Plague

Plague by Michael Grant

This is the fourth book in the Gone series (Gone, Hunger, Lies). Apparently there will be a total of 6 books. I love this series so much. It's set in Perdido Beach, CA. In the first novel, all the adults disappear at the same moment and the kids are left with the town to themselves. It's not all fun when they realize that there is a barrier surrounding their town so no one can get in or out and several of the kids develop special powers (it kind of reminded me of X-men). As time goes by, more and more odd things keep happening. By the fourth book, the kids have been through so much: first being trapped in this weird world, then starvation, food attacking them, wars, and encountering strange mutant creatures. In this book, they are faced with a shortage of water, and 2 different plagues (as if they haven't suffered enough). There's a lot of good versus evil present throughout the series. These books are full of excitement and action. They are extremely fast-paced and I cannot wait to see what happens in the future. Grant has been releasing them around the same time every year, so the fifth book should be out next April/May. This is YA dystopian at its best. The things that the characters have to suffer through, both unrealistic and realistic, is truly a nightmare. And like many of the characters in the book, you begin to wonder what they are fighting for, why they continue to fight. With no optimistic end in sight, their future is truly a mystery. These books are not for the faint of heart though. I've actually lent them to someone who returned them saying it was too difficult to read. There are so many difficult situations and tragedies in every book that they are hard to read. But the stories makes them so worth it.

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 4

Week 4's Share

During Week 4 we did not do a good job of trying to cook our veggies. We were quite lazy, or busy. I'm going to go with busy. Our share:

• 1 lb. turnips


• 1 head Chinese cabbage


• 1 bunch beets


• 1 bunch green onions


• 1 bunch Lacinato kale


• 2 heads lettuce (1 Romaine, 1 iceberg)


• 1 bunch dill

This week we got Chinese cabbage, beets, and dill for the first time. We've gotten kale before but we never got to cook it. When I picked up our share this week and saw the Chinese cabbage I knew I had to make pot stickers. I love the things, but they take forever to make. But so worth it. The pot stickers recipe comes from a Newlywed cookbook that we have. Basically, it's ground pork, Chinese cabbage, and green onions in won-ton wrappers. I love them! But sadly, no pictures.

Unfortunately, this was the only thing I made during this week. Luckily, we got a lot of veggies that are durable and we were able to use them the following week.

Up next: Week 5, in which we're productive again.

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 3

We actually missed Week 2's distribution because we were in Boston, and I forgot to have someone else go pick it up. On to Week 3!

Week 3's Share

In this share we got:

• 4 kohlrabi


• 6 turnips


• 1 bunch green onions


• 1 bunch Swiss chard


• 4 heads lettuce


• 1 bunch cilantro

We were supposed to get broccoli as well, but they ran out before we got there, so we got another bunch of green onions instead. Luis loves green onions.

I was actually familiar with a lot of the stuff in our share this week, minus the kohlrabi. I've never heard of kohlrabi before. I'd not had Swiss chard before, but I knew about it after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Kohlrabi is related to turnips and have a similar flavor. Some of them are purple and some are white (at least the ones we've gotten). They're quite tasty raw!

Weird purple vegetable, kohlrabi

This week I made Garlic Cheddar chicken with oven fried turnips and kohlrabi, and sauteed Swiss chard with Parmesan cheese. You may be thinking this sounds awfully familiar, but it's not (that's what I thought "hey, I made the same thing as last week, but with chicken instead of fish and Swiss chard instead of braising mix!"). Don't judge.

So tasty!

The garlic cheddar chicken is something I make a lot. It's basically chicken rolled in cheese and bread crumbs and baked. So good and easy! I used the same turnip recipe as the last week, except I used curry powder instead of chili powder. The Swiss chard recipe is here. This meal was delicious and I wish we had gotten more weeks of Swiss chard because it is quite tasty! Luis even liked it, despite it being very green (of course it helps that it was covered in cheese).

Also, as soon as we got the share and I saw cilantro I knew we had to make ceviche!

Just looking at this makes me want more!

I've made ceviche numerous times, although this is the first time I did it without Luis' help. And I thought it was delicious and one of the best I've made! Later, we added lettuce under the ceviche to help catch some of that tasty juice.

Overall, I declare Week 3 to be a success! We ate things I've never had before (kohlrabi and Swiss chard) AND they were both delicious! And we got to eat ceviche.

Up next: Week 4, in which we get lazy.

How giant are these green onions?

