Roasted Spring Rainbow Salad

One of the hardest parts of deciding to move to the North Shore was leaving the farm that we had very quickly grown to love during the short time we lived in Acton. We loved Farmer Jamie so much that I considered driving back to Littleton once a week , but then we realized that was a teeny bit ridiculous - and quite a bit of gas money - so I went in search of a new farm closer to home. We got many suggestions from friends and neighbors, and went with Marini Farm, because Jamie knows them and also because we really wanted to support a family farm instead of a nonprofit farm. There’s a whole list of reasons for that, but ultimately it came down to simply wanting to help a family in their business and livelihood. We signed up back in February and today, we got to pick up our very first share. And we couldn’t be more pleased!

We came home with 6 parsnips, a bunch of 6 radishes, two bunches of spinach, two bunches of asparagus, four heads of lettuce, and some cider donuts (which are already gone!) To say we’ll be eating a lot of salad this week might be an understatement - but I am up for the challenge. Because everyone gets bored with the same ole salad meal after meal, and also because my husband and children are really hard to convince on the salad front, I have to be creative. This super easy roasted vegetable salad might be my new favorite.

We started with this:

And ended up with this:

I had half of a red cabbage in my fridge from our final Winter CSA pickup in April, and some carrots from the farm down the street so I made a rainbow of veggies and threw them in the oven for 30 minutes. When they came out, I put them on top of a bed of thinly sliced lettuce, topped it with homemade croutons (don’t ever throw your crusts away!) and dressed it with the best salad dressing ever. If you could fall in love with food, I’d be in deep. 

Roasted Spring Rainbow Salad  

(Serves 4)

Ingredients:

One bunch radishes, quartered  

1 small carrot (or 6 baby carrots), chopped

1 small parsnip, peeled and chopped

1/4 small sweet onion, chopped small

6 spears asparagus, chopped in 2-inch pieces

1/6 Red Cabbage, sliced  

2 Tbsp olive oil, divided

salt to taste

3 cups crusts and leftover bread, cut into cubes

garlic powder

1 head lettuce, thinly sliced

The Best Dressing (see below)

Preparation: 

Preheat oven to 400 while you’re washing and chopping your veggies. Line veggies on a cookie sheet - I like to do this in rainbow order simply because my kids thing it’s awesome. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt. Roast for 30 minutes or so, until you start to see them getting brown and caramalized.

Put your bread cubes on a different cookie sheet, drizzle with more olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and garlic powder. Put them in the oven for 20 minutes or so, tossing occasionally to help with even toasting. You’ll never buy croutons again!

While your veggies are roasting and your bread cubes are toasting, wash and slice your lettuce and put it on plates. Mix ingredients for salad dressing in a bottle or mason jar and shake well.

Top lettuce with roasted veggies, croutons, and salad dressing. Be amazed at how delicious your meal is. And promise to make it again very soon. 

The Best Dressing 

1/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lemon juice (or a mixture of lemon and orange will work too) 

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 Tbsp Grey Poupon mustard

1 Tbsp sweet and hot mustard

2 Tbsp maple syrup  

Dash of  salt

mix all ingredients in a jar and shake until

combined. Eat on everything. And I do mean everything. 

Teriyaki Lentils [Meals Under $15]

After the birth of our second baby, we had an amazing outpouring of support in the form of a meal train. Meals were provided for us for over a month – and it was the best gift we ever could have received. We tried many new recipes, and I vowed to create a cookbook perfect for meal trains. It’s been 4 1/2 years, and I still haven’t done that yet – but I have been collecting recipes and sharing them all along the way!

This lentil recipe is one of our favorite ways to eat lentils – and it’s so easy to throw together at the last minute. It’s one of my favorites on chilly nights, it only takes about an hour to cook, and you can throw just about any vegetable in it. In the Spring, you can use whatever you can find - spring turnips, mushrooms, garlic scapes, spring onions. In the Fall, you can substitute yellow potatoes for the sweet potatoes, and in the Winter, it’s a great way to use up some of that winter squash in your storage room. You can also add in some greens for extra veggie power. I’d saute them until wilted and throw them in before serving, rather than cook them with everything else. The recipe as written below is our favorite way to eat it, but trust me when I say anything goes with this one!

