Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit focuses on improving your health by eating real food in moderation. This post is a continuation of the series of photographs of What We Eat. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing. Thanks.

Breakfast/Lunch, Tuesday morning

• Omelette: Bantam (Banty) eggs (pastured), artichoke hearts, small amount of bacon (uncured Niman Ranch), onions (from our CSA), a few capers, small amount of mozzerella, a bit of tomato chutney, topped with fresh salsa.
• Roasted potatoes: Fingerlings, garlic, and cipollini onions (from our CSA), rosemary (from our garden), extra virgin olive oil, butter, salt and pepper, hot sauce (for me).

This is not a typical mid-week breakfast for us, but we have guests visiting this morning so April made a heartier late morning meal. This will likely be the primary dish for breakfast and lunch today, with a mid-afternoon light lunch before supper. For supper with our company, we may recreate the grilled Albacore tuna dish from last week.

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit focuses on improving your health by eating real food in moderation. This post is a continuation of the series of photographs of What We Eat. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing. Thanks.

Summer supper outside, Sunday evening

• Fusilli pasta with yellow squash, zucchini, and cipollini onions all from our CSA, swiss chard from our garden, and frozen shrimp, cooked in a good quality extra virgin olive oil (quality is key), 4-5 cloves of fresh garlic (CSA), half of a fresh-squeezed lemon, several tablespoons of homemade whole milk sour cream, tablespoon of locally made tomato and pepper chutney (farmer’s market), 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste
• Sauteed carrots (from our garden) in olive oil and butter, salt and pepper to taste
• Fresh organic avocado, salt and pepper to taste

Ed. note: April would like me to clarify that we would normally have accompanied this with a fresh salad from the garden, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be this evening. We eat salad. We promise. Read the rest of this entry »

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit focuses on improving your health by eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing. Thanks.

Summer supper outside, Friday evening

Photos of What We Eat #3

• Pizza number 1: Tomato, basil, and olive pizza: homemade olive oil bread dough, tomatoes from our CSA, basil from our kitchen garden, olives, and extra virgin olive oil
• Pizza number 2: Prosciutto, onions, and gruyere on a light béchamel sauce: Prosciutto with the fat trimmed, fresh lightly sauteed onions from our CSA, gruyere cheese, and a light béchamel sauce made from scratch. The one ingredient this is missing, believe it or not, is fresh pear. The light sweetness is a great balance to the saltiness of the prosciutto.

One sidenote: these pizzas look bigger in the photo than they actually are. Each was about 10-12 inches or so, which is about the size of a personal pizza at a lot of restaurants (not that I’ve actually eaten any of those. Heavens no.). Read the rest of this entry »

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Summer supper outside, Wednesday evening

• Grilled fresh local Oregon Albacore tuna
• Cucumber in a yogurt and dill sauce (the cucumber is from our garden, the dill from a local farmer (via our CSA), and the yogurt is Nancy’s - another Oregon local product)
• Roasted beets and Fingerling potatoes (both from our local CSA)
• Blueberry and blue cheese salad with a light vinaigrette (all local produce)

Introducing a New Series: Photos of What We Eat

I’ve had several inquiries from readers on what exactly we eat at home, so rather than launching into some long diatribe on the subject, I thought I’d just show you.

This is the first entry in this series on Almost Fit which is tentatively named, “Photos of What We Eat.” (The title’s a bit long, but it’s the best I have at the moment). Today’s photo is locally caught Oregon Albacore tuna, served with a variety of locally grown vegetables that came either from our garden or from this week’s CSA box. And while I am certain you are going to get tired of me saying this, it was truly delicious.

By way of disclosure, in this series I will say that not every meal is going to be perfect - I’m erring on the side of candor, even if it means the photo is little more than a fabulously lit box of macaroni. While we strive to eat seasonally and locally as much as we can, we do buy products that fall outside the bounds of those guidelines. We still buy things like coffee and balsamic vinegar, and if I want an orange in January, well, I buy that orange in January.

