Garden Food: Part 3

I'm still catching up on all these Garden posts! Three weeks ago we made a giant pot of minestrone soup, pesto pasta, and salad. This week we made lentil chili tacos with avocado, and salad with three types of edible flowers!

Another meal from the Garden: Part 2

Fridays are the highlight of my week. Not because it signifies the beginning of the weekend, but because I get to eat the best meal of my week! I've decided that, this summer, I will plant leafy greens and some root vegetables. In addition, I will try to convince my parents that some egg-laying hens make a good investment. Mom, if you're reading this, can we get some chickens and make a little coop in the backyard? Pleeeaaasee?

Garden Food: Part 1

I did not realize how difficult it would be to keep up with a blog.

I have an accumulation of photos to post on here but not enough time to do it! I don't even have enough time to get all my reading assignments finished! Lately, migraines have taken up a lot of time that could otherwise have been productive. Migraines hurt and I want them to go away!

On a lighter note, I was able to enroll in the Human Functional Anatomy class today. Ten units for a single class, this is going to be quite a bit of work, but I'm excited. We get to dissect real human cadavers which is not really an experience you come across everyday. I would really like to enroll in Culture through Food but I need to take a French class too so I might have to skip out on the Food class unfortunately. But I love food! At my gardening internship we make/get to eat some of the best food of my life. Its all straight from the garden and makes me feel so healthy and self-sufficient. The experience of growing your own food is a very empowering one.

A majority of the food we make at the Garden comes straight from the garden. I love harvesting salad each week for lunch then coming back the next week to see everything that I had picked grew back! All the food is vegetarian and mostly vegan and so delicious! 

The Weekend in Review

I've been out and about lately so I haven't been around the computer to update this blog thing I've got going here. Time to catch up:

Friday

My first day of my internship started this Friday. An internship is required for my Transformative Action class so I decided to find one that involved sustainable gardening since it has been something I have been interested in for a while. The internship is at a community demonstration garden called Terra Gnomea, three houses away from the beach. It is a hidden little gem in Santa Cruz that makes a great difference in the community.

A hen from the garden's chicken coup. They ate flowers from my hand!

"Terra Kitty", the garden's cute cat!

The garden has a green house, a chicken coop, a bee hive, a barn, and multiple garden beds! Everything is built from recycled materials and they compost everything! During my internship, we plan to build a "gray water" pond which is a way to filter and recycle water for use in the garden. We will be learning about seasonal plants and vegetables, how certain plants balance others' chemicals out, the importance of local plants and more! I am so excited to be learning about something new! The internship will be from 1-5 PM every Friday, but the first half hour will consist of a meal made with food from the garden!

We had rosemary potatoes; a salad with apples, blueberries, red bell pepper, and red onions; and a Moroccan chickpea dish with tomatoes, onions, and spices! It was all so delicious and vegan!

Saturday

My saturday consisted of running errands while Kevin tagged along. I bought a Groupon for American Apparel that would expire soon and I needed to redeem it, so I did. From the store, I purchased some amazing "winter leggings" that I highly recommend for the colder months. They are so thick and comfortable and would be perfect with boots and a dress or even as sweat pants! 

Kevin and I stopped for  lunch at my favorite Santa Cruz cafe, Café Delmarette. All of their ingredients are organic and locally grown so their business is great for the environment and the community. They make the absolute best scones in existence and I am in love with every sandwich they make. On Saturday I went there specifically for a certain grilled eggplant sandwich but it turns out that eggplant is out of season so I settled for a grilled chicken sandwich with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, mozzarella, and garlic aioli. Delicious!

Saturday Night

Kevin and I have felt like we have been spending too much money lately so we decided to find a cheap way to do dinner. So we decided to have a picnic! We made ourselves some sandwiches, packed some apples, apple sauce, and peanuts then walked a mile and a half to the beach to dine!

Sunday

Today I went to the Santa Cruz Chocolate Festival! I went with Laurel, Bryan, Marc, Ashley, and Sean! It was so crowded that it isn't surprising that we ran into all of our bosses and many friends at the event. What is surprising though is that 10 chocolate tastings was too many! I paid for the 10 ticket thinking I would still want more, but by 3 tastes I was on chocolate overload! I collected the rest of my "tastings" to take home for my housemates to devour. It was a little difficult to take pictures there since it was packed and my hands were full of chocolate.