Everyone in the family loves these – and baby E thinks they are like candy. This makes a big batch, so it gives us dinner plus several lunches. It also freezes well - so you can eat half now and save half for a night when you need something quick. We often eat previously prepared meals out of our freezer on those nights when all I really want to do is order take out. It’s way cheaper, and it tastes much better too!

Teriyaki Lentils
Adapted from several sources

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup dried green or brown lentils
1/2 cup onion, chopped
2-3 carrots, chopped
1-2 cloves minced garlic
1-2 sweet potatoes (depending on size)
1 T grated fresh ginger (or 1 teaspoon powdered ginger)
1 quart chicken stock (if you don’t have it, you can use veggie broth, water, or any combination of. You can also add some white wine if you’re short on broth)
2 T soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 T olive oil
salt/pepper to taste

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put all your veggies & the lentils in a 9×13 baking dish. Pour broth and seasonings over the top. Mix well. Bake for 1 hour (or until lentils are tender, but not creamy).

Serve over rice.

I’ve also successfully made this in the crockpot, cooking on low for 4-6 hours. You’ll want to make sure you’re around to check them though, because if lentils cook too long they breakdown and get creamy. They are still delicious that way, just have a much different texture.

Photo by Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash.

Staying Out of the Grocery Store

I have a whopping goal for February: to buy no groceries except milk, eggs, yeast (because we are completely out) and the occasional cheese. We gave up the grocery store for Lent last year, and it seems that February is as good a time as any to start being diligent about eating out of the freezer.

This was my goal for January - but sales on fresh fruit, baby carrots, and spinach did me in. And then we ran out of pasta. And then we ran out of flour. And then I didn't have Worcestershire sauce. Or Soy Sauce. And then I saw rotisserie chickens at Costco - while I was there to pick up cheese. I guess there are worse things to splurge on ... but I'm REALLY trying to stick to our commitment to eat locally and seasonally. I promise the berries I bought were not local. Nor was the spinach. So January was a fail. We'll try again this month.

This should be easy for me. Our freezers are STOCKED with food. And we still have a bi-weekly Winter CSA pickup that includes some storage crops, dairy, and meat. It's not that we really NEED groceries. It's just that I get an idea in my head to make something for dinner, and then I don't have an ingredient, so I end up at the grocery store - where things are on sale - and I end up buying food that we don't really need (but we'll eat) and spending money that I could spend on something else later down the road. Anyone else have this problem?

So I'm going to rely on you my dear readers, to keep me accountable. Is anyone really out there reading this anyway?? I figure I'll check in at the end of every week and share what we've eaten and how we're being creative with what we have. It'll be a delayed CSA Adventures so to speak ... you'll see how we're using our CSA goods after they've been stored, instead of fresh off the garden. It'll be fun, right?? Heck, maybe we'll even create a few new recipes!

So who's ready for some freezer-inspired fun?

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

Chicken and Dumplings

 “They are great in soup,” she said. “But I don’t really like soup,” I confessed to my best friend, who is convinced that soup is THE greatest thing to eat during the winter months. “It’s like drinking your food .... and I’m just not okay with that. I mean, I like to eat it maybe once a month ... but not once a week - and definitely not several times a week!”

We were talking about how to use the parsnips I have in my fridge from my CSA share. They keep piling up - like my beets - because I just can’t figure out how to get my family to eat them. And THEN ... then she said something brilliant.

”What if you add dumplings to it? Then it’s a little more hearty.” 

Spoken like a true Southerner. I just love her. And since that moment I have been dreaming about how to turn leftover chicken into chicken soup with dumplings.

I am pleased to say that I nailed this one on the first try. That doesn’t always happen, but after I took the first couple of bites I proclaimed to my family, “Man I love when something works.” And work it did.  

This is a perfect recipe for a lazy day at home (if you need to make broth) or you can make it a quick weeknight recipe by using chicken broth you already have (which is what I did). It’s cold and rainy today and this was a perfect rainy Sunday afternoon lunch.

