Lunch, lounging and scary movies

The dogs vetoed the outing. I gathered up all of their things and stood at the door with leashes in hand - and nothing...

Abby was busy sunning herself. 

A true California girl - sunshine above all!

And why are you interrupting my sunbathing???

So a leisurely Saturday it was. Connor was doing the male dog/lounging/taking up the whole surface area of the bed thing (no picture of that - believe me - I'm doing you a favor).

And I decided to go with the flow and watch a movie. You should know - I love horror movies. The more campy, schlocky and/or adding nothing beneficial to humanity the better. But this one was surprisingly good. 

If you are afraid of heights and hate being cold - you will love this one. Pretty darn scary - in a good way. 

I made this for lunch:

Blanched collard greens on a white corn tortilla.

Add in some frozen corn heated up in the microwave. 

 Some avocado.

 And some salsa. It was great. Now to finish watching the scary movie :-)

Nice to know

This morning I made 2 cups of brown rice and while I was cheerily chopping up mushrooms and collard greens to add to the pot - I cut my finger.

It was bloody. It was horrific. I will spare you a picture of the mangled digit.

Did the dogs rush over in concern? Nope. As I stumbled around looking for band-aids - they sighed (my interpretation - "Well, crud, breakfast is going to take forever now...) and went back to bed. 

It is nice to know that if I ever bleed out they won't let it interfere with catching some shuteye. 

The mushrooms and greens pre bloody incident

Despite the dogs shocking lack of interest in my well being they got this for breakfast.

 
Brown rice with greens and mushrooms with broiled Halibut. I know it seems strange to feed the dogs this stuff - but truth be told - the fish was about to turn bad and I didn't want to eat it - but for the dogs? It is a delicacy. 

I poached one of the farm stand eggs and placed it on top of a bed of rice.

 

 While it looks yummy just the way it is - I ate it like this.

 The addition of a dash of blue cheese and some black pepper resulted in perfection!

 Happy Saturday!!

The farm

The dogs came along for the car ride to the farm. They couldn't join me because normally the chickens are truly free range. The petite fowl are usually running around the farm munching on all sorts of earthy goodies. 

I think the dogs smell chicken!

The skies were overcast - rain is due this weekend so the ladies were snug in their home. 

But the greens were still gorgeous.

The beautiful bounty. 

From the top going clockwise: Collard greens, leeks, broccoli, broccoli rabe and in the center - splendiferous farm fresh eggs.

 But you need to see the incredibly cute color of that green egg. 

I am not hungry tonight - so no dinner picts. Of course the dogs got their usual dinner with an addition of parsley-turkey mini burgers. 

And finally, a pretty picture of flowers blooming on the farm.

Greens for all

I decided to make asian style collard greens for myself and fish flavored collards for the beasties. 

It all started with the greens - 

Freshly washed greens

I

Remove the tough stem

Leftover sweet potato chopped

I put together the makings for an asian style sauce that included the local honey I picked up at the farm stand, garlic, green onion, ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil (not in picture)

Next, I blanched the greens in boiling water for about 1 minute. The greens got fished out and the sweet potatoes went in for a 10 minute boiling bath.

This morning I realized that the container of kibble had dwindled down to mere crumbs - so since the pet store was not open at 7am - The dogs had a breakfast of brown rice, sauteed halibut and nori. I left the residual fish bits in the pan (nope, that had nothing to do with being completely lazy - really:-) so after the greens were blanched I added a bit of olive oil to the said dirty pan and gave 1/3 of the collards a quick toss and added in some of the cooked sweet potatoes.  

You can see bits of crispy fish on the sweet potato in the background - mmm doggie heaven!

Connor was very excited to get to eating!

After finishing her own bowl - Abby had to come over to make sure Connor had not left any tasty bits behind.

Sorry, Abby, there was not a bit left.

After cleaning out the saute pan, I added a small amount of olive oil and sauteed the rest of the collard greens for about 7 minutes. Then I turned off the heat and added in the sauce mixture. I let this cook till heated through and added in the sweet potatoes.

An extra sprinkle of green onions for good measure. 

I was expecting the collards to be slightly bitter but the honey in the sauce really balanced out any lingering sharpness. The collards turned out almost creamy and with the meaty texture of the sweet potatoes and the occasional bright burst from the ginger - it really turned out to be a wonderful dish.