divorce pickles

(Please note … this is a highly personal post, very little to do with food.  I have debated how much of my news of the past months to share, and in what format, and I decided to share this.  I chose to share quite a bit.  I feel our culture doesn’t talk openly and honestly about marriage, real marital problems, or grief, and here’s what I can do to change that.  Consider yourself warned.  Or skip this post altogether if you don't want to know that much about my life!  Please leave a comment if you feel motivated to do so, but please remember that I am a real person with real feelings; keep comments respectful.  Thanks.)

If I have any readers left at all out there, you may be wondering where I’ve been since my last post in June.  Well … a lot has happened in my life since June.

The short version?  I filed for divorce.  After just over 20 months of marriage.

“What happened?” you wonder?

Well, what do you do when, only a few short months into your marriage, you realize your husband is overwhelmed by your everyday feelings of frustration, fear, anxiety, or stress?  Feelings that every normal person has, most days?

You stop talking about those feelings.  Full stop.  You censor every word that comes out of your mouth for months.  (Let me tell you, bottling things up never works.  Just saying.)

What do you do when, only six months into your marriage, your husband stops having sex with you?

You let him.  You wonder.  You worry.  You start to feel really crappy about yourself.  You try to figure out why.  You start to talk about it.  Carefully.  Tentatively.

What do you do, when, a year into your marriage, you’re feeling ready to be a mom, but your husband still won’t have sex with you?

You try to talk to him about it.  It doesn’t go well.  You keep trying to talk to him about it.  It continues to not go well.

What do you do when your husband tells you you need to be “more independent?”

You burst out laughing in his face, because you are one of the most independent people you know.  This is confirmed by nearly every person you know.

What do you do when your husband takes a night job, 7-days a week, in an effort to “make more money,” but you come to realize, is really in an effort to avoid you?

You push.  You chase.  You text.  You call.  You demand date nights.  You demand dinners together.  You start to panic.  You start to feel afraid.  You no longer trust in the relationship.  You feel alone.

What do you do when, every time you ask your husband how the two of you are going to fix your marriage, his reply is, “just stop talking about it, and things will get better on their own?”

You try to stop talking about it.  But really, you know that’s impossible.  Feelings bubble up.  Things slip out.  You argue.  You scream.  You both act despicably.  You both upset each other.  You both say things you don’t mean.

What do you do when you realize you are in over your head?  That the problems in your marriage are beyond what you are capable of handling on your own?

You find a couples counselor. 

What do you do when your husband physically shows up to counseling but doesn’t say a thing?  When your big, scary feelings go “splat” against the brick wall he has created in your relationship?

You keep going.  You hope for change.  You read four books about marriage, relationships, patriarchy, and male depression.  You begin journaling like a fiend.  You figure some stuff out about yourself.  You think you figure some stuff out about your husband.

What do you do when your husband insists that the only solution to the problems in your marriage is “space?”  That he wants to move out for a month of no contact at all, “just to see if we miss each other?”

You are crushed.  Shattered.

What do you do when you learn that your husband has been having an emotional affair with his ex-girlfriend over email for months?

You grow eerily calm.  You wonder how this happened, because you thought he wasn’t the kind of person that would do something like that.  You wonder whether you knew him at all.  You wonder whether he knows himself at all.

What do you do when your husband refuses to return to counseling after three sessions because “it’s not working?”

You go one last time by yourself, say goodbye and thank-you to your couples counselor, and bike back to work, sobbing.  You feel hopeless.

What do you do when your husband empties your joint checking and savings accounts, leaving you with a cashier’s check for $400?

Your shock and fear cause you to grow angrier than you ever thought possible.  Then, you stop and realize it’s only money, and money really just doesn’t effing matter.  You get new bank accounts, in your name only.  Your parents send you a check, which helps dissipate some of that anxiety about, you know, paying rent and stuff.

What do you do when your husband tells you that marrying you was a mistake?  That your relationship never should have progressed past your “supremely lame” first date?