Ingredients: 

For the soup:
2-3 cups leftover chicken
2-3 carrots, chopped (1-2 cups)
1 parsnip, chopped (1/2 cup)
1 onion  (1/2 cup)
1 cup chopped celery (I used frozen) 
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp butter
8 cups chicken broth  
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp Herbs de provence (you can also use a blend of thyme, rosemary, and whatever else you like)

For the dumplings:
1 1/3 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk
1 tbsp butter (melted)
Pinch of herbs (I used Herbs de Provence) 

Directions:

Melt butter in a large dutch oven or soup pan. Add parsnips, carrots, onion and celery. Cook 5-7 minutes or until they smell amazing. Add a pinch of salt, garlic, and the herbs. Mix well and cook 1-2 minutes longer. Add chicken and broth. Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper to taste. Turn down the heat and let it simmer for 15 minutes or so. While you wait, mix your dumpling ingredients, taking care not to overmix. You want it just barely incorporated. 

When your veggies are mostly tender, drop spoonfuls of the dumpling batter into the soup. When all the batter is in the pot, cover your pot and turn the heat to low. Let it cook for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the dumplings clean.

That’s it! You’re done! Chicken and dumplings as good as my Grandma used to make!

Note:  We store the leftovers separately so the dumplings don’t get mushy or fall apart. The soup will freeze well, but the dumplings won’t - but who ends up with leftover dumplings anyway?!

Beef Pot Pie

I don't know about ya'll, but these brutally cold New England temperatures are putting a total damper on my mood. I'm making up for it by cooking all the cold weather meals I can think of. I've never been a huge fan of beef stew, but we were treated to an amazing Vegetarian Pasteten on Christmas Day, and it made me want a good, rich, beef pot pie. I couldn't find a recipe that I liked, so I combined several different recipes to come up with this one. I'm not a huge pie fan, so I leave out the bottom crust and simply top it with one. 

If you - like us - are gearing up to be stuck inside tomorrow, make sure you have the supplies to make this. It's perfect for these insanely cold, dark winter nights ... and come tomorrow, you'll be so glad you can whip this one out and warm up!

Ingredients
1 pound beef tips, beef kebobs, steak tips, or any other beef you want to use.
1 cup wine
4 Tbsp butter, separated
2 Tbsp bacon grease (or olive oil or more butter)
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup water or beef broth
1 tsp beef bouillon (if using water. I use Better than Bouillon because it's SO yummy)
2 tsp fresh garlic, minced
4 peppercorns
1 small bay leaf
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup water
2-3 cups of roasted veggies (mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, winter squash, beets would all work well)
1 pie crust (I cheated and bought one at Trader Joe's)

Preparation
I roasted my vegetables the day before I made the pot pie and used potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and butternut squash. You can also do it the day of - you can put them in to roast at the same time you put your beef in to marinate.

Cut your beef into bite size pieces. Marinate in 1 cup of red wine for at least an hour. Mine marinated for about 4.

In a large pot, saute the onion in butter until tender. Remove the onion from the pot and set aside. Put bacon grease and remaining butter in your pot to melt.

Roll half of the meat in the flour to coat. Brown meat over medium-high heat in your pot. Once your meat is browned, add the remaining meat to your pot along with the wine and water/broth. Stir in the garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf, thyme, salt and onion. Bring the liquid to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours. If the sauce goes lower than the beef, add a little more water, broth, or wine in order to keep meat covered.

Once your meat is done, get it out of the pot with a slotted spoon and put it in a bowl. Go ahead and put your roasted veggies in the same bowl. Whisk cornstarch with warm water until dissolved, and pour into your pot. Mine thickened almost immediately, but you may need to cook it a few minutes until it's the consistency you like. If it's too thick, add some water. Remember it will thicken a little in the oven - so don't make it too thick! Taste the gravy and adjust salt/pepper as needed.

Pour gravy over your veggies and meat and mix well. Pour it into your pie pan - I usually use a cast iron skillet for pot pie. Top it with pie crust, making sure to cut some vents in the top before putting it in the oven.

Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes or until brown on top and warm all the way through. Serve with a good red wine and you just might embrace that big snowstorm coming your way!