Adventures with Vegetables: Week 1

After receiving an email from UK, I had this great idea that Luis and I should join a CSA. We are trying to eat healthier and branch out from our normal foods, so I thought that receiving fresh, organic vegetables every week would help us. If they're in our fridge, surely we will eat them, right? Whether this was a great idea, or a moment of pure insanity remains to be seen. We shall see.

First, a CSA is Community Supported Agriculture; basically we give the farmers money, they do all the work, and then every week we get an assortment of vegetables. All the vegetables are organic and locally grown. And, since this one is run through the college, since Luis is still a student, we get a discount! What we paid averages out to about $18 a week. Our ultimate goal is to cook more often during the week, eat more vegetables, and not have to buy any more veggies to add to our meals. This didn't happen in the beginning because most of what we received were salad veggies. There's only so much lettuce one can eat.

We received our first share at the end of May. With our CSA, every Thursday you go to UK and there they have bins with the veggies in them. There's a board that lists what you can take and how much. Then you fill up your box or bag with your deliciousness. There's also a swap box at the end, so if you don't want something you can put it there and take something else out of the box. Or not. We've not used that because we're trying to sample everything!

Our first share! So much green!

In our first share we got:

- 1 bunch braising mix

- 1 bunch radishes

- 1 bunch turnips

- lettuce (2 heads and 1 bag mix)

- 1 bunch arugula

- 1 bunch Red Russian kale

And we had the option of going out to the farm and picking sugar snap peas which we were unable to do (sadly).

Overall, I was excited about the greenness, but unsure of what to do with most of it, aside from make salads. Unfortunately, the timing of our first share was poor as we received it on a Thursday, and I went to Boston that Sunday; Luis followed shortly. So we did not get to use a lot of the food. We made a lot of salads and I was able to cook one big meal before I left using some of our plethora of food.

We did manage to try two new things: turnips and the braising mix (which apparently is "a mix of cooking greens that are young and tender enough to be quickly sauteed"). There was a recipe for the braising mix in our newsletter we get with each share that we made. Basically, it was greens sauteed with garlic. In the end, I made a cracker crusted cod (I had cod we needed to eat, I found a recipe that I had most of the ingredients for and then improvised), the sauteed braising mix with garlic, and oven-fried turnips. I thought I took a picture of it, but apparently not. I would like to say that everything we tried that week was delicious, but that would be a lie. The braising mix was eh; Luis said it tasted too much like a plant....

We did however make some delicious turnips, and this was the first time I had eaten a turnip. I followed this recipe, and man, they were tasty.

Overall, week one was not very successful in that most of our veggies spoiled. However, I will put the majority of the blame on poor timing and will not count this venture as a failure yet! We're just getting started! (the CSA actually runs through mid-November)

Also, fun photo, I took pictures of our fridge pre-CSA, this is what it looked like after we got our first share:

So much green!

Also, I am not the most timely in the posting of these entries, so we are now on Week 5 of our adventure. We are swamped in green onions. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH GREEN ONIONS? I have no idea!

I'm pretty excited about the things to come for this summer, and am looking forward to getting more towards vegetables that are sturdier and not lettuce. It's quite strange how I look forward to Thursdays every week and I can't wait to find out what we are getting. In fact, the CSA emails their newsletter every Thursday around noon, and when I started writing this entry this morning, I was constantly checking my email to find out what we were getting (and it included carrots!)

exploring the fridge

I meant to post this ages ago, but vacation and job applications got in the way. Oh well, here it goes! (I also have like 3 blog entries I've been meaning to post!)

I thought that Jill's amusing post about her refrigerator was fun and I wanted to do my own! So here it goes, the Carlin fridge in all its glory!

Our fridge is slightly messy, consisting of many magnets and notes to each other.

And of course, fantastic artwork by small children (and me!). And, it even holds my letter informing me I passed comps with distinction! Also, I love the Scooper Bowl picture. So much ice cream.
Inside our freezer full of unhealthy things. Please ignore the frozen dinners, I try to. And you can't see both of them, but there's two cartons of ice cream! We also have vegetables, but they're in the door where you can't see them.
Inside our fridge! Important stuff like beer, fruit, almond milk, various breads, hummus, and yes, there's 3 pitchers of sweet tea. That's not normal.
And some condiments in the door. Delicious salsa. And the best thing in there is in the top left, in the jar with the gold lid- homemade apple butter!

Now that I look at these pictures, they really aren't that interesting. Oh well. I took these a while ago and a lot has changed in our fridge. Mainly we had to clear out the bottom shelf and the crisper to make room for all our vegetables!

Coming up next: Sam and Luis eat vegetables! So thrilling!