pickup location is less than a mile from our house and very convenient. This week we got 6 heads of lettuce (of varying varieties), sugar snap peas, bok choy, and strawberries. We still aren't quite sure how to use all the lettuce, but I'm thinking some lettuce wraps and taco salads are in our future. Any other ideas are appreciated.

I took some of the peas, lettuce, and strawberries for lunch yesterday. With the lettuce and strawberries is also an apricot, grapes, and Craisins. I also brought along some baby carrots, applesauce, and a Boca chick'n patty on some bread from a local bakery.

Sandwich time

A lunch that was pretty quick to throw together today: Boca chick'n patty on whole grain bread. I put the baby spinach leaves on the sandwich at lunch time. Also for lunch were carrots, hummus, salted peanuts, and some terrible jelly beans (I can't remember the brand, but they were horrendous. Really waxy and bad flavors). Kicking alongside are some organic raisins, apple juice, mango, kiwi, grapes, and strawberries

Black bean burger

I had a little bit of black beans left from yesterday's quinoa with beans so I decided to make a burger for today. I didn't have a recipe, I just went through the kitchen and mashed up whatever I thought might be good together. I think I ended up with approximately: 1/4 c black beans, 1/4 cup firm tofu, crumbled, 1 T ground flax seed, 1 T wheat germ, 1/2 t Tabasco sauce, 1 t oregano, 1 T frozen defrosted peas, 1/3 slice of crumbled toast. After I mashed it all together with a fork I shaped the mixture into a patty and cooked it in a nonstick pan for a couple minutes on each side. Surprisingly it stayed together. From start to finish, it took less than 10 minutes to make a healthy burger completely from scratch. It ended up being a little bland so I might end up adding some more spices if I try this again.

For lunch, I have the burger on whole grain bread with pre-packed organic spring greens. I just left the top slice of bread off for the picture. Also pictured are some more grapes and baby yellow peppers.

Do an extra snow dance for me tonight so I can have the day off tomorrow.

Tabbouleh and paratha

I'm off from school today for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but I never posted Friday's lunch, so here it is.
I had aloo paratha, which is an Indian flatbread made with potatoes. I've made paratha myself in the past, but it's never as good as the kind I can get in the Indian grocery store, so now I just buy it. This variety is slightly spicy and a little oily.

Continuing with the store-bought ethnic foods is tabbouleh. My mom's tabbouleh is better than the pre-packaged but sometimes it's just easier to buy a huge tub of the pre-made, which is still pretty good. Tabbouleh is generally made from bulghur wheat, parsley, tomatoes, garlic, lemon juice, and onions.

I also had baby carrots, dark chocolate gelt (chocolate coins), and a peanut butter sandwich that I managed to squeeze into a little container to stop if from getting soggy.

Tagging along on the side is some great fresh fruit: mango, cherries, and strawberries