Friday's One Day Deal at Whole Foods...

...is Grass-Fed Ground Beef for $4.99/pound (regularly $6.99/pound). This beef is rated Step 4 in the Animal Welfare Rating System Whole Foods implemented with the Global Animal Partnership, which means that the animals are raised in a "pasture-centered" environment. Though this is not the top rating (5 and 5+ which are totally animal-centered), it does mean that the animals are provided access to the outdoors and opportunity to engage in their innate behaviors like roaming and foraging.

Blur

Not totally sure what I've done today such a blur has it been. I'll be glad when Oliver's school schedule is in full swing- yesterday was just 9-10a, today 9-10:30, and so on. I've not been sleeping well, and Ol was up at 5:45 this morning just singing away. Suffice it to say that I'm tired and feel slow. Fortunately, I have a sitter coming sometime soon and hope to find some energy for the gym or at least canning the brandied peaches I've been hoping to make. For lunch I enjoyed more of the burned eggplant I made last night- seriously, that stuff just pushes all the right buttons for me. Eggplant, tahini, lemon, garlic, pomegranate molasses. It's the perfect combo of sweet, smoky, savory and hearty. Absolutely wonderful. I have no idea what our main dish will be tonight, but as a side I'm having a real yen for the Roasted Broccoli with Smoked Paprika Vinaigrette and Marcona Almonds that I absolutely adore and wish I'd made up myself. However, happy to have found it and looking forward to it tonight!

Pickled cauliflower report, yotam's eggplant

I cheated tonight and as my appetizer ate some of the pickled cauliflower I canned last week even though the recipe strongly suggested I wait another five weeks. It is deLICious! Oh wow. I'm going to make some more of that!!! Will also post recipe. As well, the burned eggplant with tahini was as wonderful as ever; fortunately the explosion had no influence on taste. If you've not previously, you should definitely make yourself a dish of this soon. Mamma mia!