1st CSA Baskets Bring Yummy Eats!

I was thrilled to see what a bountiful amount of rain would bring in our CSA baskets at the beginning of the season.  The answer was enormous green onions, mild and spicy radishes, rhubarb, asparagus, spinach and loads of greens!

Green onions always scream stir-fry, dipping sauces and spring rolls to me~so I immediately bought a pork tenderloin to marinate. For the pork tenderloin, I use this recipe from AllRecipes. It is simple and tastes wonderful.  My only big change is cooking at a lower temperature (325) for 90 minutes. I also alter the measurements of ingredients, depending on supplies and mood.  I sometimes use Thai Chili sauce in a lesser amount, but usually just a Garlic-Chili Sauce instead of a paste. I like that I throw it together in a plastic bag and basically forget about it until the next day when I place it into the oven.  We eat it with rice and stir-fried veggies. I boil the sauce from the tenderloin (adding some more brown sugar) and serve it alongside as it can be a little too spicy for the kids.

There is usually way too much meat for one meal.  Soon after removing it from the oven, I place 1 tenderloin into aluminum foil and into the refrigerator. I thinly slice it and reheat for a meal of spring rolls. We use lots of thinly sliced veggies, spring roll wrappers, reheated stir-fry veggies (if we have them!), the reheated tenderloin and various dipping sauces.  The girls love that they can make their own.  Of course our youngest has recently taken to using the wrapper like a candy bar wrapper and then discarding it on her plate.  Maybe it's a 5 year-old thing?

Maybe I will get back around to posting photos soon.  The spring rolls can be quite pretty ;)

Enjoy!
~Tracy

Never & Can't...

When I was in college, I met a man named Stanley Shipp.  Anyone who knew Stanley was inspired by him, as well as by his wife, Marie.  He once said to my friends and I to be careful about saying we will never do something.  Whenever he said he would never do something, he knew that was exactly the thing he needed to do~even if it meant packing bags and moving overseas!

Since then, I have been pretty careful about saying never.  However, I have found that saying I can't do something has the same effect on me. (Now, someone else telling me I can't do something has a somewhat different result~that could be another blog someday....)

I remember being asked to do mission work in Romania for the summer of 1991.  Initially I said, "I can't do it." Having just returned from teaching in Scotland, I couldn't imagine traveling overseas the following summer. But Romania wouldn't let go of my thoughts.  I called the team leader before midnight the deadline day to ask if a team of 6 could become a team of 7. (I don't think it was exactly the eleventh hour, but it was close!) My time in Romania remains important to me today, it's part of me.

*After I started writing, I realized the only other past examples are too personal to share in a blog~sorry. 

Quite a bit of my time teaching was spent saying yes to every opportunity that came my way.  "I can't" wasn't a part of my teaching. I loved the challenges and opportunities: teaching, taking classes, sponsoring the newspaper kids, working with peer mediators, kids in the room before and after school, creating curriculum...This may have contributed to some pretty major burn-out by the time I left the classroom.

I have since learned to say "no" to things without saying, "I can't."

Until tonight....A volunteer opportunity came up and I said, "I can't."  Since then, I haven't been able to let go of the feeling that I actually can do it.  So here I am blogging at midnight, since I cannot sleep..thinking that tomorrow, I will be writing an email saying I can do it after all.
~Tracy