Love you all,
Steven

So the co-op we joined…. I went to the local health food store the other day to buy some tahini for my homemade hummus and overheard a guy paying for this ‘co-op’ share. So me being the nosy girl I am asked the owner about it, and sure enough he is a distribution point for a co-op out of DFW!!! I had been hunting all over for one since first learning about them but couldn’t find one within 45 miles of Stephenville. It was like I had struck gold! So the deal is that you pay a $25 a year “membership” fee that goes back to the farmers and helps pay for distribution, then there is a delivery every other Tuesday. You can purchase either a full or a half share. A full is $50, half $25. We found a friend to go in with and opted for the full. The nice thing about this co-op is depending on the week you can opt out of your share, or downgrade/upgrade. This is not a common practice with co-op shares. So we joined! I have waited patiently for weeks to be able to get in on the next delivery…but today was the day!

Today’s (full) share….. 5 sweet potatoes
4 avocados
9 bananas
3 lbs apples
Grape tomatoes
Mini red and yellow peppers
Strawberries
Swiss chard
2 heads of green leaf lettuce
3 lbs of carrots
1 huge head of broccoli

Not to mention all of this was organic, most locally grown, and a lot of it not available in Stephenville. We did a rough cost estimate and came up with $40, but this was regular price not organic prices. So I felt pretty good about our first share. Now if I can just find some recipes for Swiss chard and sweet potatoes (we don’t really like sweet potatoes that much). I think I will do an Italian style sautéed chard with olive oil and garlic, then do sweet potato pecan bread. More to come!!

And I almost forgot…..Glee starts tonight and I can’t wait!!!! What a good day!

Well as the cold weather blew in, I made sure to stay warm in the house all weekend. Mom and Dad Mangham came up on Thursday night and treated us to Pizza Place on our patio (that was before the bad weather blew in). Dad’s favorite Stephenville food was even better on our new patio furniture in perfect Texas spring weather. Friday the temperatures remained mild and we were able to enjoy an evening outside once again. Steak from Clay’s Processing it was, extra yummy when coated in Sun Dried Tomato Balsamic Vinegar. After dinner mom and I took our ritual trip to HEB, ours isn’t great but it is much better than any grocery store within 45 minutes of mom. She stocked up on spices for a spice demonstration in Livingston and I bought goodies to make homemade bread and granola bars.

As Friday night brought in the bad weather mom and I worked away in the kitchen mixing up bread dough. Luckily I had lots of baking ideas and company to keep my hands busy through the bad weather. Mine and Steve’s parents came for breakfast and we spent the remainder of the day swapping stories. I scrambled the free farm eggs I got last week at the health food store. They were yummy…but I think the richness of the farm egg was lost in the common scrambling process. Looking back I wish I would’ve saved them for omelets or quiche. Saturday morning I cooked my first loaf of bread in 6 years and conquered my fear of failing horribly at bread-making. It was absolutely delicious!!!! It also spawned a new desire to make all of our bread products at home. As usual with my fleeting ideas, I dove hopelessly into researching all kind of bread making skills and recipes. After a while I stumbled upon a website called Artisan Bread in Five, originally a book published a few years ago. Really cool concepts that they have also transferred into Healthy Breads in Five. It’s this whole idea for mixing dough, storing it in the refrigerator for up to 14 days, and baking what you need when you need it. Probably not that revolutionary of an idea, but this “Master Recipe” includes Vital Wheat Gluten, no kneading and very little rise and rest time. The whole idea is that it only takes five minutes of active prep a day to have fresh bread. So my hunt for the book began. Good thing the next day was Sunday and I had time to find it.

Oh I forgot to tell you about the homemade granola bars. Steven’s favorite organic bar spiked to $3.15 a box and I refuse to spend that for 6 small bars!!! So back to the drawing board to find a granola bar acceptable to Steve’s palate. A little crunchier than preferred, but a customization of Alton Brown’s granola bar recipe fit the bill. I substituted cocoa roasted almonds and some chocolate chunks for cranberries (remember the cranberry hate?). Delicious!!! I love food…but these were good, and healthy too.

Tonight my goal is to find some Vital Wheat Gluten, go for a walk with Chelsea, mix up some HBin5 (Healthy Bread in Five) dough, and finally get around to making my Roasted Red Bell Pepper Hummus. Speaking of hummus, I almost forgot one of the many highlights of my weekend….a trip to COSTCO with Rocky!!! Oh how fun it was! I decided to bite the bullet and buy the $50 membership after seeing the great deals on produce, bulk nuts, flour, and meat. I bought Cherub tomatoes, a huge bag of pita chips, lots of walnuts, two big boxes of our favorite cereal, a 10 lbs bag of chicken breast and an 80 pack of fruit snacks. Sounds like lots of money and food, but I think over the long run the membership will help us out! We shall see Ok its time to go home…so I must stop typing. I’ll update tomorrow on bread dough, hummus and walking in our beautiful weather (it was back in the sixties today).

As usual I have crazy high aspirations for the upcoming few months. Not only do we have 3 friends getting married (so lots to do) but I have tons of goals of my own. I’ve taken on gardening; have a growing list of new foods to try, places to visit, and lots of fun chores around the house awaiting us. Are you ready for this? Hahahaha like it is so great J

So first off…yall haven’t even seen pictures of the house and we have lived there since December!! They are coming soon. Check back in a day or so for all the picture updates.