You are confused.  He was the one who asked you out the first time, (and the second time, and the third time,) he was the one who said “I love you” first, he was the one who proposed, he was the one who was in such a hurry to get married your engagement only lasted for seven weeks.  You are confused, and more hurt than you ever thought you could possibly be.  You are rattled to your core.  Ripped open.  Raw.  Emotionally destroyed.

What do you do when your husband moves out?

You move out, too.  In two weeks.  You find an apartment, sign a lease, borrow money from a friend for the security deposit and first month’s rent, hire movers, get boxes, pack, and get the hell out of that place you shared with your husband.  You find a place that feels safe — a place that’s close to work, close to friends, close to church, close to the places you like to go, like the co-op, the farmer’s market, the library, the coffee shop, and the yoga studio.  A place that feels so familiar, so much like your last apartment as a single person, that you feel like you’ve erased the last three years of your life.  And then you realize that’s the scariest feeling you’ve ever had.  You just erased your marriage.  What “marriage,” though?

What do you do when you realize you had a wedding, but you’ve never really had a marriage?

You seek one out, from the partner you still have, at least on paper.  You call, you text, you email, you make one last effort at rescuing that relationship that was full of promises.  Promises for safety, security, stability, trust, family, future.

What do you do when your husband refuses to take your calls, refuses to answer your text messages, refuses to see you, and answers your emails with one or two words?

You begin grieving.

You go through the stages of grief in your own way, at your own pace, in your own order.  You hop back and forth between the stages, sometimes feeling multiple things in the same day, sometimes feeling multiple things at the same time.  

You deny that it’s happening, assuming he will come to his senses and come home, because coming to terms with the reality that the man who, just 18 months earlier, promised to love you and take care of you forever, now wants nothing to do with you, is too much to take in all at once.  You save your wedding photos, you save his toothbrush.  You know that he doesn’t want a divorce.  You know he still loves you.  You hope, but it fades.

You deal with the anxiety by walking, walking, walking.  (You are bummed that your knees can’t handle running any more, because you miss the feeling of really being able to POUND the pavement.)  Spend as much time with friends as you can possibly stomach as a strong introvert.  Wake up at 5 am, (or 4:45, or 4:40, or 4:30, or sometimes, 3:45,) shrug your shoulders, and start your day.  Return to church choir.  Ride your bike.  Get busy.  Stay busy.  Clean your apartment.  Clean it again.  Sign up for an 8-week professional development class.  Read, watch lectures, chat online with your classmates, write papers.  Learn a TON.  Fill up your brain.  Go, go, go.  Because, what else are you supposed to do with all of that energy?

You deal with the depression by binge-watching all nine seasons of “How I Met Your Mother” in a matter of months.  And then when that show’s over, you start in on “That 70s Show.”  Anything to distract your crazy brain and allow you to escape, for 22 minutes at a time.  You realize that you have to do something to make yourself start eating proper meals again, because the only way you are going to get through this is if you start taking better care of yourself, so you start counting calories.  You eat protein, you eat vegetables.  Smoothies are your new BFF, because you can pack in a bunch of nutrition without actually “eating.”  Smoothies, and for some reason, pita pizzas with green olives.  So many olives.  And egg salad sandwiches, huge bowls of watermelon, tomato and cucumber salads with feta, salt and vinegar roasted chickpeas, and mountains of plain, sliced cucumbers.  Thanks to careful tracking on MyFitnessPal, you lose weight.  (Which is a good thing, since this relationship and marriage helped you gain 25 pounds.)  You read an article about dealing with break-ups, and you become enthralled with the idea of “radical self-care.”  You get a haircut.  You get a pedicure for the first time in 10 years.  You start sleeping again; a few times, you sleep through your alarm and roll into work later than you’d like.  (Thankfully, you have an amazing boss.  As long as you get your work done, it really doesn’t matter what time you get in.)  You take a week-long vacation.  You buy some new clothes.  You start reading books again.  You keep walking, no longer out of freneticism, but because it feeds you.  You try to practice yoga.  You pick up little “treats” for yourself every once in a while.  Like those straw tops for wide-mouth mason jars?  Those somehow hop into your shopping basket at Target, and you just buy them.  This happens a few times with a few different things, and you just don’t have the energy to feel guilty about it.

