Ladies Lunch on the Lake

Image by bluepoppy6 via Flickr

I attended the Pewaukee Lake Volunteer Service Club summer picnic today and brought this great summer salad.  It’s from “Reading, Writing, and Recipes:  a cookbook from the University School of Milwaukee community.”  A true hit!

Chopped Vegetable Salad

2 ears fresh corn, husk and silk removed

1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch pieces

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

1 small red bell pepper, seeded and deveined, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

1 small yellow pepper, seeded and deveined, cut into 1/4 inch pieces

1 small red onion, chopped

4 dill cucumbers, peeled (I used one regular cucumber), seeded, and cut into 1/4 inch pieces

3/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, c hopped

2 T. extra-virgin olive oil

2 T rice wine venegar

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp salt

Prepare an ice bath in large mixing bowl; set aside.  Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil.  Add corn and blanch until tender, about 6 minutes.  With tongs, remove from water, and plunge immediately into ice bath.  Continue to boil water for green beans.  when corn is thoroughly cooled, removed from ice bath.

Using a large knife, removed kernels from cobs.  Transfer kernels to a large bowl.  Add green beans to boiling water.  Blanch until tender, about 1 minutes.  With a slotted spoon, removed from water, and plunge immediately into ice bath.  When beans are thoroughly cooled, drain in colander.

Add green beans, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, onion, cucumber and cilantro to corn.  Stir to combine.

In a small bowl, mix olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Adjust for seasoning.  Pour into bottom of salad bowl.  Pour salad mixture and toss salad with dressing.

Can be prepared a day in advance.  Serve at room temperature.

(Thanks to Pam S. from USM for putting this recipe in the USM cookbook!)

The View from Willie’s Corner

Can we take your order?

Friday night was the first home football game and, with Dominican as our opponent, it was like having two home crowds in the stands (in fact, Dominican felt so at home, they joined us on the Wildcat side).

The Wildcats pretty much squashed the Knights, but in the race to clean out Willie’s of all of its carefully stocked items, it was a tie.

Heard over the counter

MS boy with gaggle of girls, eyeing the collection of candy, “Okay, okay.  I’m buying.  Anything you want.  I’ve got it.”

MS girl:  “I have $9.  That’s 36 Airheads.  I’ll have 36 Airheads.”  (For the record, we had, exactly, 36 Airheads left)

US girl:  “You’re out of Airheads?”

Every other person buying Powerade:  “Red Powerade, please.”  (Umm–guess who didn’t know that “Fruit punch,” a.k.a.”red” would be so popular?  Live and learn.)

For future fall Willie’s dates, go here.  The grill will be sizzling at Varsity football games; other events will include the standard fare.

Save the environment one shopping bag at a time

Kudos to friend and USM parent Jenny A. for working with the Shorewood Conservation Committee! They will be delivering reusable shopping bags to 6,900 households in Shorewood on Saturday.  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Lee Bergquist identified it as a first for a Wisconsin community.

I finally developed the habit of taking my cloth shopping bag(s) into the store. I’ve got one from the Sendik’s on Downer and two from Roundy’s. I’m still re-using red plastic bags from the Balistreri Sendik’s in the hopes that I come to a point that they will be so tattered, I’ll feel okay throwing them away.

What finally got my scattered-mind remembering to grab the bags before walking in? Actually, I developed the habit in Phoenix at the Whole Foods. For two weeks, every grocery trip included a face-to-face encounter with a sign asking me if I remembered my reusable grocery bag. That did the trick.

Just in case you don’t think using one of these bags matters, according to the Shorewood Conservation Committee, if the 6,900 households in Shorewood used a reusable bag at least twice per week, they would keep about 720,000 bags out of the landfills each year.

Cool Conservation Committee Bags!

USM’s Corner of the Green Movement

Coming into school off of County Line Road, you may have noticed a garden off to the left near the transportation barn. Activity in Karen’s Garden, in honor of long-time Food Services director Karen Reimer, is described in the Environmental Action Team blog. Last year, the garden produced 200 pounds of tomatoes for use in the school’s dining room!

This year, the EAT is seeding far more tomato plants than they’ll be able to grow in the garden. As a fund raising effort, the club would like to sell extra plants. Additionally, they will be selling rough compost that they’ve been making over the last couple of years with the collected food scraps from the schools’ dining rooms.

All proceeds from the tomato plant and compost sale will go towards sustaining Karen’s Garden this year. Go here to order.