They're Gawky Teenagers Now

I remember looking up pictures of Buff Orpingtons and Barred (or Plymouth) Rock chickens when I first brought these bad girls home and being taken aback by how ugly they would become as they entered their awkward teenage years (weeks?). Perhaps it's a mother's love, but they don't seem to have ever become funny looking or ugly to me, and I'm pretty sure they've surpassed the ugly phase already and are well on their way to becoming lovely, healthy layers that will supply me with lots of yummy chicken tampons (this is how Hub refers to eggs; way before Howard Stern ever called them that, THANKYOU). If not, Hub will need to whip up some of his unreal-good BBQ sauce and the girls will become dinner.

We have been bringing the ladies out every afternoon, and now they get very angry if left in the house too long: trying to fly out of their box, knocking over their waterer, and generally being temperamental and rebellious teenagers. The plan was to move them outside permanently this weekend, but with stupid rain on the forecast, we may be forced to keep them indoors for a few more days, much to their dismay.

Trixie and Egg Carton (the Barred Rocks) are pretty much impossible to tell apart now, except that Trixie doesn't mind being held, while Egg Carton has a hissy fit if you try to pick her up. Brat.

McNugget and Peep (the Buff Orpingtons) like to fight a lot. Let's just say that it would be to their advantage NOT to end up being roosters.

So far, they don't like radishes but love radish greens, balk at broccoli except the leaves, and eat bugs and worms like there's no tomorrow. They turned 6 (weeks) on Tuesday. I LOVE THEM.

"We're going to pout and face the wall because we're not outside."

The Carrots Are Being Lame

I'm not sure what their problem is, but they don't get a picture because they just haven't done much in the growing department lately, and I am not amused by their slow-growth antics.

The beets are on my shit-list, too, because I took a picture of them yesterday that looks almost exactly like the one I took of them ALMOST ONE MONTH EARLIER.

March 29, 2009.

April 28, 2009. WTF?

Perhaps this is because root vegetables do all their growing underground and then their greens grow all crazy right before they're ready to be harvested? I don't know, but that's what I'm telling myself because Lord knows I have given these guys some serious love.

Spinach is doing OK, I suppose, but needs to get his ass in gear because I'm going on a diet and need more greens. Something appears to be munching on it, too. Must be a bug of some sort because Fort Knox has got nothing on me when it comes to how secure this bed is.

Holey spinach.

The peas are my friends because they are doing what they're supposed to do like good little peas and growing to my satisfaction.

Thanks, Peas. You guys totally rock.

The ghetto pea trellis.

The cilantro and green onions seem pretty happy in their large pot.

It appears to be a good thing that I bought tomato seedlings because these guys aren't very excited about growing yet. I thought tomatoes were supposed to be easy to grow, so this is not much of a testament to my seed starting skills.

We're being stubborn.

On the bright side, the butter lettuce and chives seems to be enjoying their home in VB1, and Justin's Future Pickles have poked their heads out of VB2. The yellow squash and zucchini are taking their sweet time.

Out of frustration from all my vegetables' slow-growth shenanigans, I made a tea the other day from Foxfarm's Peace of Mind fertilizer and gave everyone a good feeding, so hopefully they'll thank me by fulfilling my need to feel like a somewhat successful gardener and just grow faster already.

Long-Ass To-Do List

I took Friday off since Hub was off clamping for the weekend with his drinking buddies and yet still barely made a dent in my yard to-do list. I blame this on the fact that future SiL (sis-in-law) was in town as well, so I felt obligated to entertain her to some extent: so I put her ass to work in my yard. Unfortunately, SiL has mad allergies, so after only 20 minutes or so of weed pulling, had a good excuse to not help me with my yard work anymore. She made a valiant effort, however.

Here's my list:
1. make a trellis for the peas
2. take old toilets, empty propane tanks, and other miscellaneous crap at front and side of house to dump
3. eradicate blackberry bush up against house, including roots
4. clean out shed and move it where blackberry bush was
5. burn remaining brush
6. move compost bin away from house and turn it
7. figure out what kind of ground cover to fill parking space with, then cover it
8. spread gravel along north side of house - fill in washing machine drainage ditch
9. take down stupid pear tree that litters tiny white flowers all over your driveway
10. buy a gas-powered blower because your electric blower is retarded
11. wash and clean out Tacoma
12. re-position clothesline
13. make the extra bedroom into a canning/storage room (IKEA trip?)
14. build a fence out of T-posts and welded wire fencing for your future goats

My pea trellis turned out pretty ghetto, but I think it will work.

