Plums, carrots and blueberries

Today's snacks:

• Cheeze sauce-- A quickie from dinner last week. It needs to be used, so I thought I'd try dipping the carrots in it. It tasted strangely sweet and not great. I won't try that again soon!


• "Purple Haze" carrots-- These are my favorite. So beautiful. The foliage is tipped with hot pink, too.


• Plums-- From my CSA delivery yesterday. There seem to be two kinds: the tiny ones have a bitter edge, and the larger ones are sweeter.


• Blueberries-- Picked with my dad during his last visit. Last you-pick of the season, and it was a struggle to find these tiny things. Eating them reminds me of him.


• Gala apple-- from the CSA.

Asian pear and tomatoes

Today's snacks:

• Asian pear-- I've been trading backyard produce with a co-worker, who brought me four lovely Asian pears. They smell like butterscotch and have a nice juicy crunch.


• Tomatoes-- Same as from Tuesday (from my Sun Gold Farms CSA) but without the extras from my garden.


• Corn thins-- These are just like rice cakes, but with a toasty corn flavor (since they're made from corn, not rice). They're also thinner, so they're easier for my one-year-old to eat, which is how we discovered them in the first place.


• Plain soy yogurt-- not pictured. I didn't get around to eating it yesterday, since I polished off the kale chips from Tuesday.

Apples and peas

Today's snacks:

• Honeycrisp apple-- my current favorite, from the farmers market.


• Snap peas-- I never know what to call these. "Peas" sound like the loose ones. Pea pods? I also get confused between the plump and the flat ones. I prefer the plump ones for snacking and the flat ones for cooking.


• Plain soy yogurt-- sometimes for eating straight, sometimes for dipping the apple slices. This is Wholesoy brand, because it comes in the big container. Vanilla is too sweet. Sometimes I add a spoonful of jam if I want sweet and fruity.


• SeaSnax-- not pictured. I love seaweed in many forms.

Tomatoes and lazy pickles

First, an explanation is in order. This year-- especially while I tend to half-cook (and half-prep, using pre-made ingredients) the same handful of dinners in 20 minutes for a toddler with an impending bedtime-- I'll forgo the usual end-of-day explanation of my biggest meal.

Instead I'll focus on snacks, which I am known for eating all day long. I usually take two or three to work each day, with the self-imposed rule that at least one of them must be raw (and of course gluten-free and vegan). Bonus points if they're all raw, whole foods, and soy free, since I get enough soy during other meals. So look here for healthy, quick, and hopefully well-varied snack ideas all month long.

Today's snacks:

• Tomatoes-- the ones in front are "Black Cherry," picked from my garden minutes before this. The rest are from my CSA including a brand new black variety created locally that I can't wait to try.
• Cheezy chipotle kale chips-- I tried these at VegFest and fell in love. This company has the most creative flavors, like hibiscus and pink peppercorn.
• Cucumber-- from my garden, seeded and cut into strips, sprinkled with rice vinegar and a dash of sea salt. After a few hours marinating, they're like light, crisp pickles but much quicker to make.
• White bean hummus-- for dipping

Kale chips and the sadness of green tomatoes

This is going to be a short post, since I'm still at work at 6pm on a Friday night.

I keep reading about kale chips. They pop up on the interwebs in the strangest places, everyone raving how delicious and easy to make they are. I already like kale, so to read this high praise from avowed kale-haters was actually a turn-off. But then I discovered a bunch of kale in the fridge that needed to be used right away.

I used half for dinner and the rest for chips. After researching a few recipes online (see Smitten Kitchen for a lovely example), I coated my chopped kale with 2 tbsp olive oil and a healthy portion of salt, and baked it for 8 minutes at 300 degrees.

That turned out to be way too much-- maybe because my oven is gas? Next time I'll have the temperature much lower and check sooner. The non-brown ones tasted great but the brown ones were bitter.

I had more green tomatoes left in the garden than I ever got ripe over the course of this year's cold, wretched summer. So while putting my garden to bed for the winter, I decided to keep the tomatoes and roast them.

After roasting I pureed in the blender. Use as you would [a can of] regular diced tomatoes-- you can even mix the two but then you won't get the lovely green color. It makes a mellow, tart tomato sauce for pasta or pizza.