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We're doing a backpack/camping/hiking food giveaway at ADVENTUREinPROGRESS. This is some truly healthy and tasty ready prepared meals, just add hot water! If your family is into the outdoors and needs a meal to take on an adventure you should check it out.
In early July I prepared a lunch for twenty-five young adults working with Lots To Gardens. This was one of the commitments I was referring to in this post (the clash of too many commitments having brought me to the brink of my sanity.)
Our family has invested in this non-profit for the past five years or so and in I've blogged before about cooking meals with them, planting seeds, supporting summer festivals and attending harvest fundraising dinners.
This was my third summer cooking a large lunch for their crew of youth workers and staff. I was given a gift certificate (a small stipend) for my effort but it was most definitely a labor of love.
The meal criteria from LtG were these: The meal should contain a whole grain, lean protein, colorful veggies and fruit. Dairy and meat optional but if so with vegetarian options. No pork (due to religious restrictions), low sugar, low salt, no HFCS or partially hydrogenated oils.
This I could do.
In addition I added the following criteria: I wanted to use as much Maine grown and in season produce as possible. Also, to provide a gluten-free option to the one g-free staff member.
With those criteria in mind and also the reality that I would be feeding mostly hungry teenagers I choose to make one of my family's favorite pasta dishes and finish it off with strawberry cobbler for dessert.
I'm not including the cobbler recipe here because it wasn't vegan and you can find those recipes anywhere on the net. We don't usually eat this kind of dessert but I needed something to appeal to the masses, so to speak. The cobbler included locally found ingredients - strawberries, whole wheat flour, oats (I made a g-free version also with my baking mix) and butter. All of which you can buy from Maine farms and mills.
Without further rambling here's the pasta recipe which I call Asian Noodles or Sesame Noodles depending on my mood.
Pasta Base:
- 16 oz. brown rice spaghetti (or whole wheat)
- 12-16 oz. tofu (I buy my organic, non-GMO tofu from this Maine company)
- 2 medium cucumbers, chopped
- 1 red pepper, chopped
- 2-3 medium carrots, shredded
- 3-4 green onions, sliced diagonally
- 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)
Dressing:
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 1/4 cup vegetable broth (my recipe mix here)
- 2 tsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp soy sauce, or less to taste
- 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
- 1/2 inch chunk gingerroot, grated or minced
- 3 tsp sugar or brown rice syrup
- 1/2 tsp asian chili paste (optional)
- 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
Directions:
- Cook pasta according to package directions (or until tender but firm). Drain and rinse under cold running water. Drain well and place in large mixing bowl.
- Add tofu, cucumbers, pepper, carrots and onions.
- Whisk together dressing ingredients; toss with pasta mixture.
- Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and cilantro.
- Serve immediately or refrigerate for later.
Notes:
- The main work of this meal is in chopping the veggies. So if you have a few kids on hand this could go quick.
- This is one of our family's favorite quick summer meals and you can really use any crunchy vegetable you want.
- In the winter you can use raw cabbage and bean sprouts instead of fresh garden veggies.
- This recipe feeds our family of five. I pentupled (is that a word?) it to feed twenty five.
Weekends like this start innocently enough. An e-mail sent from a local organic farmer and friend, private invitation only, "the strawberries are ready for picking." It came in my inbox while we were on vacation so the picking had to wait till we got home. And it had to wait till Damien could help (I intended to pick a lot) and I had time to freeze what we picked.
It was decided, Friday was the day.
Then late last week another invitation, this time from Damien's coworker and friend, "our backyard raspberries are ripe and we'll be out of town for the weekend, please help yourself." Only these berries were both free and a mere 5 minute walk down the street.
Free berries cannot be passed up.
And so the weekend played out something like this:
Friday
6:30 am Get up and get the girls out of bed. We're going strawberry picking. I baked muffins the night before to eat while working.
7:30 am The four of us are in the patch. Unfortunately the humidity that hit during our vacation "killed" a good number of berries. There's a lot of rotten and moldy ones, as there was in my home patch when we returned from our trip. But we're determined and thorough. By midmorning we've picked 27 lbs, 1/2 of what I had hoped to pick - these organic berries are small but good.
1:30 pm One bucket cleaned and in the freezer. Four to go. We've also made a run to the craft store for magnetic sheets, Celine has a craft in mind.
4:30 pm After the usual afternoon activities of reading and my writing time I'm washing and freezing another bucket. Brienne is sorely disappointed I don't have time to sew her the sundress we bought fabric for the night before, but there is only so much a mama can do in a day!
5:00 pm I pick our backyard raspberries. So thankful that it's family night at the college, cheap eats (& even healthy options) for supper.
7:00 pm We're home again and before we settle down to watch Alice in Wonderland with the girls I move frozen strawberries from cookie sheets to gallon sized plastic freezer bags.
Saturday
9:30 am We slept in. Delicious. Almost as delicious as the fresh berry smoothie Damien makes us for breakfast.
The specific details of this day are hard to recall but I spend most of it in the kitchen: washing, freezing and bagging the rest of the strawberries (15 lbs worth), preparing the day's meals and making skin care products. It was a good day. Damien works on the house, the girls play and participate in our work.
5:30 pm The girls and I walk down the street to Damien's friend and coworker's house. He wasn't joking, there are a lot of ripe raspberries. I'm in berry heaven. We pick 4 lbs in 1/2 an hour, not bad.
7:30 pm We eat berries for dessert, again (smile). The evening is spent getting ready for tomorrow's hike.
9:30 pm The last raspberries are spread on a cookie sheet and placed in the freezer. The juice stained picking buckets and sticky kitchen counters are cleaned, one last time. Kitchen closed.
