And that's why my neighborhood is full of trees with tiny, uneven cuts on them

Gotta start today's post with a quick public service announcement: as glamourous and exciting as the world of CSA membership may appear on this blog, I do not necessarily recommend that you embark on a similar journey of plant-fatigue. I know it seems like a frolicking fantasyland of health and pretty colors, but you're basically committing to thinking obsessively about vegetables and how to use them for multiple hours a day and spending your Friday night staring down things like roasted cauliflower soup.

Also, there are bugs. Literal bugs. Sometimes a lot of them. They can live in a refrigerator for a surprisingly long time.

Anyway, I've already enticed one poor soul into two months of wrangling beets and rhubarbs rutabagas, and I just don't think I can take any more on my conscience.

Moving on! It's the weekend, so let's cleanse our palates with some party food.

And party booze, let's throw some of that in.

Mmmm...cleansing, cleansing bourbon.

That's right, January 8th, time for another holiday party! The traditional Kevin and Amalia brown bag gift exchange was delayed a bit this year (last year?), so we valiantly scraped together our remaining shreds of holiday spirit and made jolly once again. Okay, that's kind of a lie, I showed up in a terrible January vegetable-logged mood but I fixed it (see above).

I'm not going to explain the rules. It's white elephant-ish.

What strange and mysterious wonders await?

Dan's contribution was one of admirable culinary sophistication.

Bugs! In a can!

This is where you put the bugs, when you want to cook them.

Mary Beth was so infuriated to be the recipient of this delicacy that she...decided to prepare them immediately. So as to have them eaten and gone as soon as possible? I sort of lost the logic somewhere in the chaos of banging pots and angry muttering. Also, I was pretty far into my cleansing process at that point (see above).

It's hard to tell in this picture, but she's thinking about how much she hates Dan's face.

Look what she did! It smelled like food! Actually it just smelled like butter, which is even better than food.

The instructions on the can require that the snail butter sizzle, and damned if it didn't.

I know you're going to be disappointed in this rare lapse in my intrepid reporting skills, but I did not eat a snail. They were all consumed in the two minutes I was in the bathroom. Dan's review: "It was buttery."

I did, however, eat some Krabby Patties.

They tasted like sugar and squishiness.

They were a part of the gift I ended up with, possibly my best haul in the several years I have attended this soiree. To wit:

A bottle opener AND A WOOD SAW! What an amazingly terrible thing for me to have in my possession. So excited.

Undoing holiday damage takes about a month of boringness

At first glance you will think that Wednesday night's dinner fell short of the current vegetables-vegetables-vegetables mandate, but what you can't see in this chicken green chili soup are the six entire Anaheim chiles nestled in there. Peppers are actually one of the trickier CSA inclusions because when I spot them I think, "Ah, I can use peppers, no problem," then they get stuck in the crisper under all the weird things I have to hustle up recipes for and then I forget about them and they end up in the compost heap. Not this time! I went for a full pepper-featuring meal.

The veggies are in there, they're just on the DL.

This was a really good soup. I would probably halve the chicken and double the beans next time, but that's just personal preference. The flavor was perfect for a chilly night, probably because roasted peppers are among the greatest things ever.

Last night's vegetables were more overt. Broccoli and napa cabbage salad with miso dressing, with a little bit of grilled tilapia mixed in to make it seem more like an actual entree.

These are the evenings when I feel kind of sorry for Dan.

So, there you go: soup and salad. Get used to it. Those are the easiest ways to use up vegetables, and I love soup, so that's basically going to be the theme for a while.

Along with all this healthy eating, Anna has decided that HER theme for 2011 is: more glamour.

Of course, glamour takes many forms.

If there are rhubarbs in the next box I'll be so confused

Hey, did you know that rutabagas and rhubarbs are totally different things? True story. Plus, neither of them are rhombus-shaped or anything. Who knew? And now I've actually eaten one of them, thanks CSA! A box of weird root vegetables and all sorts of knowledge.

Carrot, rutabaga, and mandarin orange salad with a buffalo strip steak. I first typed "rhubarb," seriously.

