Tasteful Tuesday

Did anyone else swear today was a rainy April day? It did NOT feel like a typical hot, sweaty, July day in New England.

I had a great snack today that I would recommend to those looking for an energy bar without the extra sugar and junk that is in some of the bars. The Clif Nectar bars are 2 servings of fruit, and most of them have a good dose of nuts as well (bumping the protein content up to 3 grams/bar). They are delicious, and only contain the dried fruit (dates, cranberries, apricots, etc.) and nuts. Yum Yum! The problem is that they're not sold at all grocery stores, and as of right now, I've only been able to find them at Whole Foods and some Shaw's.

After work I raced home, headed to the park for a track workout as part of my 1/2 marathon training schedule, and then picked some red leaf lettuce, arugula, and parsley in my community garden before heading home.

I made a delicious tabbouleh and great green salad for dinner. The tabbouleh was a bit sparse on the parsley, but I only had a small amount of parsley from my garden. Actually, it should be considered a tabbouleh knock-off, because (as usual) I didn't really follow the recipe in Debora Madison's cookbook, but rather improvised with what I had.

Jess's Knock-off Tabbouleh

1 bunch of parsley, finely chopped

1 cup bulgur, cooked

1 lemon, juiced

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cumin powder

Salt & pepper

3 Roma tomatoes, diced

Prepare bulgur according to directions on package. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Add more lemon juice and olive oil as needed. (Note: Mint, green onions and more parsley may also be added for a truer version of tabbouleh. The final product should be on the "green side", with less bulgur and more parsley.)

I prepped all the greens, boiled up a couple of Country Hen eggs, and made some homemade croutons. What a delicious, fresh dinner!




By the way, I just found out who will be the keynote speaker at this winter's NOFA conference. I am the food coordinator, meaning that I coordinate a potluck of 700 hungry farmers. If anyone would like to volunteer to help me, I would love it! It's not for a while, but it is definitely a rousing good time...

So...

Which rockstar farmer could it be? (click to find out!)