Kitchen Misadventures and Overall Updates

Whew! It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks (months?) since I've updated here. So much has been going on that there just hasn't been time to put my thoughts down on...blog. Here's what I've been up to in a nutshell.

• CSA veggies - So I finally used some of the kale in a CSA box fairly successfully! I made a kale salad to serve Maya and Michelle when they came over one evening. It turned out really well, I actually liked it! The kale texture overall kind of bothers me, it feels kind of sharp in your mouth. I know that sounds weird, but that's the best way I can think of to describe it. I'm told that I might like baby kale better, so I'll try that after this CSA series is over. 

Blurry pic of a lovely salad :)

I found the recipe for this salad online here: http://www.shockinglydelicious.com/better-than-trader-joes-kale-and-edamame-bistro-salad/

Maya and Michelle posing with the lovely salad

It has all kinds of good stuff in it: kale, homemade Italian dressing, fresh mint (from the CSA box!), fresh basil (from my own garden!), edamame, garbanzo beans, cranberries, and carrots. I will try it with the baby kale next time and probably love it even more :)

Mojito fixins

As you may  have gathered, there was fresh mint in the CSA box this time around, which prompted me to try making Mojitos! They turned out delicious if I do say so myself.

Delicious Mojito all put together.

I think this is my favorite CSA attempt yet, and of course it's a drinky drink :) Oh well, this still gets an A+ in my book!

Zucchini (and hot dogs) on the grill.

One last CSA entry for the post, zucchini on the grill. And guess what, I liked it! I sliced it up, painted both sides of it with a mixture of olive oil and seasoned salt, and grilled it for about 5 minutes on both sides. It turned out quite nice, another vegetable win, woo hoo!

That's all of my kitchen misadventures for now. I have several types of summer squash, more beets, cabbage, and avocados still left from the last box to use. I think I'm going to try the squash on the grill, not sure about the rest yet. Programming Note: This week is the last box of CSA vegetables and I have decided not to sign up for the summer session. This is partially because they are not offering the mini-boxes this time around, and those have proven to be more than enough for me, and also because I'm tired of chard, kale and beets. It has been a GREAT experience though, and rather than take part this time I think I will make an effort to go to the farmer's market or produce department and pick something new once a week, so I still get exposed to new and different vegetables. That should work, right?

• summer garden - I have a garden growing, and I haven't managed to kill anything yet! That's pretty impressive, right? I have an orange tree on the side of my house (as you might remember from a previous post), so free oranges there. I have a Pink Girl tomato plant that has actually survived since last year (wow!). Yeah, I bought it because it was a Pink Girl, couldn't pass it up. The new additions this year are strawberries, green peppers, and basil. The new basil plant replaces Basil the basil plant, a housewarming gift from Mr. Joe Eckroat that sadly did not survive the winter, or rather Oz the Great and Powerful. I bought the strawberries as bulbs that were already fairly established and raised the peppers and basil from seeds. Cool, eh? 

Tomatoes are hearty, what can I say?

Baby strawberries

Baby basil

Baby peppers

Ok, so maybe these pictures aren't particularly exciting to anyone but me, especially since they're fairly old. I'm happy to report that the tomato plant has a big, juicy tomato starting to pink up, there are about 5 strawberries starting to grow, and the basil plant is about 10 times the size pictured here now. I've already used basil from it a couple of times. The pepper plant, unfortunately, looks about like it did here. Weird, eh? Not sure what I'm doing wrong with that one, but it's hanging in there.

• SIGGRAPH approaches - This is always a fun time of year for me, and a horribly busy one. If you know me at all you know how much I look forward to SIGGRAPH week. This year we're in Anaheim, CA, home of Disneyland! I'll be on-site all week, volunteering with S3 (SIGGRAPH Student Services) and supporting the SV Program. I was on the General Submissions Jury for the first time this year, so I was given the opportunity to Session Chair for a few talks throughout the week. I'm also excited to have been asked to head up a special project we're calling SIGGRAPH After Dark! It's a special movies-in-the-park type screening, though we're not sure yet that it will be possible to put on the show. I should find out this week whether or not we get to do it. Fingers crossed!

• Two theme parks in one day - That's right, I have achieved the unachievable, or at least the inadvisable. I have visited two different theme parks in one day! And we're not talking two related parks, like Disneyland and California Adventure, or something like that. Two weekends ago I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain in the morning and early afternoon and Disneyland later that evening. It was a crazy fun day :)
  
  
• House guests - My cousin Becky came to visit! She brought her boyfriend Duane and his son Brandon with her. They were in Las Vegas for a few days for a conference and then drove West to stay at my house for a few more days. I took them on a driving tour of everything interesting I could think of around here and took them by some of my favorite restaurants in the area. We also cooked and hung out at the house a lot. It was nice to see them, I hope they enjoyed themselves!

The Hollywood sign

Becky, Brandon and Duane at the Hollywood sign lookout

The view from the Hollywood sign lookout on Canyon Lake Rd., Hollywood Reservoir left and Hollywood sign right

• Cloudy 2 Film Festival - I've been working on a short film with my teammates at work. We entered it in the film festival put on at work by our current show. It was a lot of work but turned out pretty cute.  Unfortunately I will probably never be able to post it here, as it contains confidential material, but hopefully it's enough to know that this is one of the projects that has been keeping me busy. 

So there's the update. One more CSA box to go and a lot of SIGGRAPH news to come!