My don't-end-up-wasting-vegetables strategy includes cramming them into every available meal, including breakfast. Here it's tomatoes, salad greens, and parsley tossed with balsamic vinegar on top of egg and oatmeal wheat toast.

Hey, remember when I was mostly eating bacon and champagne and butter for breakfast? That was so cool.

I've also already conquered my greatest CSA-box fear, which is the bright and terrible beet. I always forget to include beets in my least favorite foods because it's so rarely an issue, unlike the ubiquitous mushroom. But then there they were, rolling around the bottom of the box like some horrible mutant potatoes, threatening to bleed all over my kitchen.

I decided to go with a tasty-no-matter-what application, and since souffles are totally 2010 the winner was risotto. I wish I had a better camera or more skill with lighting because I really couldn't capture the radioactive redness of this dish.

Like a bowl of beauuuuutiful ruuuuuubies. Beautiful, dirt-tasting rubies.

It was pretty good. I feel like beets are growing on me in their own evil, insidious way. Also, preparing them makes my hands look like I've just murdered someone, and that adds an unusual element of excitement to dinner-making. In that same spirit of thrill-seeking, I let Anna try her first beets while wearing an all-white outfit.

Because I am good at making decisions.

She's been having a lot of fun with her Christmas presents. She's so good at bowling now that she's started doing it blindfolded.

Same with walking into walls and furniture.

She loves her baby-doll stroller.

She does not care whether the baby is in it.

Fortunately, 2011 has not yet resulted in any self-improvement

Did everyone have a good New Year's Eve, as I instructed? I definitely did, due in no small part to the fact that Emily and I can't get together at either of our houses without pretending that we are throwing a party for 20 people.

The four of us ate a LOT of this. I alone ate two quarts of queso.

The kids also had a pretty good time playing with Cash's sweet new Christmas presents.

Anna kicks the tire in an idiomatic evaluation of the vehicle, finds it satisfactory.

Actually, the two played together so successfully that we just dropped Anna right back off at their house the next night while we went to the Spurs game in San Antonio (our Christmas gift from Tom and Kristy.) So thanks very much to everyone I just mentioned! When I turned 30 I sort of assumed that I was now of an age where people at sporting events would stop screaming at me to stand up and put my hands in the air and give them high fives, but I was COMPLETELY WRONG about that. Youth re-captured.

And how did we begin 2011? Mega-productively, from a culinary standpoint. Black-eyed peas, my only actual superstition, check.  Turnip and collard greens from the CSA box, check. Poached egg for awesomeness, double check and underline.

No possible way this fails to result in a lucky year.

We also decided to immerse ourselves in some culture, heading down to the Blanton for the last day of the Turner to Monet exhibit. Anna found 19th century art pretty scintillating.

Sooooo much easier when she just passes out.

She perked right up when we put a menu in front of her, though.

Guess that whole "modeling behaviors" thing does work in some cases.

I ordered...a wrap.

I did not resolve to break any dining-out habits.

After that it was time to remove the trimmings from our very jolly Christmas tree and transfer it to a more permanent home outdoors.  I was hoping that since we were removing the offending ornaments it would take it a little easier with the VERY PAINFUL POKING, but no, we were spared no scratchiness whatsoever. This is an unforgiving plant, my friends.

Hey, also an unbelievably heavy one! Here's the first dolly Dan brought home for it:

The tree leaned over and swallowed it whole, then the pot started rolling around with laughter and made a giant mess.

We adjusted our tools, and tried again.

Listen, this is not something you want to see when you open your front door. It means you've done something very bad.

Anyway, it's finally over by the side of the house. Resting. Plotting.

Goodbye 2010, you made me fat (and fairly happy)

Okay, time to get serious about cramming in as many end-of-the-year excesses as possible. It is my understanding that "The Holidays" are ceasing very soon, and hourly candy consumption will once again become a frowned-upon habit. Today, if it looks like a peanut butter cup, it is going in my mouth. (Take that, ancient Roman hedonists!)

