Vegetables galore

In recent days we have had an embarrassment of riches in the produce department. D#2's garden has yielded many bowlsful of lettuce (red leaf, green leaf, and romaine), my cherry tomatoes have begun to ripen (one or two at a time, oddly enough), and neighbors have begun to bestow heads of bok choy and bunches of beets upon us. I think the rest of my tomato plants and D#2's pepper plant plan to wait until we go on vacation to yield their harvest.

Two nights ago we roasted a pan of peeled and halved beets in a little olive oil and sea salt, while at the same time (but not in the same room) grilling quartered cabbage in foil (with BUTTER) on the little Weber grill alongside the chicken sausages. This was delicious --and it may have been the butter, but my cabbage-hating spouse said that this is now the way he will consume cabbage (the ONLY way, he said, but who needs to split hairs?). The only hazard of beets is --well.

As a couple, R and I are not very adept with the big technological accoutrements of suburbia and hence have been slow to enter the grilling age. We finally decided that a little charcoal grill wouldn't actually get us drummed out of the neighborhood, and it has been a lot of fun to use. Of course, we are experiencing gender reversal here; I am the one using it, so it has not actually made less cooking for me. On the other hand, it is small enough to be manageable, useful for our little family, and easy to clean, and I am fooling myself that the little lighter cubes I found at Whole Foods are less poisonous than the lighter fluid I remember sloshing recklessly onto coals in the past.

In addition, I looked around online for bok choy recipes and chose to make moo goo gai pan -- another unexpected hit with my spouse and elder daughter-- and am still looking around for new-ish ways to use the summer squash and zucchini we got at the same time. Like many teachers, we do consciously try to change the way we eat in the summer, given all the rushing around and frenzy (and frozen/cafeteria/convenience foods) of the school year, but it's unusual to find my family actually asking to eat vegetables. Usually they'll endure the veggies I foist on them and I'll know they're just waiting patiently for the fruit to appear (D#1, in particular, is a huge fan of stone fruits), but this year has been different.

Today is a rest day for the Tour, so I am going to take a break from spinning and work on a couple of actual knitting projects instead. I do have to leave the house to go to a meeting up at school, and D#2 gets to change her earrings for the first time today (which means a trip to Claire's, that den of all things pink and sparkly), and we'll go into town to meet up with some of D#1's friends for a pool playdate ... I don't know why I persist in thinking of summer as relaxing.

Oh yes, D#1 has put purple streaks in her hair.