You deal with the anger by sending scathing emails to your husband about how horribly he treated you.  You shout into his voicemail.  You send demanding, hurtful text messages.  You want him to be in as much pain as you are.  You blame him.  You want him to FEEL how much he’s hurt you.  You want him to suffer.  You put that problem as far outside yourself as you possibly can.  You cry.  A lot.  Because you’re one of those people who cries when she’s angry.  You cry at work.  You cry on the phone to your friends.  You cry in the shower.  You cry while you are eating your breakfast.  You use up all of your handkerchiefs in three days.  (You thank God for toilet paper, because you stopped buying boxes of kleenex years ago.)  You give yourself headaches and stomachaches from crying too much.  You punch pillows, stomp your feet, throw (nonbreakable) things.  (You are, after all, still an adult.)  You surprise yourself by feeling so much rage at the happiness of others — at the others around you who are getting married, buying houses, getting pregnant, having babies.  Doing all of the things you had planned on doing.  You even feel rage towards friends who come to you complaining about their live-in boyfriends or grieving their miscarriages — because, what you wouldn’t give to be in their shoes.  To be living with someone who cared for you, to have children of your own, to be trying for more.  You are appalled by this anger and rage at these people you love, these people who have nothing to do with this relationship you are grieving.  You confess and apologize to these people for this anger, and they forgive you.  They forgive you instantly, and without judgement.  You act just a little bit crazy.  You feel a lot bit crazy.  You cry to your friends that you are just so damn sick and tired of feeling this way.  Deep down, you know that you won’t feel like this forever, so you go ahead and keep crying.  You own that anger, for just a little while.

Yet, you never feel guilty.  This is both puzzling and disturbing.  You know, deep down, that although your behavior has never been perfect, you did everything you possibly could to take as good of care of your husband and your marriage as humanly possible.  You did everything you knew to do to work on yourself.  You know that there’s nothing you can do to fix or change your husband, and you know that you can’t fix your marriage by yourself.  One of your coworkers wisely suggests the only thing you need to feel responsible for is your effort.  Not his behavior, not the results … only your effort.  You know that you did give this marriage everything you had.  This is a relief, and a frustration at the same time.  Not being able to feel guilty kills you, because guilt gives you a sense of control.  And what you crave when you are under extreme stress, more than anything, is control.  You realize you have no control.  You realize that this is happening, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.  Not.  A.  Damn.  Thing.

What do you do when you wake up one morning and realize you’ve had enough?  That you deserve better?  That, indeed, you won’t feel like this forever?  That somewhere, out there, there is a man who can be in emotional partnership with you?  That, with some work, you can be ready for that partnership?

First, you hire a lawyer.  You argue with your soon-to-be-ex-husband about a financial settlement.  At the end of that argument, you get nothing, and end up paying for the whole divorce yourself.  A divorce that, still, deep down, you do not want.  Yet, you still file for divorce.  You plan to return to your maiden name, because you can’t stand the look of your name in print right now.  You start introducing yourself to people as just “Catherine,” because you don’t want to have that whole awkward conversation 15 more times. You cut ties with all of your in-laws, even though you will miss them and they want to keep in contact with you, because you know you have to.  You “unfriend” all of your soon-to-be-ex-husband’s friends on Facebook.  You wish your friends would all un-friend him, but you are too chicken to ask, because it seems petty.  You email your soon-to-be-ex-husband one last time, asking him to never contact you again.  For now, he abides by your request.  You make as clean a break as you can.