On Wednesday night we went to NXNW to finally use a gift card that had been beckoning since Dan's birthday in July. The entire meal was very good but the only thing that really mattered was the enormous plate of roasted garlic bulbs spread over goat cheese and toast. Is this appetizer intended for two people? No, it is not. We were undeterred by this reality.

Anna did eat the corner of one of the toasts.

Yesterday morning we opened the awesome homemade jelly and jam that Garrett and Emily gave us for Christmas.

These are flavors that should always go together. Always.

I made some biscuits. And warmed up some ham. And shaved some slices of cheese.

I don't understand why the Wii Fit keeps saying that my BMI is going up.

But UH OH, here comes the CSA box of plant-based doom! I made some chicken schnitzel and a large salad, which is the least imaginative way to go when faced with 10 pounds of vegetation. (In my defense, I'm not sure what else to do with "salad mix" and "salad turnips.") Clearly I did not tackle any difficult vegetables yet, but the following items will NOT be compost-bound: salad mix, turnips, carrot, tomatoes.

The future is here, and it looks...sort of colorful and pleasant, actually.

Yesterday's excitement also included Anna's last Christmas present of the year (I think?), a Sit 'n Spin from Kay. I didn't get any pictures that really captured it, but she was beyond impatient with Dan's assembly efforts.

"DAD. Just...let...me...do...it."

It was all worth it when it was finally put together!

The most fun toy in the world!

For six and a half seconds.

Happy New Year's, boys and girls! Fun, safe, etc. etc. Only two years until the end of the world so we should probably live it up.

I ate a lot of butter and red meat and then a stranger made me weigh myself for no reason

Since Dan is off work this week, it's still totally Winter Break Blog Vacation Slack Time, but here's a little glimpse at the recently-completed Christmas Number Two.

I've been super busy! I made about 30,000 of these, for one thing.

That translates to 586,920,705 calories.

I made bacon jam as well, but I didn't take a picture of it because it just looks like cat food, which is kind of gross. I also used old baby food jars to deliver it, which made it gross AND weird. I bet now you're pretty upset if you didn't get some, I'm sorry.

I made a cheese soufflé without professional assistance and it rose and tasted like cheese and was a big win.

Technically it was about 3/4 soufflé and 1/4 soup, but it all tasted like cheese so I'm still calling it a success.

Anna spent her second Christmas of the week vacillating between commandeering the dog toys and snatching all the bows off of presents.

"This one fell off and I was just...putting it back on."

She also spent a little bit of time receiving a computer tutorial from cousin Levi.

"Which button is the loudest?"

There was bacon in or near almost everything we ate on Christmas day. Here, it seems pretty obvious, but what you're not seeing is that the French toast was also cooked in bacon grease.

Don't worry, the yogurt over there on the side is "Light and Fit."

Here it's in the potatoes, attempting to upstage the prime rib.

Mmmmmm meat and taters I will miss you so much when I start eating normal food again.

Dan and I took advantage of the free babysitting the next day and had a nice lunch at the Dodging Duck Brewhaus. Dan had a pile of sausage and cheese, and I had a beef-and-potatoes-guilt-induced veggie sandwich with veggies on the side.

Manly!

By dinner I had sufficiently recovered from my guilt to eat a giant plate of leftover mashed potatoes and tamales. Smothered in queso.

We eventually made Anna work off her bow-thievery.

She'll be done in 2-3 years, but I'm not counting on good behavior.

We also had our first taste of having to actually assemble Christmas presents as parents.

This baby doll stroller is significantly fancier and more complicated than the stroller we actually push her around in.

Finally, Foodimentary told me that today is National "Get on the Scales Day," although now that I look for some sort of confirmation of that it seems to be something he just made up to make me feel bad about myself. Anyway, I did it, and I was appropriately horrified, in an unsurprised sort of way. But you know what tomorrow is? Our first round of renewed CSA vegetables! Know what I forgot about when I got all uppity about my ability to handle any amount of kale that comes my way? Beets. Dammit.