Tony's Birthday at La Condesa

His baby face means that he still occasionally gets carded to buy alcohol, yet Tony actually celebrated his 39th birthday this past weekend. My parents were visiting and were kind enough to watch Jackson and Olivia so I could take the birthday boy out for a fancy dinner.

Tony chose La Condesa, a "modern Mexican" restaurant in downtown Austin. We arrived a little early for our reservation, so we hung out at the bar. I ordered a mojito. It was full of tangled mint leaves, and it was nice and strong!

While we waited, I admired the restaurant's design. Very hip and stylish. The light fixture above our heads caught my eye.

We were soon seated, and started off our meal with a salsa sampler.

Tony had a pork chop for his entree, which he enjoyed immensely. He also had a side of Mexican street corn, sprinkled with chili powder and dry, crumbly cotija cheese.

I'm sorry for the increasingly poor quality of these pics. I was using my phone's camera and I didn't want to use a flash, so they are pretty dark. But this was such an awesome meal, I felt like it was still worth posting about.

I had the chili relleno stuffed with quinoa and butternut squash, swimming in a hot tomato broth. It was so good. The quinoa soaked up the yummy tomato sauce, and the poblano pepper was so tender it was practically falling apart.

For my side, I ordered the grilled green beans with epazote. They were nicely charred and very addictive.

We ordered more drinks as we ate. I tried a caipirinha, which came with blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries floating in it. Like the mojito, it was strong and tasty.

The dessert menu was so crazy, we had to order something. We decided on the remolacha con coco -- a beet juice-colored cake served with chocolate mousse, coconut sorbet, hazelnuts, and pickled beets. Believe it or not, the salty-sour flavor of the beets was perfectly offset by the smokiness of the hazelnuts and the sweetness of everything else. It was perfect! I even relented and used the flash.

The next day was Tony's actual birthday, and I made him some birthday enchiladas. I used this recipe but subbed sweet potato greens for the kale. They were so good! It was a big production -- blanching the greens, making the cashew cheese, making the enchilada sauce -- but the end result was well worth it.

The birthday boy was pleased!

CSA - Our First Box!

Much to my delight, we've finally joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) program with Johnson's Backyard Garden. We are getting a box every two weeks to start with. Here is the first week's bounty!

I'll break it down -- sweet potato greens, spinach, basil, okra, eggplants, butternut squash, pattypan squash, summer squash, onions, potatoes, hot and sweet peppers, bell peppers, and cucumber.

We started out by slicing some hot peppers on a frozen pizza.

Then I planned my weekly meals based on the veggies we recieved, and went grocery shopping. This is a new method of meal-planning for me, but I think I can get used to it.

One evening I made a lovely Mediterranean feast, full of farm-fresh vegetables.

I made hummus topped with more of those wonderful hot peppers.

I made a pesto quinoa salad using basil, onions, and cucumber, as well as tomatoes from our own garden.

I roasted the eggplants and made some lovely baba ganoush, sprinkled liberally with smoked paprika.

Finally, I sauteed the sweet potato greens with garlic and a pinch of salt.

It was all so good. I'd never eaten sweet potato greens before in my life. That's one benefit of joining a CSA -- getting to try veggies you've never even seen at the supermarket!

Another benefit is that, when you pick up your box, you know everything is fresh, having just been harvested at the farm -- possibly that very morning. Also, it feels good to have my money going to local farmers. Local food is becoming more important to me, as I learn about the necessity of helping the local economy and reducing environmental pollution by cutting down food transportation costs.

I was feeling under the weather today. Tony has passed his summer cold on to me. For some reason, summer colds make me so much  more miserable than winter illnesses. To aid my recuperation, I made one of my all-time favorite comfort food recipes -- the Chard Florentine from Vegan Yum Yum. Except, I used spinach instead of chard, since that's what came in the CSA box.

Are you a CSA member?

Vegan Heritage Press is hosting a giveaway of several of their awesome cookbooks -- check it out!