Then, you hire a therapist.  You work on yourself.  You work on figuring out why you keep choosing emotionally unavailable men, you work on figuring out why you keep finding yourself in relationship with men who can’t handle your “bad feelings.”  You work on figuring out why you keep choosing men who you can’t need.  You learn.  You grow.  You are driven by your deep desire to be a mom, and feel like you are running out of time.  You prepare to, hopefully someday soon, try again.  Someday soon, you can “do it right this time.”  Because, without hope, what do you have?

So, there’s that.  That’s what happened.

Looking back, you ask yourself, how did you cope?  How are you still coping?

You relied on all of the amazing people you have in your life.  You are grateful for that temporary financial support your family provided you.  You thank the universe for the amazing friends you have.  You grew closer with a couple of acquaintances, and reconnected with a couple of old friends.  You see these new and renewed relationships as an unexpected, amazing, albeit twisted silver lining in all of this mess.  You realize how lucky you are to have such an amazing employer, boss, and coworkers.  You thank the universe that going to work every day was a solace at this time of crisis.  You are so grateful that your coworkers asked you how you were, listened, let you cry in their cars in-between home visits, and told you that it’s okay to not be okay.

You started to take better care of yourself.  You ate beautifully, you exercised, you meditated, you journaled, you read, you sang, you did things that fed your spirit.  People that haven’t seen you in a while keep exclaiming that you look “amazing!”  You laugh to yourself, because it’s nice to fool someone; you sure don’t feel amazing.  (Yet, anyway.)

And, you made pickles.  “Divorce pickles,” as you’ve come to think of them.

Why?

Because every good foodie finds time in the kitchen therapeutic.  In the ritual, healing effects of shopping for, preparing, and enjoying a beautiful meal, you find solace.  Measuring, pouring, mixing, combining, heating, cooling … that delicate balance of chemistry and creativity that, with some labor and attention to detail, allows ingredients to combine to make something all-together spectacular.

You find peace in chopping vegetables.  LOTS of vegetables.  You decide to go through your copy of “The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving” and flag every single pickling and canning recipe you’ve ever wanted to try.

And you make them ALL.  You make trips and trips to the farmer’s market.  You haul 50 pounds of tomatoes home on your bike.  You run back and forth to ACE Hardware for more jars.  More lids.  More jars.  More lids.  More jars.  You special-order a jar of magical white granules called “pickle crisp,” and you add them to your pickles.  Because you love nothing more than a crisp, well-chilled pickle.  You buy a 12-quart stockpot for tomato sauce and applesauce.  You nickname that stockpot “big red.”  You jump for joy when you remember your mom brought you her food mill when she came to visit last summer, and you never gave it back.

You fill your built-in dining room cabinets with your home-canned produce.  You keep telling yourself it’s okay, because you’ll just take pickles to every work potluck for the next two years.  You keep telling yourself it’s okay because you LOVE pickles.  Because you won’t have to buy canned tomatoes for two years, at least.  Because you’ll start baking a ton to use up all that applesauce.  Canned food keeps, right?

You make …

7 quarts of extra-garlic dill cucumber chips

7 quarts of tomato sauce

more than a gallon of sauerkraut

14 pints of diced tomatoes 

11 pints of applesauce

7 pints of dilly beans

7 pints of pickled beets

7 pints of dilly carrots

5 pints of pickled roasted red peppers

5 pints of pickled banana peppers

7 pints of jardiniere

9 8-ounce jars of Vietnamese carrot and daikon pickle

and 7 8-ounce jars of pickled red onions

You laugh a little, because your soon-to-be-ex-husband never cared for pickles.  Touché.

You survey your stash, feeling a huge sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, yet regret not making pickled asparagus or pickled okra.

Oh well.  There’s always next year.  :)

Next year, things will be different.  Next year, you will have time for pickled asparagus and pickled okra.  And new relationships.  To quote your church choir director, “we try it again.”  

Indeed.  You will try it again.  

Until then, you’ll eat pickles.

just call me a lentil convert

First, let's talk about lentils.

I apologize in advance to lentil-lovers out there, but I've never really been able to get behind lentils . . . now, I love red lentils in all their buttery, golden-orange, lucious splendor, but any other lentil? In my opinion, brown and green lentils kind of taste like dirt. Not an appetizing meal addition!

