A Meal in Honor of the Protestors in Iran

From Dianasaur — Blog by Diana Johnson

July 9, 2009

Last week I decided to make a Persian inspired dish in honor of the people of Iran fighting and dying for freedom. I say Persian inspired because I used Panko instead of regular bread crumbs, not traditional in Iranian cooking but I love them so much! I’ve had several meals cooked for me by my friend’s Iranian mother before, but I still did some research before planning my meal. Oh man was it worth it! First we had Salad-e shirazi, a salad of tomato, cucumber and red onion with lime juice and mint. I remember being told this is a favorite summertime dish and I can see why. I didn’t go as traditional as making my own flat bread either, instead getting some pita at the store. I made my favorite hummus recipe, and then came the kebabs. Talk about flavorful! These are Kabab Kubideh, which can be made with beef or lamb, I used beef since we’re trying out some ground beef from a local farm and I really wanted to use it in a recipe where the beef flavor shines through. The secret to these kebabs...

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Our first CSA

And why we’re neo-hippies

From Dianasaur — Blog by Diana Johnson

July 9, 2009

It’s quite possible that if a year ago you’d asked my husband Eric and I what a CSA was, we would have thought it to be some kind of government organization, school group, or something to do with the miltary (they have thousands of acronyms!). I really don’t know, because we didn’t even know about CSAs until about six months ago. I love food, and I love learning, so I read a lot of blogs and do a lot of research about food culture. I kept coming across people mentioning their CSAs, or farms getting ready for their CSA and finally had to google it. That’s how I found out that CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and means that any average joe can give a designated amount of money to a farm near them, then pick up their share of produce from the farm each week. I got so excited and knew we had to be a part of that. I began researching CSAs in our area, but most were too expensive for us. Then friends from church e-mailed us about wanting to sell 4 shares of their little farm for a really resonable price, and we quickly signed up for our very first CSA.

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