We make responsible choices, but we are also realistic: with two young children, sometimes convenience is the order of the day. It is increasingly rare, but on occasion we have been known to feed the kids a bowl of goldfish crackers and a “natural” fruit roll up.

Ah, to be well rounded.

Hope you enjoy the photos. Comments and questions are welcome.

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As is our habit, we stopped by the Oregon City Farmer’s Market on Saturday to pick up much of our week’s produce. The Oregon City Farmer’s Market is smaller than many other markets, but we are slowly getting to know the vendors and have found that the size of the market makes it a little easier to recognize familiar faces.

We definitely believe that getting to know where your food comes from, how it’s grown, and supporting the local economy by purchasing from local farmers is a critical value for our family. By both word and example, we hope that these concepts are passed along to our kids who go with us week after week and observe our pleasant conversations with local farmers and vendors.

And nothing is more satisfying than freshly picked berries in berry season here, as our kids know well.

Without further adieu, here are a few photos of this weekend’s spread. And believe me, the food tastes as good as it looks. Read the rest of this entry »

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As part of our family experiment with sustainable living, we are putting our money where our mouth is and growing our own fruits, vegetables, and herbs. We supplement our crops with what’s in season at the Farmer’s Markets in our area, namely the Pacific Northwest. I hope this report doesn’t bore you to tears - we are having a blast with it, and wanted to share our progress. Thanks for reading Almost Fit.

The weather in Northwest Oregon has finally turned to hot summer days, with no end in sight. As a result, our garden is going crazy. Rather than a long and boring diatribe of the finite details, here’s a high level list of what’s been happening:

Read the rest of this entry »

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“When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.” ~Author Unknown

If you’ve been to Oregon in the spring, you know that it is an unusually unpredictable time of year for weather. Granted, in every season in the Pacific Northwest there are always oddly spaced hot, cold, windy, and wet days; but spring is an especially volatile mix of late freezes, occasional heat waves, and tropical guests in the form of a warm torrential downpour. The sun teases you with 90-degree spells encouraging the optimism that summer has arrived early, suggesting that you to box up the wool overcoats and knitted scarves for the season, only to dash those hopes the next week by wrapping it’s chin in a dripping cotton beard.

In Oregon, it is not uncommon to have yesterday’s sunburned shoulders under today’s winter coat.

Although this may be frustrating in terms of wardrobe and recouping some vitamin D, the meteorological variety can do wonders for a garden. Freezes notwithstanding, a searing hot couple of days followed by a few days of clouds and rain (lather, rinse, repeat) can encourage even the most reluctant root vegetables to spring up a start or two. We’ve had just such weather this year, and the organic garden project is going crazy.

Lettuces do particularly well this time of year. Our current harvest includes spinach with leaves the size of footballs, heads of romaine, and a terrific mesclun mix. Of the few items we’re buying at the Farmer’s Market, we’ve been particularly enjoying beet greens. Beets are one of those foods for which I am still working on acquiring a taste, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the greens. Lightly cooking the greens with a vinegar base is a simple, pleasing way to develop an appreciation for what’s in season.

Our tomatoes are getting a slow start, but the strawberries in the children’s garden are already full of green berries just waiting for some heat. The sugar snap peas are also sprouting like crazy.

Beyond the garden, the weeds in the flowerbeds are insanely aggressive, some of which shoot up nearly a foot a day. Where there was winter’s pine needles and moss, there are now patches of weeds nearly three feet tall. After spending some time pulling the obvious offenders (and a few others that my wife may have wanted to keep…oops…), we’re starting to get ahead of it again, but it is a constant effort during the spring months.

We are also fortunate enough to have had the original owners of this house take great care to plant trees and bushes that flower in turn throughout springtime. Japanese maples, a fully mature silk tree, rhododendrons, and plum blossoms give the air a translucent glow and intoxicating scent, particularly in the early morning and late evening.

Although the weather can leave something to be desired when you’re trying to plan a picnic, we love living here. There are few places more beautiful, clouds, sun, and all.

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