But, I keep trying -- I know how nutritionally powerful lentils are, and I really WANT to like lentils! So, I made a lentil salad last night:

Ingredients in my lentil salad: 1 1/2 cups cooked regular lentils, 3/4 cup dry orzo pasta (cooked according to the package diretions,) 2 tbsp chopped parsley, 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion, 3 1/2 ounces feta (crumbled,) juice of one lemon, 1 tbsp olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Verdict? I LOVED this! Yum! What a light, yet filling dinner, served over a bed of salad greens. I bet the leftovers are going to be even better, once the flavors have had a chance to marry.

Anyone have lentil recipes they love? I want to keep getting to know lentils!

~~~~~~~~~~

Summer in Minnesota is very, very short. This is sort of bittersweet for me, because I love being able to shop the farmer's market weekly, stock up on gorgeous produce, and support my local farmers, but at the same time . . . I HATE THE WEATHER. I turn into a lazy, whining pile of sweat in the heat and humidity! So, I try to make the best of it.

My farmer's market has been flooded with gorgeous produce of every color these past few weeks, and I've been trying to pick up something (or a couple somethings) at least weekly to preserve for the coming winter. This week, I grabbed three huge bunches of Chinese water spinach to steam, chop, and freeze, (Dan and I are becoming quite good at sitting around on the couch prepping veggies,) and I also found a good deal on red bell peppers -- 9 gorgeous peppers for $5! They were destined for my broiler. :) Result:

Last year, I read that one could freeze roasted red peppers, and I tried that out, but wasn't terribly happy with my results. The peppers seemed to lose some of their rich, smoky flavor in the freezer, and were also pretty mushy after thawing. Inspired by Liz, I decided to try pickling my peppers. Although I don't have canning skillz, I decided to try a refrigerator pickle with these guys -- they won't last an eternity, but they'll last long enough. I threw in 1/2 teaspoon salt and three chopped cloves of garlic, covered everything with a light vinegar brine (1 part vinegar to three parts water -- I don't want the peppers too sour!), and parked the jar in my fridge. We'll see how this works!

~~~~~~~~~~

Last but not least, remember I used to bake bread? Well, the humidity is down and the weather is slightly cooler, so I can do that again!

Our bake-a-long has been on hiatus this summer, (and rightly so -- no one wants to heat the oven up unless they absolutely have to!), and I sort of biffed our last project -- I did make a batch of the "Sunflower Seed Breakfast Loaf," but never really posted about it. So, I made it again! This is a gorgeous, soft, slightly sweet, slightly rich bread that makes INCREDIBLE toast. And I'm a toast girl, so this bread makes me happy! Yum! I used a combination of whole-wheat bread flour and AP flours in this loaf, and it worked beautifully. Hooray nutrition!

~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Sunday, everyone!

jam-o-rama

I woke pretty early this morning, (I guess that's what happens when one goes to bed somewhat early,) so I decided to get to work peeling and slicing my peaches -- they had magically ripened overnight! So, as I was peeling and slicing, peeling and slicing, I realized I had a LOT of peaches. After I filled three trays for the freezer, I ended up chopping the last eight cups, plopping them in a pot, adding a cup of agave nectar, and covered them to cook later for jam.

Off to the farmer's market! Look what I found:

Not cheap by any means, but the way I see it, it's a once-a-year treat! For perspective:

These may have been the largest blackberries I've ever seen. Incroyable!

After finishing up my errands, I came home, unpacked the groceries, and set the jams a-bubbling:


A couple hours later:

4 cups of blackberry and 5 cups of peach . . . hooray! If you tally up all of my jam making this season, (strawberry, one jar of raspberry with a couple of ill-fated cartons that dumped over on the way home from the FM, blueberry, blackberry, and peach,) I may have more than enough to last us the winter! (Dan and I really like jam toast for breakfast in cooler weather. Plus I think Dan sneaks spoonfulls sometimes.) :)

And if you're curious, yes, I did save one pint of blackberries for fresh eating. We had them for dessert tonight, tossed with a little sugar. (They were quite tart on their own!)