You notice how it says toilets, plural? Yes, we are white trash. I'm ok with that. It scares away the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

I forgot that burn season ends on April 30th and am kicking myself for not finishing off the last tiny bit of the burn pile.

So yea, my percentage completion rate is only 28.5 percent, but to my credit, instead of starting out with yard work on Friday morning, I opted to rip the frightening orange carpet from 1976 (I'm not kidding) out of our bedroom. I found a somewhat thread-bare but pretty clean Karastan rug on CL the other day for $20 from some lady that thought I was a college student (BLESS HER HEART), and it just so happens to be almost the same dimension as our oddly-sized bedroom (11.5' x 18'), so out with the old carpet, and in with an antique (ha!) rug. Some sort of rug is necessary because our house was built in 1963 and has asbestos tile flooring in the bedrooms, which isn't exactly cozy to walk on with bare feet - I plan to hunt down the person that made this unfortunate decision and strangle him/her someday. As long as you don't try to remove the tiles, it's not a health hazard, but WTF (that would be who, not what) would install vinyl tile flooring in a bedroom anyway?

I like the rug a lot! I'll take a picture for you once I get all the furniture back in place and post it soon. I even remembered to take BEFORE pictures so you can understand just how much happier I am without gnarly orange carpet in my sleeping quarters.

You've Got Nuthin On Me, Chard

I got Hub to eat green vegetables last night - lots of them. No, really, I did.

Noce's All-Green-Like Stir-Fry.

Ingredients:

1. The massive bunch of chard that came in the farm share today, ribs removed and chopped up
   
2. One young onion (aka spring onion; or you could use a leek) leftover from last week's farm share, sliced
   
3. A lot of broccoli, chopped (or not, if you prefer big trees)
   
4. Two chicken breasts, sliced into bite-size pieces
   
5. 1 cup Black Pepper Sauce from Trader Joe's
6. 1 1/2 cups Sweet & Sour Sauce from TJ's
7. 2 1/2 Tbsp. butter
8. Garlic, minced
9. Some slivered almonds
10. Some sesame seeds
11. Lemon pepper and salt, to taste
    
12. Basmati or Jasmine rice
    

How to:

In a BIG saute pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter and add the young onion/spring onion/leek. Let it sizzle for maybe ten minutes (start cooking your rice in a rice cooker about now), then add the chicken. Season with lemon pepper and salt.

Add the broccoli and chard (holy cow, that's a lot of chard) to the chicken, cover, and let cook until broccoli is bright green and chard has (significantly) reduced in size. Not so scary looking now, is it?

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together your Black Pepper Sauce and Sweet & Sour Sauce. I'm just guessing on the quantities here, but I probably had about 1.5 cups, which is why I put those particular amounts in the ingredients list, but I really don't know how much it was. My stir-frys always seem to be disappointingly un-saucy, so I really sauced it up this time, and it obviously worked out because Husband ate it all.

Now toss your garlic into the Fry. Stir it up.

Wait for the click on the rice cooker to tell you that your rice is done, then add all that good sauciness to the Fry.

Now, serve yourself up some rice, slather on some of that Fry, and garnish with the almonds and sesame seeds.

Line Drying Season Has Begun

OK, maybe I was little negative yesterday with all my Earth Day un-support rhetoric.

Although I don't understand why people get so excited about it, I do appreciate the sense of community and togetherness that Earth Day brings about. I still think it's total BS, but I also try to be a relatively positive person, and slamming people for having kids probably isn't going to accomplish much. Even so, I am a big proponent of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and think everyone should peruse the www.vhemt.org website and draw their own conclusions. I'd be interested to know what people think.

Moving on to more exciting things (at least in my head), most people who know me are aware of my obsession with drying laundry on my clothesline. Nothing beats extra crispy towels and the smell of Outside on my clothes. This is another trait I get from my Ma.

Soft, dryer-sheet-dried towels from the dryer? I THINK NOT.

Crispy, freshy bed linens.

Cats Don't Care About Earth Day

And neither do I.