Sunday
7:00 am Frozen raspberries come off the cookie sheet and into a plastic freezer bag. We eat Damien's breakfast muesli with fresh raspberries.
8:30 am We're on the road, driving to the mountains for our weekly hike.
When we arrived I think I saw wild raspberries in the parking lot at the trailhead. Just this once I resisted the urge to investigate.
7:00 pm After a supper of frozen Newman's Own pizzas from the grocery store (we hadn't anticipated the Thai restaurant we eat at after hikes to be closed on July 4th - silly us) I'm off again to the neighbors to pick raspberries. I'm by myself this time. I appreciate the quiet. In that prickly patch I ponder my "berry picking heritage". Grandparents, both sets, who could outpick anyone. I think of my mom who also planned to pick berries this weekend at her home in Nova Scotia. I recall being a teenager on vacation with my parents and grumbling about stopping to pick berries for an hour on our way to the cabin. That I ever complained about berry picking amazes me but gives me hope for my own children that some day they too will come around to the joy of picking.
8:30 pm One more cookie sheet of raspberries (complete with microscopic bugs, you can't really wash raspberries) in the freezer and we're out the door to watch the city fireworks show down by the river.
10:30 pm Home from the fireworks. Damien blends himself a water and raspberry juice in the vitamix. A refreshing drink on this warm summer night.
Monday
8:30 am I'm making waffles topped with raspberries for breakfast, a holiday request from the girls. More frozen raspberries are being transferred from the cookie sheet to a plastic freezer bag.
9:30 am In the garden taking photos of our raspberries. No time to pick though I've got some writing to do.
2:00 pm After a salad of farm greens and peas for lunch the girls and I are off to the local pond for an afternoon of swimming on this holiday Monday. The beach is busy but not crowded, the day is hot, the water is clean and refreshing. It's perfect.
6:30 pm We've eaten supper and I'm in our backyard picking raspberries while Damien makes berry smoothies for dessert. I pick almost 2 lbs and we're set again for breakfast and a few more to freeze. While I'm picking our neighbor, Damien's coworker whose yard I've visited twice this weekend, stops by on a walk with his family. "Hey listen" he says "now that we're home there's still more berries in our backyard then we're able to pick. You're welcome to them."
9:00 pm I make Tuesday's plan. First off, raspberry muffins for breakfast and then I figure out where to squeeze another 1/2 hour of berry picking into an already full day of sewing, a bit of school, picking up a couchsurfer to stay for a couple days and the usual meals and laundry. But berries for the picking, how can I say no?
It was a wonderful long summer weekend. We hiked and swam, ate from our farm share (and the grocer's freezer), watched a movie and fireworks. We spent time with the girls in the outdoors and at home. And through it all we relished berries. We picked berries, I froze berries, we ate berries. We lived berries.
Does summer get any better?
A funny thing happened to me while I was taking the bus to meet my mom for our girl's weekend. I met a couple traveling on the same bus and after 5 minutes of knowing them invited the two (perfect strangers) to come stay at our home.
They showed up at our house this past weekend after exchanging a few brief e-mails last week.
Before going into the story of this meet up I'd like to say (after spending an intense 36 hours with these world travelers) that hosting strangers who in a few short hours become friends is one of life's greatest privileges. If you ever get the opportunity to do so, you should. In a heartbeat.
The story of this serendipitous weekend goes like this:
Three weeks ago I took the bus to meet my mom in New Brunswick. While buying a bus ticket at the Bangor, ME bus terminal I noticed a youngish couple (our ages - for whatever that's worth) carrying hefty backpacks. I thought to myself "these people are going somewhere interesting, I'd like to meet them". So I did.
I introduced myself and commented on the packs, striking up a conversation about who they are and where they were traveling. After a short talk we boarded the bus and went to our separate areas of the bus. My goal after all was to have a quiet, uninterrupted bus ride - to read, write and think. But I did decide that if the opportunity arose to talk to them at the next stop I would invite them to come visit us.
At the next stop opportunity (fate or the Holy Spirit?) knocked and without so much as even knowing their names I invited them to come to our home. With that invitation out of the way I then got their story - who they were and where they were going.
They are Marco & Nicole, from Switzerland, who rode the bus from New York to Halifax, NS to pick up their Iveco (pronounced Iweko if speaking German) traveling truck which came across the ocean on a ship. From Halifax they are traveling around North and South America for the next 2 to 3 years.
Um... yep, these are definitely people I wanted to come visit us. I just knew they had a good vibe when I spotted them.
Nicole and Marco arrived at our house this past Saturday. We fed them a bit of supper and fruit smoothies. We talked, talked and talked. Sunday we took them hiking with us, these people live in the Alps for goodness sake! We talked some more. After almost 7 miles of hiking in the Maine mountains we took them to our favorite Thai restaurant (they were in Thailand earlier this year, sigh...).
After supper we went for ice cream, the boys jammed a bit and then we had a virtual tour of Switzerland when they showed us the photos on their computer of their beloved homeland. You probably already know this but Switzerland is one absolutely beautiful country. And the mountains, oh the mountains (swoon).
This morning, after taking them to a real bakery where they could find decent bread, we sent them on their way. But only after invites many times over that we should come stay with them when we visit Switzerland. Fancy that. We do plan to go to Europe with our children when they are teenagers and by that time Nicole and Marco will be back home and maybe starting a family of their own. It would be wonderful to meet again.
Meeting and hosting travelers from different place is such an enriching life experience. We look for opportunities whenever possible to do so. And sometimes opportunities like this fall into our laps - if we keep our eye, ears and hearts open to the possibilities.
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