Dessert? Wait! What about dinner?

"Black Bean Burgers" from VCON, oven-roasted sweet corn, quick pickles, and sweet potato fries. Yum summer!

So tell me . . . what would you do with all of those blueberries, peaches, and blackberries?

tons and tons of food

I have loads of food to blog about -- my kitchen has been a busy place, as always.

Dinner from last week:

Homemade spinach and tomato dal, over a brown rice pilaf with cardamom, black pepper, and slivered almonds. Frozen samosas and mango chutney on the side. Yum!

Baking fun:

I checked out Baking at Home with The Culinary Institute of America from the library, and have been adapting a few recipes from it. These blueberry muffins were the first -- I cut the fat down slightly, used whole-wheat pastry flour, and agave nectar instead of sugar. Dan and I gobbled these down in a couple of days.

Why the funny plastic cover on the muffins, you ask?

Oliver likes to eat muffins when I'm not looking.

Another delicious dinner:

Beets and greens tossed in homemade vinaigrette, sliced heirloom tomatoes, and homemade bread topped with local, herbed goat cheese. This is quickly becoming a favorite dinner, and will continue to be as long as tomatoes and beets are in season! (P.S. I used some of the scapes in the greens -- delicious!)

A fun treat:

Blackberry ice cream (storebought, but organic and on sale,) with blackberries!

I brought home quite a load from the Farmer's Market yesterday:

Clockwise from bottom left: sugar-snap peas, beets w/their tops, sweet corn, the hugest bunch of lettuce ever, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and roma tomatoes.

Not pictured in the above photo, 'cause I got so excited when I got home I started cooking and forgot to snap a picture of everything together:

I also bought cucumbers, green beans, and dill, which I promptly turned into refrigerator pickles. Spicy dilly beans, and normal garlic dill pickles will be enjoyed by Dan and I throughout the summer. That is, if they last that long! :)

I had to figure out what to do with most of that produce, since our fridge is practically bursting with goodness. I did chop and wash the lettuce so it is salad-ready, and I cut a bunch of the corn off the cobs and froze it for future chili and creamy corn soup use. :) I also had to put some of the zucchini to good use right away, since we were already out of blueberry muffins:

Zucchini bread, also from Baking at Home with the CIA. I'm less impressed with this recipe so far, but the bread may have moistened up a little bit overnight -- I found it a little dry yesterday. I did use organic, natural sugar in this recipe, and I think I should have used agave nectar. Whole-wheat pastry flour sometimes dries things out a little bit! Drat. Now I know for next time. :)

I should have another post for you all tomorrow -- Dan and I checked out a new (to us) state park yesterday, and I took some great pictures! Until then.

not so sure about this . . .

What's that, you ask? Why, eggplant pickles, of course!

(I'm sure you're all slapping your foreheads right now, saying, "duh! Should have known!")

Obviously, I'm trying something new. It used a LOT of olive oil. (Like well over a cup.) Let's hope they're worth it!

The kicker? They have to marinade for TWO WEEKS. So I won't know for a while!

(I know . . . the suspense is killing me, too.)

vegetables galore!

I seem to have a little, ahem, problem with the Farmer's Market . . . I tend to go twice in one weekend, buy a ton of stuff, and then wonder what to do with all of it! This past weekend was no exception.

Oliver wants you to see Dan's and my haul Saturday morning:

We were lured into purchasing not one, but TWO different kinds of honey -- I chose a jar of creamy, pale yellow pure raw honey, and Dan was drawn to a jar of thick, dark "Blue Earth Buckwheat" honey by Ames Farm. (Also raw.) I also picked up a beautiful bunch of radishes, a huge bunch of mint, and a gigantic bag of lettuce! After washing and roughly chopping all of the lettuce today, I am realizing I am in for a LOT of big salads this week. :) I've made big salads already for dinner Friday night and lunch Saturday, and am loving my veggies!