Let me show you:

Nekkie has no consideration for the fragile Alligator Lizard population in my backyard.


Lizard drops tail, confuses cat.


Liz says to me, "I'm totally smarter than your cat."

I think Earth Day and all this green bullshit is just a really sad excuse for people to feel better about their incessant procreating and whathaveyou because they don't want to admit that their decision to populate the planet further is the sole reason for its demise.

O, and it's something for big corporations to totally capitalize on, but that's a discussion for another day.

Not that I believe that Earth is in trouble anyway - we will destroy ourselves far before we have any long-lasting effect on the Big E. Humans are funny in how we always have to make it about us.

Here's a thoughtful quote to help console oneself amidst all this earthy Doom and Gloom:

"No American city comes remotely close to being sustainable. There are too many people on the planet to make it sustainable with any technology. Utopians believe that the earth can handle 6 billion and more of us to come, but every ecological system in the biosphere is collapsing at rates not seen since the last mass-extinction. Thus, I'm not especially concerned about someone driving a hummer or failing to recycle a plastic bottle.

Most of our environmentalism primarily serves the purpose of making us feel good about ourselves. It's not doing anything to 'save the planet'. The planet will be fine, it's doing a good job of ramping up all kinds of anti-human defenses. Read any science journal and you'll see countless reports of ways in which we're destroying our own habitat (and that of many other species), but life will go on just fine as it always does. It will go on with a very different balance of species and a lot of opportunities for new species to evolve during the post-hominid epoch." -- from username "TheHarvester" on www.city-data.com

I remember my Pops telling me a long time ago about his theory that we should use up all the fossil fuels on Earth so that there's nothing left and we have to develop new technology to support ourselves that does not rely on a finite amount of resources. I thought it was absurd at the time - it makes perfect sense to me now.

So why am I trying to be a "homesteader"? Because I am doing this for fun, THANKS. Gardening is fun. Baby chicks are totally cute. Composting benefits the food I get to eat. I'm all in it for the gratification.

I also don't trust anyone. I value self-sufficiency for the sole reason that I don't want to rely on anyone else for my livelihood (other than the Hub for emotional support and because I just like him so darn much). This may never actually come to be, but I can certainly have fun trying.

Don't get me wrong now, y'all! I love all the rug rats that my friends and family have had (and will have in the future). I simply savor the freedom of handing them back over at the end of the day after I've gotten my kid fix.

Earth Day is tomorrow. Show your un-support by choosing to ignore it like me.

I Love Bark Mulch

My front yard is starting to look like I actually care about it. I am so proud.

I got another truckload of bark mulch on Sunday, and, after much weeding and leveling of the dirt, spread it around. I just can't get enough of this stuff. Bark mulch makes everything tidy and neat and oh-so-organized looking. LOVE.

Bark mulch!

I also made another vegetable bed - we'll call him Vegetable Bed #2, or VB2. It's the same size as the first one - I used 28 bricks for each bed. This time, however, I mixed some steer manure into the top soil to hopefully give the zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber seeds the boost they need. This area doesn't get a whole lot of sun, so I'm trying to give them the best chance possible to provide me with lots of yummy vegetables.

I would recommend wearing gloves when spreading manure. Ew.

The butter lettuce in Vegetable Bed #1 (VB1) seems to be pretty happy. I used some Foxfarm fertilizer in this bed instead of the steer manure. It will be interesting to see which bed does better.

Getting bigger, slowly but surely.

The chives are looking more edible by the day.

I removed the chicken wire I originally had covering VB1 and replaced it with some welded wire leftover from the chicken tractor extravaganza. It is much neater looking and will also be tall enough for the butter lettuce and chives, although I need to figure out how to cover the ends and will also need to get more welded wire anyway for VB2.

You can't get to us now, stupid deer.

Trial Run

Hub was able to cut out the door to the tractor this past Saturday and attach the two hinges as well as the lock, so since it was so nice and sunny and warm, we decided to take the chicks for a trial run in their new digs.

Fancy, new, predator-proof (fingers crossed) door.

They were a bit unsure what to do at first and had this odd tendency to just lay down sideways on the ground instead of standing and pecking around - I think this was just confusion on their part because they are chickens, after all, and not a whole lot goes on in those heads of theirs.

You want us to do what?

