Miles To Go

This headline refers to both my recent attempt to bike commute (fantastic) and preserve Swiss chard from the garden (not so great).

First the commute. I eased into it by stuffing my bike into the back of the Mini (no small feat) on Monday and then riding my bike home. I discovered a route via Google maps (love their bike route feature) that almost completely avoids busy roads and gives me a safe route to the bike path, which is about 80% of my trip. I've been wanting to do this ALL SUMMER while we had Fridays off, but it was either raining or 100+ degrees...or I forgot to plan ahead. So, anyway, the ride: it was great!! It's just under 15 miles and takes me just over an hour. Going home, I enjoy a slight (2%) downgrade for part of the way too.

The next day, I biked to work, which was also enjoyable, even though I was stressing a little about keeping up my pace. But I finished just a few minutes over my going-home time and had plenty of time to put my bike back in my car and take a shower. I had packed an extra change of clothes in my gym bag Monday, so it was all good.

The only part I don't like is an off-road portion I have to traverse to get from Oak Street to the bike path that takes me right to the college parking lot. It's all overgrown by weeds and the path itself is basically a dirt rut in the ground. There's *supposed* to be a path (where the white arrow is below), and it's even shown on Google maps, but it's most definitely not there. So I had to take a dirt path of slight resistance (red arrow) to get to the road.



Anyway, I'm so psyched, I may do the same on Friday and then ride back Saturday to get my car. Then next week, maybe I'll do the bike ride 'round trip a couple times.

On the chard front...oy vay. I had this brilliant idea to puree fresh chard with a touch of apple cider and then freeze it in Dixie cups for use in smoothies throughout the winter. First of all, do you know how much room Dixie cups full of chard puree take up in the freezer? Second of all...what a freaking mess chard makes when you blend it with juice and neglect to put the top on tightly. Talk about going green... So I have a smallish supply of Dixie cup chard, but I ain't doing that again. Also, I read that not blanching the chard before freezing can cause it to go a bit "off" if you store it too long. Greaaat.

So then I tried to blanch a buttload of it, but that was also a wet, sloppy, time-consuming mess, and I wasn't sure how to portion it adequately for freezing in food saver bags. Note, you can't use a food saver with freshly blanched chard, because it's so wet, it sucks all the liquid out and into your machine. So I froze wads of soggy chard first, then attempted to food saver them.



Nothing like a ball of blanched chard to make your mouth water. And the end result was just stupid and, again, I don't have enough room in my freezer to really store a winter's worth, so I may just forget the whole thing. These frozen lumps don't blenderize too well -- they kind of ping around in the blender, the action of which forms a nice round ball of green ice. Delicious! I know I can buy chard in the store, but I don't like to use that stuff raw in a smoothie due to pesticides and who knows what else may be on the leaves.

However...I may try another round by "blanching" the leaves in boilable bags or in the microwave. I have to clean out my freezer first though. Right now it's full of rhubarb, freezer jam, bread and a layer or two of things I've forgotten about. I may have to invite Odie home to eat some of it.