Dan and I also stopped at Shuang Hur and the Wedge after our errands Saturday afternoon, to pick up a few essentials for dinners this weekend:

I love the Asian grocery stores for their prices and otherwise unknown to me ingredients, but I DON'T love that they package all of their produce on styrofoam trays, wrapped in plastic wrap! Sigh. Anyhow, we picked up Japanese eggplant, a red pepper, some snap peas, broccoli, limes, green onions, ginger, and tofu for our planned stir-fry dinner, and some lychees!! Lychees, if you've never had them, have the texture of a grape, and are very sweet with slightly coconutty, slightly floral, slightly melon-y flavors. Go buy lychees! Pictured on the right are bulk chickpeas and yellow split peas from the coop, to use later in the weekend.

Basic stir-fry, over udon noodles:

I learned my lesson with Hmong Family sweet soy sauce -- it is SWEET. This was good, but I wouldn't make it again this way -- I'd use regular tamari next time!

Courtney and I went to the Farmer's Market again this morning:

Courtney kindly gifted me a bag of large lima beans, strongly encouraging me to make the baked lima bean dish from VCON. (She's so subtle! Do you think she feels strongly about this recipe???) ;-) Thanks, Courtney! I purchased spinach, beets, dill, a green pepper, and just over a pound of large pickling cucumbers at the market.

I was pretty hungry when I got home, so I made a green smoothie snack/second breakfast:

Pineapple, peaches, banana, spinach, a squirt of agave, and some orange juice. Dan enjoyed his own serving for breakfast, and was pleasantly surprised by the sweet, fruity, slightly grassy flavor. Dan doesn't eat as healthfully as he could during the week, so I'm happy to pack him full of vitamins over the weekends. :)

Give you two chances to guess what I made with the pickling cucumbers and dill . . .

Yes, that's right, pickles! Shocker. I made up a recipe that didn't require any cooking, and that didn't use any sugar -- I like my pickles cold, crisp, salty, and vinegary, and that's about it. Garlic, dill, salt, and peppercorns went in with the cucumber spears, covered with equal parts white vinegar and water. Give 'em a week, and we'll see what I've created!

OH! Forgot to show you two frozen treats I made earlier this week. Pineapple-Coconut Popsicles:

Simple recipe, yielding an amazing treat! One can of light coconut milk, one bag of frozen pineapple, 1/4 cup agave nectar . . . blend, fill the molds, and freeze. SOOOOOOO delicious!

I also attempted peach ice cream:

I used a basic ice cream recipe, lightening it up a little bit by using half and half instead of a mixture of heavy cream and whole milk, but made the mistake of choosing frozen peaches. I think I should have used fresh peaches instead, because this ice cream has NO peachy flavor whatsoever. It's still good, it just tastes like vanilla!

I decided to roast my beets this afternoon, and while I had the oven on I also made another batch of granola:

Dan's sister, Sarah, raved about my granola last weekend -- I should really email her the recipe!!

And last, dinner tonight:

I used the jalapenos Dan grew in his garden and the mint I picked up at the Farmer's Market yesterday, along with a whole host of other ingredients, to make Paraati Chana from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. This has to be one of my most favorite chickpea dishes EVER. (Plus, it's the closest thing I've made to authentic Indian food in my very own kitchen.) I served it atop brown rice flavored with a pinch of saffron, and a side of mixed greens -- kale from last week's trip to the market, and the beet greens from this week's trip.

I sent Dan home with the leftover dill and some of the mint, three lychees, leftover stir-fry, leftover greens, leftover paraati chana, and a jar of granola. As he was getting ready to leave tonight, I said out loud, "why is it that you always seem to leave with a goody bag?" He replied, "because I have a nice Jewish momma who takes good care of me." We both laughed -- I'm neither Jewish nor a momma, but I guess I do take pretty good care of him!