Farmers' Market Finds

Mom and I went down to the Midland Farmers' Market this morning and I was surprised how the produce selection has expanded.  It took everything in me not to just buy all of the beautiful vegetables available this morning, but since I head out on Wednesday next week, I resisted.  But there was everything from beets to zucchini and yellow squash to eggplant to cucumbers to tomatoes and so on.  Yes, did you see that they had almost everything for ratatouille?  Oh, I so wanted to get everything and make a batch, but then I would have to leave it for Mom and Dad to eat and that wouldn't be fair.  I settled for beets with beautiful beet greens and blueberries.  Mom got tomatoes, pickle cukes, rhubarb and cherries.

When we got home, I quizzed them on whether they would like to try quiche with the beet greens.  Mom said she usually gave the greens to Lyn (she's actually never tried them before!).  They agreed to try it, so I cooked up the greens, cut up one of the riper tomatoes and then added ham and sharp cheddar.  They thoroughly enjoyed the quiche for lunch and we have leftovers for breakfasts.

Beet Green with Ham Quiche

• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 small bunch beet greens with stems*
• 1 medium tomato*
• 6 oz Michigan picnic ham
• 3 oz extra sharp cheddar
• 5 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cup milk
• salt, pepper, dried basil, garlic powder

Wash beet greens, dry and cut off stems.  Cut stems into thin slices; set aside.  Cut beet leaves into bite-sized pieces; set aside.  In a large skillet, heat oil.  Add stems and cook until they start to soften, about 5 minutes.  Add leaves and cook, stirring, until the leaves begin to wilt.  Cut tomato into thin wedges and arrange in bottom of prepared pan (I used a round cake pan this time).  Sprinkle greens evenly over the tomatoes.  Finely dice the ham and cheddar and sprinkle evenly over the vegetables.  In a medium bowl, whip eggs with milk and seasonings until smooth and slightly bubbly.  Pour over the fillings.  Bake in preheated 350F oven for approx 35 minutes, or until a knife, inserted into the center, comes out clean.  Allow to stand 5 minutes before serving.

*Farmers' Market ingredients

Settling In, Finishing Up

Today is actually the third full-time day at SVSU.  It's so quiet around here in the summer.  On average, there are about 5 people in their offices and I suspect that I am about the only one that is not actually teaching classes yet.  My office is huge and I am spread all over it as is par for the course when I am doing research.  I have 3 more projects to finish before the 10th and I can't seem to make myself concentrate on just one.  I did, however, manage to finish re-writing my career portfolio yesterday.  I hope it's closer to what they were looking for.  I had tried to be rather generic in case I wanted to use it someday (which I am hoping that I won't), but they wanted me to get specific, so I did. 

I have finally finished the homework assignment as well.  I know that John wanted to be done with that early, but I didn't get any homework done last week.  I was too busy trying to get all of my packing done.  And quite frankly, I have had a time getting the momentum back up and running.  Today I am concentrating on finishing my lit review.   I am still a little miffed about the way that some in the cohort completed their lit reviews, but what can I do.  As long as they have completed the assignment, nobody can say one way or another whether they did it for the program or if they used something that they had completed before.  There isn't the controls that are in place in grad school that prevent things such as this from occurring.

At any rate, I am really excited for the school year to start so I can get back to finishing up research projects.  Since most will be done as collaborations, it's kind of tough right now to get much done.  The people I need to work with are not coming into work and thus, I don't have enough communication time with them.  But I did find out that there are some great resources in this faculty and I want to take advantage of those resources before they dry up.

Here are some pictures of my office at school.  It's strange to have an office that I can actually close the door on (not that I will ever do that).  But even better than that, I apparently will have an MBA student to help me with literature reviews in the fall.  I am thinking the direct method research will be the best project for him.  We shall see.