The lettuce greens are so incredibly fresh that all I added was a little chive, grated zucchini, and evil store-bought croutons (one of my big weaknesses). The shells could have used less cheese and more spinach, but were pretty darn good nonetheless.

Sorry, no recipe this time around as I didn’t measure anything! But essentially, I used equal parts ricotta and mozzarella (maybe 1/2 c. each), about 1/4 c. Parmesan, a heavy handful of spinach sautéed with minced garlic, and s&p to taste. It was topped with a simple bechamél and baked till bubbly.

I’ve tried to make the sidebar categories as intuitive as possible, but it’s hard to know which categories to use until we all start posting. So, as you post to the blog, please leave your comments below about whether or not the categories are working.

If not, let me know how they should be rearranged, and what should be added or taken away.

It’s been about two months since we first planted our garden, and most of the veggies are looking really good. This first photo is after we planted our babies (we didn’t try to grow from seed this first time around). From front to back, we’ve got:

• Spinach (one row)
• Lettuce (one row)
• Arugula (one row, with a single lettuce plant on the left)
• Tomatoes (two plants, with marigolds on either end)
• Onions and leeks (one row of each, next to that big empty patch)
• Strawberries (on the other side of the empty patch)
• Parsley (two plants, with more marigolds)

After eight weeks, it’s really blown up. We’ve already harvested most of the arugula, and have been picking off spinach and lettuce leaves as we need them for salad. The parsley’s the only other plant that’s big enough to pull from, and it gives us more than we could possibly use. The photo below is from today (eight weeks in). Unfortunately, I took it from the other side, so the layout is reversed.

All in all, we’ve had incredible luck: no nasty bugs (save for the random aphid) or disease, and the ladybugs seem to love the plot. Our strawberries haven’t done too well, sadly. I think we let them dry out too much between watering for the first couple of weeks, and they never came back. We transplanted one to a container, and that guy just sprouted some green little berries in the last few days. The other problem we ran into was that the spinach kept burning. We solved that by propping a couple of screens over the plants to cut the sun, and now they seem to be thriving. Finally, we’ve pulled all but one arugula plant, which has bolted. We’ll try to collect the seeds, and maybe even resew them right back in the ground.

Posting an entry is pretty straightforward around here:

1. Log into your account.
2. Click on “Write” in the navigation menu. This will default to the Post page.
3. Title field: Enter the title of your post (something descriptive).
4. Post field: Type out your post using any of the formatting tools you want.
5. Tags field: These are single word descriptors (separated by commas) that help people search for your post. You might choose “Ingredients, arugula, sauce, pasta, cream, cheese, parmesan” etc.
6. Categories field: Select all appropriate categories for your posts. If you don’t see an appropriate category, or you want to a new one, just email me and let me know what you want to add, and which post to assign to it.
7. Other fields: You can leave the rest of the options alone, or use them as you see fit.

Common Categories:

How To: These posts are specific instructions and reference for creating posts and administrating the blog. Don’t use this category for cooking instruction!
Miscellaneous: A catch-all category only to be used when there are no other appropriate categories.
Open Questions: Questions that need answering or responding to. You may want to check this category regularly to keep conversations going.
Recipes: Pretty self-explanatory.
Techniques: Cooking techniques for particular types of food.
Tips and Tricks: Small tips for saving time, improving skills and other useful kitchen trivia.

Changing the Categories

If you ever feel the categories need switching around, adjusting, or additions, just email me and let me know. The way they’re set up now is strictly to get the blog going, and we can make any changes as necessary.

[Because there are several contributors to this blog, I’ve put together some formatting recommendations to help keep posts consistent. Although it requires a little more attention, it will make the blog easier to read. But no, I won’t turn into the style police - these are recommendations, not requirements. ]

Inevitably, we’ll each have various ways of organizing our recipes based on how we each cook and think. When I write out recipes, I use a format I learned back when I was cooking for Salt Creek, starting with the basic recipe details, then listing the ingredients and instructions chronologically, according to how the dish is made. The prep instructions are listed alongside each group of ingredients. This works great when you’re familiar with the recipe and are humming along in the kitchen, but it doesn’t lend itself to the limits of online posting. Instead, I’d suggest a more traditional format in this order:

1. Yield | Cooking temp | Cooking time
2. Quantity, Ingredient, Prep style
3. Step-by-step instructions.

Example: The Best Brownies

Note: recipe is not accurate!

Yield: (24) 2″ brownies | Temp: 350º | Time: 25 min.

Ingredients:
1/2 c. butter (2 sticks)
2 c. sugar
4 eggs (one at a time)
2 tsp. vanilla
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Instructions:

1. Melt butter over medium heat.
2. Remove from heat and add sugar.
3. Add eggs, stirring after each until combined.
4. Add vanilla, and the the dry ingredients. Stir till combined. Batter will be slightly lumpy.
5. Spread batter in greased and floured 9″ x 9″ pan.
6. Bake 25 min. or until a toothpick just comes out clean.

Common Abbreviations

tsp = teaspoon
tbs = tablespoon
c = cup

o.o. = olive oil
evoo = extra virgin olive oil
soda = baking soda
powder = baking powder

Howdy! This is the first post on Food. Feed. Fed. and it’s directed at the blog’s contributors. If you’re a visitor, please be patient while we get this sucker started.

As a contributor, you’ll need to learn the ropes before you start to post. I’ll be posting brief tutorials on different aspects of the posting process as we get going, but for the most part you’ll want to refer to the WordPress Codex for how-to questions. This first post will go over how we should handle images.

General Guidelines

• All images should be 480 pixels wide, 72 dpi jpegs.
• You’ll need a place to upload images. If you’re comfortable with FTP, you can upload your images directly to the folder titled “uploaded_images” on the server using the personal account provided to you. Otherwise, you can use a service like tinypic or PhotoBucket.
• When uploading to WordPress, you’ll need to enter three variables in the formatting window that pops up. The first is the image URL (where you’ve uploaded the photo), the second is a plain text description of the photo (e.g. “Photo of stuffed squash blossoms with cheese”), and the third is to set the border to “0″ (zero). All other fields should be left blank.

That’s about it! It’s pretty simple, but if you have any questions and can’t find the answers in the Codex, just post a comment here or email me directly.

Happy posting!