The First Family Farm Visit

Our baby girl has begun saying, "Fffffff," and we always find ourselves responding with lots of words that begin with F (food, fun, etc). Yesterday we made a trip out to Eastleigh Farm in Framingham, Ma for our first family visit to a farm. (lots of new F words to add to our rotation - first, family, farm, Framingham) In Massachusetts, individuals are able to buy raw milk only from a store on the farm. So, we made the trip to get some raw milk, eggs and butter. We had lots of fun wandering around the farm, seeing the milking cows, the young cows (pictured above), meeting the farmer and enjoying the sunshine.

We are already enjoying the sweet, fresh milk and looking forward to some homemade yogurt. Here are some other things we plan to eat this week:

Monday - Chipotle Burgers over Spinach Salad
Tuesday - Pan fried Local Haddock with an herb, lemon and butter sauce with squash and broccoli
Wednesday - Spicy Sausage, Kale and Bean Soup
Thursday - Chicken, sauteed spinach and squash
Friday - Vegetable Curry

(Only sqush 2 out of 5 nights. That's a little better)

What are your menu plans for the week?


This post is part of Menu Plan Monday and Monday Mania.

Dinner Inspiration

As I mentioned in my last post, we have been trying to avoid sugar, flour and grains (more on why in a future post). These limitations have put us in a definite dinner rut of meat, winter squash and kale/chard. So I set out to find some inspiration that looked tasty, healthy and affordable. Here's what I found:

10 Grain-Free Dinners on a Budget from Holistic Kid

A delicious looking/sounding Taco Salad at Riddle Love. Also planning to check out her weekly meal plans too.

One of my favorite blogs, Nourished Kitchen, is always inspiring, but this Chipotle Chile, Chicken and Black Bean Soup looked especially appealing to me.

Do you have any recipes to recommend for an affordable grain-free dinner? Please share your dinner inspiration.



Last night we enjoyed a roasted lemon garlic chicken with baked butternut squash and sauteed red chard with garlic. Still part of our basic pattern, but it was tasty. We drizzled the pan drippings over the squash, and I highly recommend it.

Lemon Garlic Chicken
5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
zest of 1-2 lemons
1 pasture raised chicken
1/2 C Chicken Stock
2 T butter

Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.

Mix the garlic and lemon zest together. Gently loosen the chicken skin and push the garlic and lemon under the skin. Try to evenly distribute over the whole chicken. Place the chicken into a dutch oven and add the chicken stock. Rub the butter over the chicken. Cook the chicken for 1-2 hours (until a leg wiggles easily). Remove the lid, and turn up the heat to 400 degrees and cook for another 20 minutes or until the skin is golden.

No-Noodle Lasagna

We moved and we are now writing to you from the Boston area. (Will have to rework the blog a bit.) It's been a big adjustment - for starters we now have a car! Moving to Boston during winter isn't ideal. One - it's a little grey and cold to get out and walk around to explore our new neighborhood. Two - local food is hard to come by making it extra difficult for us newbies to find all the locally sourced milk, eggs, veggies and meat we love. Apparently, we took all those wonderful greenmarkets of NYC for granted. Boston does have winter greenmarkets, but they are farther from home and have fewer vendors. Our next plan is to head out to some of the farms to try out their farm stores. Might as well take advantage of having a car, right?



We are working on not eating sugar, flour and grains for a few weeks. This has left us eating a lot of dinners of meat, winter squash and kale. It was time to mix it up a bit, so I headed down to the neighborhood grocery store to see what organic veggies I could scrounge up. I came up with zucchini and eggplant (out of season in Boston, but you do the best you can). I decided to make some lasagna using slices of zucchini and eggplant as the noodles.

In this recipe, I used a jar of organic spaghetti sauce. I have read about canned tomatoes leaching BPA out of the can lining, and I haven't been able to find tomatoes in jars. So, I have resorted to using jars of spaghetti sauce instead. Do you know where to find tomatoes in jars?

No-Noodles Lasagna
2 T olive oil
2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise
1 medium eggplant, sliced lengthwise
1 lb grass fed ground beef
28 oz spaghetti sauce
2 cups ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 t dried parsley
1/2 t dried basil
1/2 t dried oregano
8 oz mozzarella cheese, grated

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Oil two baking sheets and place the the slices of zucchini and eggplant on the sheets. Bake until softened - about 15-20 minutes. While those are in the oven, brown the ground beef, and mix in the spaghetti sauce. In a separate bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese, eggs and spices. Layer the ingredients into a casserole pan. I put a bit of sauce in the bottom of the pan, eggplant, sauce, ricotta mixture, mozzarella, zucchini, sauce, ricotta mixture and mozzarella. Bake for 45 minutes to warm it through.

*I like pre-baking the veggies because I think there is nothing worse than under cooked zucchini and eggplant. Years ago, I made this for a party but didn't pre-bake the veggies. I baked it for more than 2 hours and they were still not quite done.

This post is part of Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday, Jenny's Alphabe-Thursdays, Frugal Food Thursday, Simple Lives Thursday, and Make Ahead Monday.

Thanksgiving Dinner

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends.

We had planned on visiting family in upstate New York for the weekend. We expected to enjoy a lunch with one part of the family and dinner with another part of the family (our routine for the last several years). This is baby girl's first Thanksgiving and we were excited for her to get to see so many family members. Unfortunately our transportation fell through at the last minute, and we realized we would be spending Thanksgiving on our own in New York City.

I was really sad about not getting to spend the holiday with family, but we decided to embrace this change of plans. As we get ready to move to Boston, it became a nice opportunity to have a few more New York experiences before we leave.


