kathleen and steve

Kathleen and I recently returned from a wonderful relaxing honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  You may be wondering why we took our honeymoon so far after the date of our marriage.  Well, March is a very busy month at work for Kathleen and it was a really bad time for her to take a vacation.  I was also in the middle of the spring semester and my conscience wouldn’t allow me to cancel a week’s worth of classes.  So we had a belated honeymoon, but this didn’t impact the amount of fun we had in the slightest.

A view of the beach at night

Steve posing with one of the many varieties of Mexican beer

Kathleen enjoying sushi

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Kathleen’s favorite cookies are Fig Newtons and we frequently have them in our packed lunches. Since we’ve been trying to exert a little bit more control over what goes into the food we eat, I tried making them from scratch yesterday. Kathleen said they were really good so, unless she is humoring me, I would say they were a success.  It was pretty time consuming making these but, even using all organic ingredients, the cost to make them was about a third of what it cost to buy the store-bought kind which are loaded with chemicals and preservatives.

Not that pretty visually (I still need practice) but pretty tasty

I used a recipe from here, but I warn you that her cookies look much, much better than mine!

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Kathleen and I were also very happy to learn yesterday that we were accepted into a local meat CSA.  Therefore, all the meat we eat in our house will be raised humanely and without antibiotics.  It can be pretty tricky to find free-range meat products on a reliable basis in our area, so we are pretty excited. The fact that this CSA delivers relatively close to our home means that we won’t have to regularly drive way out to the western part of the state to pick up our meat products.

The interesting thing about participating in a CSA is that you’re somewhat at the mercy of the farmer in terms of the type of food you able to eat in any particular month.  For example, if the pig looks ready to be slaughtered but the cow looks like he could use another month in the pasture, you’re going to be eating more pork that month.  It will certainly be interesting relinquishing control of our diet in this way, but it also ensure that we get a lot more creative with our meal preparation. We get our first “share” a week from Thursday and will be sure to post about what we receive.