And now for my garden stories! From the day we found out we were buying the house I started dreaming about the perfect garden that was going to produce an abundant harvest for many years to come. I spent countless hours researching the best planting methods, things to grow in our area, the best varieties of plants, etc. After lots of reading and some planning I convinced Steve to let me build a 4×10 garden box in our backyard. So one pretty Spring (or February in TX) morning Steve and I set off to McCoys and spent the rest of the afternoon building the perfect box. Ok so it didn’t turn out quite perfect, but it was a fun labor of love for us. If you watched the Central Texas weather you know how the next few weeks went. We went in and out of nice days and snow storms. Totally out of the norm for this part of Texas, but we had 4 distinct snows this year. And probably one more to come. Well after all the research I had settled on planting a lasagna garden. Basically it is layers of compost on top of your normal dirt to help fertilize and make lots of yummy goodness for the plants to grow. So every random food scrap, from egg shells to avocado peels to coffee, went in a pile to eventually be transferred to the garden. The next break in the cold I got back outside and started layering away. The first layer was wet newspaper, then a combo of decaying leaves and food scraps. I topped this layer with cardboard for a few days so it could bake away in the sun and break down even more. The next cold front hit and I debated how to continue the garden layering. The next thought was a layer of rotten fruit and veggies, easily obtained from a local grocer. Well to my disappointment, HEB can no longer give away their rotten produce due to a lawsuit a few years ago. So I tucked my tail and didn’t even try to pull strings with management (my previous employers). This left me with a lot of space in the garden and no ideas to layer. The whole concept behind the lasagna garden was to stray away from buying soil or compost…mostly to cut down on cost. But without a layer of rotting fruit at my finger tips I had to move on. The next option…purchase a truck full of dirt and hope it is decent quality, so I started asking everybody, my coworkers, friends, customers, where I could get good dirt. One coworker suggested calling a friend of hers, which was a great suggestion. He ended up offering me a truck of sand, for free!! Ok so I know that sand isn’t necessarily the best growing medium ever…but it was free!! So we took it. Another nice Saturday rolls around and it was time to prep the bed. We took off early in the morning, loaded up our free sand, and spent the rest of the day shoveling away. We layered the sand on top of the newspaper, then two bags of organic compost, a little more sand and leaf mixture, then gardening soil, topped with one more layer of compost. Then more snow came….but this past weekend I finally got the plants in the ground and hopefully the bad weather is over.

Ashley and I planted 4 varieties of tomatoes, red bell peppers, spinach, romaine lettuce, basil, cilantro, oregano, zucchini squash, yellow summer squash, green beans, baby round carrots, and baby finger carrots. I also planted a hanging basket of strawberries, and some blackberries and a rosemary plant. I’m so excited about it all!! Watch for more details on gardening adventures in the upcoming months. There will be a link on the right side under Sarah.

Some other fun things in the Rains’ world include lots of yummy baking experiments such as lemon butter cookies with white chocolate drizzle, homemade peanut butter cups, and my first quiche, Spring Break (well we are working…but still), Steve is going through Teach Texas, a alternative teachers program, and we have two college girls living with us for the month, Ashley and Kelli. Fun times, fun times! Thanks for stopping by…I promise I’ll update soon J

Speaking of holidays…I did greatly miss the Reynolds’ Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving Rains’ style was good too. I did prove my worthiness by showing up everybody on Grandpa Ford’s horse Not that I ride frequently, but I remember some stuff. I took Green Bean bundles and lemon pie with me to the celebration so I would have a bit of home. Everybody loved the green bean bundles, but were hesitant of the pie. Which was fine with me since I got to bring home about half of it!! I missed you all dearly, but I know that you all had a good time! I love yall lots and hope to see yall soon.

Another thing to keep in mind…we are going to try to have a housewarming get together sometime early spring (probably February or March) and everybody is more than welcome to come. I will get invitations out closer to time.

Life is ticking right along and going good. The holidays are upon us and things are getting busy. We have started looking at homes to buy this spring thanks to Steve’s generous grandparents and are touring tons of homes in the Stephenville area. Let me tell you, we’ve seen it all. Cute little places in bad areas, ones that look good from the outside but falling down and smell of cats, and places that are just way to expensive. It has been a little challenging but we are in no hurry. On another note…I will be starting a new position as a  loan assistant at our main location here in the next few weeks. They just hired somebody to fill my spot (or attempt) but I can’t move until she is trained, so it might be a few weeks. It will definitely be an exciting challenge. The fun thing is that I will be working directly with Chelsea, one of my really good friends and in the same department as Heather, my ex roommate and close friend. It’s gonna be a little crazy and fun!
As you may recall, Steve applied for a position at Granbury ISD, but found out last week that they are under a hiring freeze. Hopefully it will lift soon and he can get his foot in the door.

Thats about all the updates from us. Just living, looking at houses, and having fun. We are excited for tonight because a new John Mayer cd and a new Norah Jones cd just came out today. We sold back a couple of old cds and books to Hastings last night so we are gonna treat ourselves to some new CDs. Cheaper than Itunes this time, especially with our buy back credit!!! WooHoo!!

Steven