In the morning, we went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We had never been, and it was lots of fun. Some people arrive at 6:30 am to stake out a spot. We let the baby have a nap at home, and then headed out. So we didn't arrive until after the parade had started. We were in the back, but we still enjoyed all the balloons and listening to the marching bands. Our little one loved watching all the people.

After the parade, we decided to get a light lunch before getting on the subway back to Brooklyn. We found Fine and Schapiro, a Kosher deli, and enjoyed some latkes, pierogies and half a corned beef sandwich.


We got a few last minute invites to local dinners, but we decided to cook at home. Neither one of us has ever prepared an entire Thanksgiving dinner. We have only made a couple of dishes to take to family dinners. We set our menu and did some last minute shopping the night before.


I love Thanksgiving food, so it was hard not to make a million side dishes, but we were pretty good at keeping the menu at a reasonable size. My husband found a 9 pound young turkey that was delicious. We also made a cranberry orange relish, sweet potatoes with pecans, cinnamon and cloves, brussels sprouts with red pepper flakes and Parmesan cheese, creamed onions with bacon, and a leek, cranberry and apple stuffing.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving dish?

How time flies!

We had a beautiful baby girl at the end of June. The doctors suspicions were correct-she was a big baby weighing in at 9.5 pounds. Luckily, I was still able to have the natural birth I was hoping for. I believe that eating right, prenatal yoga, and lots of walking gave me the strength to tough it out (along with my husband's support of course).

We have settled into family life here in Brooklyn. We enjoyed the bounty of the season's CSA vegetables, fruit, eggs and meat. I have been cooking less, and my husband has been taking the lead in keeping this nursing mama well nourished. I am amazed at how so many of you can prepare beautiful feasts night after night with a houseful of children. The meals I have made have been quick and simple which has not provided much fodder for new blog posts. But I have missed writing and being part of the blogging community, so I am planning on getting back into it.

There is a big change on the horizon for us. We are saying farewell to NYC and heading to Boston for a new exciting job for my husband. Stay tuned to hear more about the upcoming move and our efforts to create healthful meals in the midst of the chaos.

Salmon and Lentil Salad with Lemon Caper Dressing

The doctors have been warning me for a while now that we are going to have a big baby. I don't have gestational diabetes, but I think it's just in my genes that everything I eat goes straight to the baby.(Some people will roll their eyes when I complain about this.) I was almost 10 pounds when I was born, but my mom hadn't gained much weight. Her wedding rings were actually loose when she went into the hospital. Sugar, fruit and refined white stuff especially beef up the baby, so I have been trying to stick with a fairly high fiber and protein diet and to stay active with lots of walking and yoga.



One meal we especially enjoyed was a Salmon and Lentil Salad with Lemon Caper Dressing. It was nice and refreshing on a hot night. We simply layered some salad greens, cold lentils (but they could be served hot too), pan-fried salmon and topped it off with a delicious, tangy lemon caper dressing. It's a great low carb meal - whatever your reason. For an extra short cut, Trader Joes has some tasty pre-cooked lentils that are pre-seasoned. They keep for quite a while in the fridge, and are great to keep on hand for a quick meal. We like the seasoning they use, and used them as our flavor inspiration.

French Lentils
1/2 lb French lentils
1/2 T thyme
1/2 T oregano
1 t garlic powder
1/4 t salt and pepper
2 bay leaves

Spread the lentils out on a cookie sheet to check for pebbles. Place in a strainer and rinse. Place in a stockpot and add water to cover by an inch. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes or until tender but still firm.

Lemon Caper Dressing
2 T olive oil
1 t spicy brown mustard
dash of salt and pepper
1 T apple cider vinegar
2 T water
1 t capers
1/4 lemon, juiced
Extra capers for garnish

Whisk ingredients together to combine.

We enjoyed some extra capers sprinkled over the top of our salad.

This post is part of Ekat's Kitchen Friday Potluck, Designs by Gollum Foodie Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Susie QT Pies Friday Follow, and Ann Kroeker's Food on Friday.

Delicious Pulled Pork

Well, more time has passed than I intended since my last post. Pregnancy has just been more of a game changer than I expected. Luckily I am healthy and feeling well, but the doctor appointments, childbirth classes, prenatal yoga, etc really eat into blogging time. I know that this is only a taste of what is to come once the baby actually arrives. My due date is a week and a half away, so I thought it was a good time to check back-in with City Share.

Several weeks ago, before the spring vegetables were really showing up at the farmers' market, we had a great dinner that took advantage of some of the vegetables that store well over the winter. We got an acorn squash from the market and some spinach out of our freezer, and made some favorite dishes. We simply baked the squash and served it with some butter, and made some creamed spinach with some leftover cream cheese and half and half. As good as the vegetables were, the piece de resistance was some pulled pork inspired by a recipe in our Dinosaur BBQ cookbook. The meat was melt-in-your mouth tender and the sauce was a great combination of tangy, sweet and spicy. It was a delicious feast.



Pulled Pork inspired by Dinosaur BBQ

4.5 lb pork shoulder
1/2 can of tomato paste
10 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 C apple cider vinegar
1/4 C balsamic vinegar
1/4 C water
2 T ketchup
1 T spicy brown mustard
4 T maple syrup
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 t cayenne
1/4 t allspice
1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Sear pork shoulder in a Dutch oven over high heat on each side. Remove the meat from the pan, and combine the rest of the ingredients in the pan. Add the meat back in and spoon the sauce over the pork shoulder. Place in the oven and cook for 2.5 to 3 hours. Flip over every hour or so. The meat is done when it is falling off the bone.

This post is part of Miz Helen's Full Plate Thursday, Turning the Table Thursday, Jenny's Alphabe-Thursdays, Ultimate Recipe Swap at Life As Mom, Frugal Food Thursday, Recipe Swap Thursday at Prairie Story, and Simple Lives Thursday.