Americorps Week

Today marks the start of Americorps week. The theme for this year is community gardening, so I am hosting a potluck at growing power tomorrow.

Because I have an excessive amount of gorgonzola cheese in my fridge from that pasta recipe, I'm making a salad based of a recipe I found on allrecipes. The recipe on the website calls for mixed greens, dried cranberries, gorgonzola cheese, candied walnuts, and a dressing that is a mixture of raspberry vinaigrette, white vinegar, and olive oil. I am changing this up a bit. I am using dried bing cherries instead of dried cranberries, because they aren't sweetened with added sugar. I am also candying my own walnuts. It's pretty simple, actually. It's one part walnuts to half part sugar combined in a frying pan and stirred constantly over medium heat until the sugar starts to caramelize, then you put in on a baking sheet to cool. I am using one cup walnuts and a half cup of sugar. I am also just going to bring a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette with me to the potluck instead of doing their mixture. It's just easier that way.

I spent a total of $16 at whole foods on the ingredients I didn't already have for this (walnuts, cherries, and mixed greens). This salad makes 8 servings. pretty good deal in my book.

growing power, revisited

Today was an open house at Growing Power. I went towards the tail-end of the celebration in hopes of doing some partnership work with them (which I did). I got there a little early, though, and took the opportunity to pick up some fruit at their market. luckily for me, I had my EBT card on hand!

I walked in and looked in the large cooler they had (the pickings were slim at this point, since they made a lot of sales over the course of the event) and saw exactly what I wanted: a gorgeous cantaloupe. I was craving cantaloupe soo badly last night, and this was the last one in the cooler! I grabbed it without even thinking. I also grabbed a pair of kiwis, a granny smith apple, and a mcintosh apple.

my total: $6.75