CSA, Week 6

The anxiously-awaited sixth box finally arrived last week! I made the same greens, pasta, and sausage dish as most of the previous weeks when I got home, so the only items from this box that made it into my refrigerator were some of the lettuce (what I didn't have for dinner), some of the radishes (what Cale didn't eat), and the kohlrabi bulb. This may be a long week until the next box arrives! On the other hand, I think this CSA membership has been a success because I wanted to improve the quality of what we eat. I'm also happy that so far I've been able to keep up with the culinary challenge. Since neither of us has gotten bored with the same ol' greens dish (especially when I vary the greens, the pasta, and the sausage), it hasn't been as much of a challenge as I was worried it might be.

We had eat most of the CSA box by Friday, so we went to the Farmer's Market on Saturday to reload on produce. I got broccoli and two bunches of kale.

sage - I gave the sage to my mom right away since she had several tasty sage ideas

red romaine lettuce and radishes - salad

swiss chard, frizzy kale, bok choy, and kohlrabi greens - greens+pasta+sausage (and again with Farmer's Market kale)

kohlrabi - into a stir-fry with the Farmer's Market broccoli

Now to wait until Thursday's CSA pickup again ...

The Squeaky Printer

One of the HP LaserJet 2200 printers at work had been very squeaky. Since it was the only printer that still duplexes, I preferred it. However, the squeaking was so loud that everyone on this floor knew when it was printing! I was very surprised to learn what fixed the awful noise: replacing the toner cartridge.

Bony

I only weigh four pounds less than I did this time last year, but I think I know where I lost it all. It's not a lot of weight, but I think it all went away from my butt. In high school and as an undergraduate, I often heard that I had the world's boniest butt. All of those guys were too nice to finish the sentence: for someone who looks like she has enough fat to spare. You really wouldn't expect it, but it's true. No one wants me to sit on the lap! When I sit, the lower pointy parts of my ischium bones poke through right where I don't have much padding. (I still have plenty to spare, just not there.) And last week, when I sat outside on the ground, I was really wishing for some extra cushioning too.

CSA, Week 5

We finished off the CSA box of produce on Monday this week, and we're anxiously looking forward to the next box tomorrow!

mesclun mix - salad, of course (my favorite!)

green bok choy and onion - I gave two heads of bok choy to my mom, and I used the other two heads for her birthday dinner. I carmelized two spring onions, quickly deglazed the pan with chicken stock, then added sliced bok choy to cook for 3 minutes. Yum! (I also made her a chocolate birthday cake so it wasn't too healthy!)

rainbow swiss chard and mixed winter greens - again with the greens+sausage+pasta because it's so good! I had the single serving of leftovers for lunch Monday, and DH was sad he didn't get the leftovers for dinner. So I need the next CSA box so I can make it again! As long as you vary the sausage and pasta, the dish can taste very different even with the same greens (and that doesn't always happen either)!

Bring on more fresh produce!

CSA, Week 4

Still keeping up with the CSA boxes as they come in!

green bok choy and beets - I didn't have room in my frig when I unpacked my CSA box this week, and I didn't have time to re-arrange the frig, so I gave the bok choy and beets to my mom who was very happy about it.

rainbow swiss chard and mixed winter greens - we're still enjoying the greens, pasta, and sausage dish, so I made it again.

broccoli - stir-fry with zucchini and turkey over brown rice

Ready for more ...

IPv6 DNS

We're starting down the path towards IPv6, and it looked like the first real task for me was to add IPv6 to an existing DNS server. Fortunately, with all the interruptions this morning, it turned out to be an easy task (and I had backup). I started on a name server that's maintained like all the others, running ISC bind like all the others, but hasn't been publicized so I could blow it up if needed.

First, make sure this server has an IPv6 address so it can serve DNS on that address so you can test it.

Then go to the options section of named.conf to add the following line:

listen-on-v6 { any; };

I already had a few AAAA records in our DNS, so I didn't have to add one to test. Restart named, and test it with a command like host -6 -t aaaa pickanipv6hostname ::1 to be sure it returns the IPv6 address for pickanipv6hostname. The host -6 part sends the request over IPv6, the -t aaaa requests just the AAAA type record, and ::1 uses the IPv6 localhost connection to that name server but you could use any other valid IPv6 address.

Here's a simpler example using host to retrieve an IPv6 address.

$ host -t aaaa ipv6.he.net

ipv6.he.net has IPv6 address 2001:470:0:64::2

Since I was already messing around in named.conf, I added our IPv6 space to the internal ACL. I didn't add link-local or ULA ranges since the link-locals won’t leave their VLAN, and we’re not using ULA (yet?) although that’s a clear range that can’t be routed on the Internet.

Although the DNS side was easy, I did hit two problems related to IPv6. The first was that this server couldn't leave its VLAN via IPv6; that was fixed by alerting the router guy who brought up OSPFv3. I could ping my gateway, but an IPv6 host in another VLAN couldn't ping that gateway. The other problem was that my ip6tables didn't allow DNS, and that's most easily fixed with something like ufw to make ip6tables allow what services iptables allows. So, like I said, I did it in an afternoon, and it really wasn't hard.

CSA, Week 3

I almost fell behind on my CSA box this week!

winter greens, baby bok choy, onion, and garlic - the greens+pasta+sausage dish that I like so well

mesclun mix, radishes - salad

Just in time to pick up the next box this afternoon! Yum, broccoli!

CSA, Week 2

I'm still keeping up with the CSA box this week!

mixed greens - with sausage and pasta

baby lettuce, tatsoi, and radishes - salad

spring onions - green tops in salad, the rest in my usual cooking (like fried up with italian sausage to go in spaghetti sauce)

By making the greens, sausage, and pasta (rotini this week and last) recipe right away, I can free up a lot of room in my frig. It's amazing how much greens cook down, from gigantic when raw to a small handful when cooked. Having tried it, though, I have to say that that recipe is much better for strongly-flavored greens like kale and collards, not so much for the very mild greens from broccoli rabe that I used this week.

I'll probably have a spring onion or two left when I pick up the next CSA box, but I don't think that's a problem since onions keep so much better than baby lettuce. I'll still feel like I'm keeping up, as long as none of this delicious produce goes bad before I serve it!