Eggplant Burgers [Meals Under $15]

This is the time of year when we are stocking up every bit of produce we can find. I feel like a bear - getting ready for hibernation. Last week I found eggplant on the misfit shelf at the farm, so I came home with 10 small ones, 3 medium ones, and 2 from my CSA share. What in the heck do you do with all that eggplant, you might ask?

Last year, we had over 100 of these little things in our freezer before winter. They lasted us about 3 months before they were gone. They are SO easy to pull out and heat up, and they are always a hit. Rather than chicken nuggets, this is my go to easy meal. Not only do we eat them as burgers, but they are also delicious crumbled up and put on pizza. We used to saute them in olive oil, but this week we were making such a huge batch that we decided to experiment with baking them ... and I have to say I liked them even better!

My hubby and I like to put two burgers on a bun with cheese in between them and top them with ketchup. The girls eat them like a veggie patty and just dip them in ketchup. We made a triple batch this week and it costed us less than $10. Eggplant burgers for everyone!!

Eggplant Burgers
Adapted from Weelicious.com

Ingredients
1 tablespoon Olive Oil ($0.25)
1 medium eggplant or two very small ones, cubed (Cost of this varies. I get mine on the misfit shelf at the farm, so it only costed me $0.50. Most of the time you can get eggplant for $2 or less.)
1 garlic clove, minced ($0.25)
1/2 teaspoon salt (pennies)
1/4 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped (or 1 tablespoon dried) ($0.25)
1 egg ($0.30)
1/3 cup parmesan cheese ($0.50)
1 cup breadcrumbs (free - we make it from leftover bread!)

Total Cost - $3-8, depending on how much your eggplant costs, whether you top it with cheese and a bun, and what condiments you like on them. 

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375. Prepare a large cookie sheet by rubbing it with olive oil or spraying with non-stick cooking spray.

Heat olive oil in a heavy dutch oven over medium heat. When hot, add the eggplant and cook for 3 minutes. Add the garlic and salt and cook for 2 more minutes. Add a splash of water (1-2 tablespoons will do), cover and cook for 3-5 minutes or until the eggplant is tender. I typically turn the heat off after 3 minutes and let it sit with the cover on a few more minutes to finish steaming. Then I take the top off and put the eggplant in my food processor to sit a few minutes.

Add parsley, egg, cheese, and breadcrumbs to food processor and process until mostly smooth. 

Using 1/4 cup of mixture, form into patties and place on a cookie sheet. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and firm. We like to flip them after the first 10 minutes so they get brown on both sides. Serve with cheese and a bun or just ketchup on the side. Be amazed at how much everyone loves them!

For a Vegan Version
I can't personally vouch for how tasty these are, but several of you have asked me for a good vegan version. I refuse to give up eggs and cheese, so I haven't played around with it ... but theoretically, you could mix 1 Tbsp flax meal with 3 Tbsp of hot water and use in place of the egg and substitute nutritional yeast for the Parmesan cheese. If you try it out, report back and let me know how they are!

CSA Adventures: Summer Week 1

This week's CSA pickup included:

5 quarts of strawberries (half of one got eaten on the way home!)
1 head of Bok Choi
1 head of lettuce
Crimson Rhubarb
1 bunch of radishes (with the greens!)
1 bunch of Kale
Some parsley and cilantro from the pick-your-own herb garden
1 dozen eggs

And then because I always feel bad for the poor sad misfit vegetables, we also got two HUGE bunches of rhubarb, 2 big bunches of collard greens, 1 bunch of green onions, a bag of spinach, and 8 quarts of jam grade strawberries.

This was plenty of food to feed our family for a week, and it may be one of the smaller week's shares of the season. I know when the harvest really begins we're going to be loaded with fresh veggies and I'm just so excited to be able to stock it all up. No more grocery store for me! Hurrah!! 

Here's how we used it:

Strawberries & Rhubarb
We ate two quarts of strawberries the first day, and at least a quart a day since then. I also made three loafs of this Strawberry Rhubarb Pecan bread, this Strawberry Summer Cake, these Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp bars, Strawberry Rhubarb Soda Syrup, Strawberry Lemonade, Strawberry Milk, Strawberry Popsicles, a few breakfast smoothies, and Roasted Vanilla Strawberries (recipe coming soon). I'm working on a revised post on what to do with strawberries, but you can check this one out in the meantime. You really can never have too many strawberries!