BUT, after a few minutes of huddling together, taking in their new surroundings, one by one they started to branch off from the group and peck around at all that lovely greenery and bugs and whatever it is that chickens do on the ground.

I think it was Egg Carton that welcomed herself into the tractor by taking a nice, big dump. Good girl! Momma is proud.

Not quite sure how to navigate the roosts.

Within 30 seconds, both cats came prowling out of the corners of the yard and were quite disappointed to discover that the chicks had a solid fortress surrounding them and would not become kitty snacks today.

Beet Candy...

...more or less. I think you could even get kids to eat this, and I know you can get husbands to eat it because I've done it myself.

Here goes:
1. Peel and trim some beets.
2. Slice them thinly cross-wise. The thinner the better because then they cook faster and caramelize better.
3. Throw a pat or two of butter in a small sauce pan over medium low heat, let it foam up, then add your beets.
4. Let them sizzle around for a little bit, preferably covered so they steam and cook faster.
5. Maybe start whatever other dinner plans you have since this could be considered dessert. I'm not joking.
6. Toss in some pine nuts.
7. Add a pinch or two of salt.
8. Then, the most important ingredient of all (other than the beets): get out your sugar and toss a handful in there.
9. Stir it around so that the sugar dissolves, and then let it cook, covered, for maybe 10 to 20 minutes, depending on how thickly you sliced your beets, until they're done but not mushy and the added sugar and natural sugar from the beets has had a chance to caramelize.

Husband picks up fork and tastes.
Husband proclaims that they're "really good".
And then the icing on the cake: HE GOES BACK FOR MORE.

Amazing!

I'm thinking that you might be able to omit the pinch of salt because when I first started making these beets, I had no idea what I was going to add (sugar?), so I thought salt was in order, but Husband thought the salt added a complex flavor when married with the sugar. Like sweet and salty?

I also think that this would be super tops with some caramelized sweet onions and sprinkles of Blue cheese.

I think you would be sorry if you omitted the Knob Creek, but that's really up to you.

See? Just like candy.

Chanterelles Taste Like Chicken

They really do!

I don't think I've ever had Chanterelle mushrooms before, but they came in the farm share unexpectedly last week, and I had been deliberating all week about how to cook them because I wanted to put them in something that Hub would eat but never got around to figuring out what that magic dish might be. Sunday rolls around, and they're still sitting on my counter, so I decided to just throw them in a pan with some walnut oil (because I'm a bad wife and had failed to restock the butter supply) and garlic, and yea, wow, pretty much tastes like chicken after throwing in a splash of rice vinegar at the last minute.

I was somewhat scared of their crazy shape, but I ate them all. Hooray for expanding my culinary horizons.

Chantarelles = an expensive chicken substitute.

On to gardening: we had all these leftover pieces of Trex decking from building, well, our deck, and I knew I could use them for something, so I decided to make planter boxes out of them. I drilled and screwed them using 2.5" galvanized deck screws - they're not exactly square, but I don't think the tomatoes will mind much.

Happy tomaters.

Then, I built one for the thyme plant I had as well as one more. I wasn't sure what to put in it, and then I remembered that I had some leek ends that a gardening friend of mine told me I could just put right back in the ground and they'll grow back! We'll see what happens. Not ten minutes after I put the leeks in the soil, Gravel dug one up. I think some welded wire barricades are in order here.

They seem to be multiplying.

Thyme.

Leek rear ends.

More tomaters.

How To Disguise Vegetables | Round 2

Although not official, Round 1 would have been that awesome soup I made up the other day in my effort to use up the farm share vegetables.

Round 2 is just as simple as the soup but involves noodles and sauce instead. Actually, when you think about it, soup is kinda like noodles and sauce, too, since I put noodles in my soup. I guess you could call this Really Thick Soup. Really thick. Or pasta if you want to be like that.

Here goes:

• 1 bunch Red Russian kale, chopped up just a bit so you can fit it in the pan without dropping it all over the floor and having to wipe up the resulting slobber from the dogs who thought they were getting something good and then realized they were eating KALE

• 2 leeks, sliced (most of green tops removed and discarded; a little green is OK, though) - remember to wash those babies thoroughly lest you end up with gritty pasta... EW.

• some leftover breakfast sausage (flesh-free pasta would be fine, but I had like 1/4 lb. left in the freezer and I'm reeeeally trying to not let food go unused. I'll probably get fat because of this.)

