finished dinner and it was great. it was my first harvest, my first garden to pan to table harvest! (literally - the raised bed is about 25-30 feet max, from the table, with the stove/oven in between!). gotta get used to the taste. yes, we eat organic spinach (TJ's, Whole Foods, farmers markets), but never had anything THAT fresh before, lol! anyway... @dave/ausbirch - thanks for the info, i really appreciate it! @shelley - it bolted anyway?? is there any hope? you're just over the hill from me, i'm in franklin canyon (that little valley along hwy 4 between martinez and hercules), and you guys are always 5 degrees warmer than us, so if my little ole spinach bolted due to our little heat wave, then i see why yours did too, lol! well, now i've got to start worrying about my cabbage and broccoli!! and figure out what i'm going to replace the spinach with. off to orchard nursery....

I ended up making meatballs, pan-fried in olive oil with the last of the crimini mushrooms added. The mushrooms were way too small to be stuffed. I added a jar of Barilla marinara sauce and served it over fusili pasta. Quite good!

Thanks for the apple squares recipe. I've copied and saved it for the some-day-in-the-future when I can actually test it. I've been in oven withdrawl for the past month as my kitchen is being re-done. My current cooking appliances, microwave, hot-plate, toaster, kettle, and crock-pot, all share the same circuit, so I can only use one at a time. I can't help collecting cake recipes during the interval.

Oh my....so sorry about the job loss....that's really tough! But your pork needn't be!! LOL! You could cut it into pieces and skewer it...or slice into steaks and grill....but I like to cook the whole thing... You have lots of time, so I would brine it for about 20 hours....easy on the salt but lots of other stuff....unless your meat says "solution added"....then don't brine. If you do brine....mix up 2 cups of liquid...I like half water and half apple juice or even beer....and add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic...2 tsps of salt to every 2 cups of water....and 2 tablespoons of sugar for every 2 cups of brine...add some rosemary leaves...perhaps some sage and thyme and put the meat into a zip lock, and add the brine and turn every few hours. Remove, dry it and grill... Or do a dry rub with some paprika, salt, garlic powder,celery salt and I like to add some of Cookies BBQ rub. Grill it over indirect heat until it's no more than 160....remove and tent with foil for about 20 minutes, slice and serve... Yummers!!! There's 2 here....but just ignore the second one!