Bok Choy
I blanched this the day I picked it up so I could cook it quickly later in the week. We're using it for Fried Rice for tonight's dinner.

Lettuce
I had big plans to make lettuce wraps, but in the end, we ended up using this for salads. I had two lunch salads and then we made a huge salad for dinner. My favorite salad was this Steak Salad! I used lettuce and strawberries from this week's share, picked up some tomatoes and cilantro when at the stand today and made mango salsa to use instead of dressing. Then we topped it with a grilled beef strip steak from last month's meat pickup. The only thing that might have made it better was crumbled blue cheese on top. And maybe some pecans. Next time!

Radishes
I made radish butter with this bunch. It's so surprisingly delicious. I mixed the greens with some basil to make pesto and stuck it in the freezer for later use. For more radish ideas, check out this post on For the Love of Radishes.

Kale
I love this easy pasta dish because it comes together in no time. I altered it just a bit this time around, cooking 2 slices of bacon at the beginning, then using the bacon grease to cook some green onions and spring garlic (from my garden!) instead of leeks. I had picked up some seconds roma tomatoes a couple of weeks ago and slow-roasted them, so they were patiently waiting for me in the fridge. It's one of my favorite staples to have in the fridge, especially this time of year.

Using the rest of the Kale, some spinach and some seconds potatoes that were hanging out on my counter from a couple of weeks ago, I made these twice baked potatoes and stuck them in the freezer. We didn't have a chance to eat them this week, but it's one of my FAVORITE meals ... and I love being able to pull it out for a fast side or main course.

Parsley and cilantro - This went in my mango salsa for the Steak Salad.

Eggs - We go through at least a dozen eggs a week ... sometimes more. This week we boiled some to take to the beach with us, made a breakfast scramble with some, and used some in all the strawberry rhubarb pecan loaf that I made.

It feels good to be back in the swing of CSA-land. We can hardly wait for this week's pickup!

CSA Adventures: Springdell Edition

When we lived in Atlanta, we were part of a CSA at a small urban farm and we loved it. It challenged us to eat locally and seasonally and it transformed how we thought about food. We found ourselves stocking up extras and planning to make it the entire year without having to buy produce at the grocery store. I loved sharing our CSA Adventures here on Soul Munchies, and have missed that part of our life - so I am bringing it back to you with a new and improved series ... the Springdell Farm Edition!

We didn't have a CSA last summer, simply because there were so many farms around us and I couldn't choose one. As I explored the farms, I found myself going to one over and over again, so this year we jumped right in and are now proud summer, winter, and soon-to-be spring supporters of Springdell Farm in Littleton, Massachusetts. Beginning this week, we will get 95% of our produce, eggs, and meat for the entire year through their farm and local partners - and we can hardly wait to pick up our first share!

We chose Springdell because of it's variety and because of the size of the CSA. We like that they offer a Winter and a Spring CSA in addition to the common and popular Summer CSA. We love that the land they are on has been a farm since the 1700s, and has been in their family since the 1930s. I personally love that the main farmer is a young woman, not even 30, who grew up on the farm and now has made it her own. Her mom is the main meat farmer - and it makes my heart sing to support a farm run by a mother/daughter pair.

My own adventures in gardening here have taught me that farming is a real art here in New England, and I'm so thankful to have Springdell and its crew to feed my family ... since my crops are mostly feeding wildlife. We will pickup our Summer share on Thursdays, so I'll do meal planning and preparation over the weekend and check in here on Soul Munchies sometime on Sunday or Monday each week to show you what we picked up and how we are using it. I hope you'll come join the fun!

Easy Tostadas

It's been in the upper 90's around here the last few days - which is just crazy hot for New England. I'm not sure how we went from cold and rainy early Spring to super hot summer weather in a matter of days, but this Southern girl sure isn't going to complain about it!