• a handful of nuts (I used both walnuts and slivered almonds because I didn't have enough of one kind)

• garlic, minced

• some butter

• some olive oil

• some grated Parmesan

• a sturdy type of noodle (I used linguine)

• salt and pepper, to taste

• lemon juice, optional

Put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. Make yourself a cocktail.

Meanwhile, in a medium-sized pan over medium heat, saute up the sausage until cooked through. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Don't forget to add your noodles to your boiling water. Sucks when you make crazy good sauce and it's all ready to slather on your noodles and then you realize that you forgot to cook them.

Using the same pan but over medium-low heat, toss some butter in there and add the leeks. Let them sizzle around for a bit until they start to brown and get creamy.

Add the kale and stir it around until it starts to cook down. Ignore Hub's That Looks Gross face and continue with your dinner plan unfazed.

This would not pass for dinner as is.

Add your garlic and finish sauteing for just a few minutes, then remove from heat and transfer mixture to a food processor. Add some olive oil, Parmesan, and nuts a little at a time and puree until you think it looks like pesto. Observe Hub's look of relief now that he realizes you're making pesto and he likes pesto and thank goodness you're not making him eat those nasty greens in any recognizable form.

Pesto. For reals.

Season the pesto with salt and pepper. Add some lemon juice if you have it on hand. Of course, add lots of Tabasco. People who don't like Tabasco are un-American.

Drain your pasta and combine it with the kale mixture and sausage. Stare at Hub in disbelief when he exclaims that this is one of your better dishes. Polish off the rest of your cocktail to celebrate.

Not that I care, but I'm pretty sure you could get kids to eat this, too.

Looks safe, tastes delicious.

Making Use of the Farm Share

I feel much better today. I feel that I have a grasp on how to consume all these crazy vegetables. Soup is an amazing thing.

I didn't take a picture of the soup because, well, I was hungry and impatient and the soup had been cooking for an hour and a half already, and Husband wasn't really going to wait any longer.

But it was DELICIOUS. And Hub actually ate the chard and Red Russian kale that I cleverly camouflaged in the soup. I'm totally getting better at this.

Because this was so bomb, here's how to put it all together. As with all soups, it's pretty adaptable:

Step 1) Open refrigerator.
Step 2) Grab whatever vegetables need to be eaten TONIGHT.
Step 3) Throw it all together with some stock (or bouillon), salt, pepper, and some acid (preferably lemon) and cook that baby down until it's yum.

OK, here's the more technical version. I get my kick-ass soup-making skills from my Ma, just so you know.

You will need:
1) Those last few pieces of bacon that are almost freezer burned because you just didn't feel like cooking the whole package the last time you made bacon for breakfast. Like 4 pieces or so. Cut 'em up into manageable pieces (easier done when the bacon is semi-frozen).

2) A few leftover sausages from last weekend's BBQ. 4 links is perfect. Slice 'em up.

3) Some of the garlic that's been sitting on the window sill and is starting to sprout because you have been lazy and not chef-ed it up lately. If you married an Italian like me, you will be using 4 to 5 cloves.

4) You could add some diced onion. But I didn't think to do that, and I do not regret it, but it would have been better because onion adds, like, mad flavor.

5) The whole FRIGGIN bunch of chard AND Red Russian kale. Seriously, it's crazy big, but it WILL cook down. Cut it all up into ribbons. I cut out the center rib of the chard because I read somewhere that you're supposed to do that.

6) Some beef stock + some beef bouillon because you're making Big Batch Soup tonight and want lots of leftovers.

7) Maybe four red potatoes. You really don't remember how long they've been in the fridge, but you remembered to put them in your Debbie Meyer Green Bag, so they will still taste good. Cube 'em but don't bother peeling because that's way too much work.

8) Whatever pasta is in the pantry - the one where you made 3/4 of the box because it seemed like a whole box would be too much last time you made pasta but now you're stuck with only 1/4 of a box of pasta and know that it's never going to get used because you wouldn't just cook pasta for yourself and not the two of you because that would be lame. I think I used Campanelle?

9) One of the lemons you remembered to buy today. Cut it up so you can squeeze it.

10) Some red wine vinegar, salt, and lots of pepper, to taste.

