She: Cous-Cous Method

When my mom told me she was buying cous-cous for meals, I promised to add this post. Mark showed me a great way to make cous-cous very fast and simply, and even better, virtually mess-free...my favorite! This method just steams the cous-cous in a ziplock baggy, which you can then chuck into the fridge inbetween meals. Get: 1 cup cous-cous, 2tsp olive oil, 1.5 cup boiling water, 1 small cucumber, 1/2 onion, small handful of mint (or basil), 1/2 tsp cyanne, 1/2 tsp salt, and fresh pepper.

Thats the most basic list of ingredients. Everything than can be cut/diced, including the mint, should be. Put the cous-cous and the oil in the baggie first. Then add all the veggies and the salt/peppers. Pour in the boiling water and seal the bag. Let it sit for a few minutes, and voila! I personally add some apple and/or roma tomato (but add those after it steams), but dried cranberries or raisins are also nice, especially with mint! This is very healthy as a side dish, and a nice alternative to something mayo-heavy like coleslaw. Best of all, besides the knife and cutting board, there's nothing else to wash. :)

She: Mexicali dinner

So, last week we made a Kick. Butt. Dinner. It was fabulous. and I can actually say we split duties. Usually he does most of dinner and I do dessert and random tasks. But this was great. Mark made some turkey that he did his little ziplock technique to...he posted that Sous Vide? Anyways. We had that, and he cooked black beans, and I made the corn bread and guacamole, and whatever it was I made for dessert which I can't remember.

Almost everything came from our farmers market. The honey for the cornbread, the corn, avacados, cilantro, etc. That was really nice, and I felt good about the organic local stuff. Now we go to our little market off sunrise every saturday morning and get our veggies. And right now, cherries. I should get Mark to post his cherry custard, which kicked butt...but back to this meal. I'll let him explain the meaty stuff should he desires, but I was really pleased with the guacamole--my first attempt. I thought I'd give ya the recipe.
Two avacados. I sliced 'em in half and twisted. I scooped it all out in small chunks with a spoon and put it in a bowl. Then I took the cilantro, twisted it up in a bunch that I folded twice and cut it up (faster that way). I added one sweet pepper, 1/4th to 1/2 tsp salt, a tad bit of ground black pepper, and I squeezed one lemon to mix it up. I actually like lemon in it better than limes--it has more zing, I think. Stir it up and mash just a little.

The thing I remember was at the market I was about to pick some that were too hard or too soft. Mark picked one up and showed me where to poke it gently--near the stem. You want that to give slightly, and mostly ignore the rest of the fruit. Oh, and he swore that keeping the pit in with the guacamole would keep it green, but I looked it up. Its an urban myth, about nitrogen or something keeping it fresh, but in reality it doesn't. So if you have leftovers, press plastic wrap to the surface. The citrus juice helps the color stay green, too.
Doesn't dinner look beautiful? It was great, cheap, local, and healthy!

She: Home-grown Sunflower Seeds

This is a different kinda post, but I thought it could be educational, so what they heck. First, we have a garden. Not a fabulous one--it is plagued by aphids and spider mites, but we have peaches, lemons, a horde of pepper plants, tomatos, strawberries and a host of herbs. And sunflowers. I bought a different kind of sunflower this year--it looks like a giant mum. The things were huge! 8 feet tall, they had half foot wide heads on them, and the bees loved them. I wanted to save my seeds. So I read up on it, and found that if we had enough we could even have enough for a snack! Well, we didn't quite, but this is the process:

1. Once the sunflower starts to die, the stem and base of the flower will go from green to yellow. At this stage clip it and leave it in a dry place.
2. Once its dried, first pluck all the petals off. There will still be a section of innerpetals that hold and divide the seeds.
3. Now put the flower in a plastic baggie and use your nails to scratch out the seeds from the center. You put it in a baggie so seeds and their inner petals don't get all over the place. After thats done, you can save them to plant for the next year, or roast and eat 'em!