Tostadas are one of my favorite easy meals in the dead heat of summer. I could eat Mexican-style food every single day of the week I think and never tire of it. When I'm not feeling in the mood for any real food, usually Mexican is what I end up settling on. I'm not sure why, but it is like my ultimate comfort food. So it's really no surprise that when I stared in the fridge today searching for something to eat, I came up with this. You can top your tostada with really anything you'd like - be as creative as you'd like!

Easy Chicken Tostadas

Ingredients (serves 1 hungry person!
2 corn tortillas
1/2 tsp olive oil
1 cup shredded chicken (I use leftover rotisserie or roasted chicken)
2 Tbsp salsa
1/2 ripe avocado
1/2 roasted red pepper, sliced
1/4 cup monterey jack cheese
1 tbsp chopped cilantro

Preparation
Preheat oven to 400. Rub both sides of tortillas with olive oil and place on a cookie sheet. When the oven is warm, stick the cookie sheet into the oven. After about 2 minutes, check the tortillas to see if they are brown on the bottom. You may see them start to bubble up - that's a good thing! When the bottom is brown, flip them over and bake them another 1-2 minutes or until golden and mostly crisp. They will crisp up a bit more once you take them out.

While your tortillas are heating up, mash your avocado with a fork and set aside. Mix chicken with salsa in a small pot on the stove and heat until warm. Alternatively, you can stick it in your microwave for a minute or so. 

When your tortillas are as golden as you'd like, pull them out and put them on a plate. Be careful - they will be hot! Spread 1/2 of your mashed avocado on top of each tortilla. Top it with your chicken and salsa mixture, roasted red pepper, cheese, and cilantro. Enjoy - and make it over and over and over again!

From the Garden: Easy Spring Salad

When I went to bed last night, the forecast for today was sunny with a high of 75. When I woke up this morning, it was cold, cloudy, and the forecast had changed to drizzle with a high of 68 and possible thunderstorms. WTF New England ... what is going on here? This is supposed to be the time of the year when we get to actually ENJOY your weather! I'm dreaming of beaches and lakes and sunny bike rides. 

My mood these days seems to be directly related to the weather ... and my food choices are pretty much directly related to my mood ... but today I vowed to rise above the weather and make today a good day. Our garden is finally producing a few things that we can eat, so I put my garden boots on and went outside for a look. In the midst of the cold and drizzle, I found the makings of a perfect spring salad for today's lunch.

Pea leaves - Our peas are just barely producing peas - more are on the way ... but did you know you can eat the leaves?! They make the best addition to a salad because they have a slight pea flavor to them. They add some sweetness, and if you - like me - are not so patient on waiting for your peas to arrive, they get you through these early days of the season.

Lettuce - This is a classic cool weather crop. We don't eat a lot of lettuce, but I'm so glad I planted a little bit. It's so pretty in the garden, and it's fast growing - so I always have something to pick when I'm wanting a taste of freshness!

Baby spinach - I planted a TON of spinach this spring, because I'm hoping to be able to freeze any excess for winter. Spinach is one of the best greens to freeze because it holds its flavor and color so well. This is our second harvest of spinach already this season, and it's so so yummy!

Arugula - I mostly grow arugula because I like using it in pasta dishes, but I also love the spiciness it brings to a fresh green salad. I really love using it on a taco salad - but that recipe is for another day!

Baby carrots - These grew all winter in our garden and I harvested them all just the other day. I'm not convinced growing carrots is worth the patience or garden space ... but I have them - so I'll eat them!

Oregano - Our plant is monstrous, so why not include it in a salad?

Cilantro - My favorite herb of all time. It only grows in cool weather, so I grow (and eat) LOTS of it during the early spring and late fall. It smells amazing, and adds the best pep to your salad.

Radishes - Maybe my favorite crop to plant, because it's as close to instant gratification as you can get. Plant a bunch of radishes, and 20-30 days later you have fresh roots and greens ready to harvest. Another great spicy addition to any salad on your table.

I also added some pecans (from our old yard in Georgia), some croutons made from old bread crusts that I keep in our freezer, and some strawberry slices and goat cheese I found in our fridge.

Food is quickly becoming my favorite way to celebrate these dreary days of Spring. Can you tell?