11) Two drops of Dave's Insanity sauce. Do not use ONE DROP MORE or you will regret it.

12) A toasted English muffin because you forgot to get French bread today and you must have some sort of bread to dip into your soup.

OK! Here we go:

Saute bacon until browned.
Add sausage.
(Add onions if you have them).
Add garlic.
Add greens (see? told you they would cook down).
Add beef broth, 6 cups of water, and 2 bouillon cubes.
Add potatoes.
Add pasta.
Squeeze that whole lemon in there.
Season it with salt and pepper.
Add Dave's.
Let it simmer until the potatoes start to fall apart and the starch from the pasta starts to make everything all thick and good.

Consume.

Rejoice.

Picture-Free Monday

It's not my fault that I have no pictures for you this morning. OK, maybe it is my fault because I certainly had plenty of opportunity to take many a picture but was just so FN busy, what with Husband's brother in town all weekend and Husband's b-day on Saturday (where we ended up with 20+ people in our house on Saturday night that I did not prepare adequately for).

Anyway, due to all this busyness, I have not even made a dent in the farm share that I picked up last Wednesday, and I'm stressing myself out with trying to figure out how to use it all without wasting anything.

We have eaten the apples and carrots at least, but all the leafy greens remain unused in their Debbie Meyer Green Bags in the vegetable crisper but Hallelujah! I did find some recipes that I can make between tonight and tomorrow night that will hopefully finish them all off (I see myself making LOTS of soup) and THEN WE GET TO START THIS FARM SHARE MADNESS all over again on Wednesday.

I was not prepared for the sheer volume of food that I signed up for, but I promised myself I would stick with it, and so we'll see whether I'm tearing my hair out next Monday. Maybe I'll have a picture at least.

So, here's a non-photograph-y description for you, dear reader, to let you know just how innovative I'm being with consuming this large volume of vegetables:

I'm currently eating sunflower sprouts wrapped in salami. Yes, you read correctly.

I accidentally left the sunflower sprouts unrefrigerated in my car on Saturday so they got all wilty on me, and I was too lazy (and lacking the necessary bread) to make a sandwich this morning, and sunflower sprouts are a bit gnarly to eat by themselves, so I'm bunching up a handful and smashing them into a piece of rolled salami, and whatdoyouknow, it's actually totally good.

So there! I'm happy that I'm being clever like that but also a little disconcerted with the direction my culinary progression is taking me. I hope to provide you with better news (and a picture for Pete's sake) tomorrow so you can see that I really do know how to cook.

Live Earth Farm CSA

OK, check out the sheer awesomeness of my vegetable and fruit bounty.

Where's a cornucopia when you need one.

No, I did not grow all this myself, but I like to think that I'm on my way to more enlightenment in the way of growing food because I joined the Live Earth Farm CSA program (aka, farm share) this year and picked up my first weekly order yesterday. Nevermind the fact that I am totally flummoxed as to what I could possibly make with all these leafy greens (currently furiously searching Epicurious with the keyword "red chard"), but we ARE going to eat all these vegetables in some way or other, even if this means disguising the collard greens in pizza or ice cream in order to get Husband to eat it. He's never been too pumped on vegetables, but I got pretty good at feeding them to him when I was a vegemetarian because I like to cook, and I've learned over the years what will and will not be consumed in my household.

I did get him to take an apple with him to work today.

Hub was excited about the romaine lettuce (behind the Crazy Big Leeks) because he likes Caesar salad.

One thing I don't understand though is why organic vegetables always have to look like shit compared to the shiny, mass-produced supermarket counterparts. Now, I know the big chains wax their apples and grow their grapes in gnarly pesticides and what-have-you, but really, can't organic carrots be uniform in shape, too? Sometimes, I think the hippies do it on purpose.

Don't hate us because we're malformed.

I'm excited and terrified at the same time at the thought of finding creative ways to use vegetables I would not normally purchase (quick tutorial on how a farm share works: you pay a weekly fee for a box of whatever vegetables and fruit are ready to be harvested, so you never really know what you'll end up with). At any rate, I'll be culinarily challenged, and that's always a good thing in my book.

There must be another way to use radishes other than in salads? I will need to thoroughly research this.

These bad boys are going on sandwich tomorrow. Sunflower sprouts are YUM.

Red Russian kale = busting out the Polish cookbook.