Thursday, July 13, 2006

Rainy Day Fun

Yesterday it was pouring rain. This worked out well because we had some errands to run. One of the errands was to pick up a microwave from our local freecycle group. Like so much of the stuff we've given and recieved on freecycle, it was in beautiful shape but no longer useful to its previous owner. Since our microwave died (it had been a wedding present in 1990), this was quite a find.

On the way home we got stuck in traffic and discovered a new thrift store. Leenie found a pair of inline skates that were my size and begged me to get them so she could teach me to skate. My skating skills are limited to roller skating back in the early 80's but since the skates were only $5 I decided to give it a try.

When we got home we cleared out one side of the garage and spent the rest of the afternoon skating around the garage. I'm still quite unsteady but it was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon with the kids. We often use the garage like this on rainy days. Its a nice change from watching movies, which we also did.

Today, Leenie is trying to convince Jim to try skating with his inline skates, which were a freecycle find. I guess I'll give it another try as well.

On the food front, Jim joined us last night bringing several huge bags of veggies from our CSA. We spent the evening getting these stored away. We have a very small fridge here so this can take quite a bit of creativity.

To maximize space in the fridge, we chopped and froze the garlic scapes, scallions, cilantro and the fringy part of the fennel. We also shredded the zucchini and froze it in 4 cup portions since this is the amount I use to make zucchini bread. All of these foods can be frozen without cooking. Although, they work best in cooked foods because once they are defrosted, they get mushy. Since they are already cut they make cooking go much more quickly.

Leafy greens deteriorate the fastest, so we'll try to use them today and tomorrow. The other veggies like cucumbers, kale, beets and turnips are more durable so they'll be used later.

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