Week 49 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 9.5    Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 1 (on purpose)

Turns out our week of salads went quite well.  We enjoyed a great variety of flavors and tastes, and the boys even enjoyed some ingredients that they normally might shy away from.  Making only salads isn't an option given the ingredients in the box every week, but it did open my eyes to new options for many of the ingredients that frequently are featured in the box. 

The Best

• The warm broccoli and chick pea salad made for a light, healthy lunch.  Next time I'll make a full recipe's worth so there will be some left over for the rest of the family.

 The Good

• The spinach salad with eggs and bacon had the boys happily munching - and then later asking, "this is spinach?"

 

• The so-called celery and cucumber salad featured a number of other veggies that made for a sweet and crunchy salad. I left out the relish as it seemed to be an odd addition, but added some leftover purple bunching onions from the previous week, instead.

• The arugula salad with lemon parmesan dressing was simple but delicious.  I added a bit of butter lettuce given that we still had some to use up.

The So-So

• We weren't the biggest fan of this kale salad, but it may be due to the fact that I didn't use the type of kale recommended by the recipe.  Though I think this purple kale does better when cooked, I do hope to try other types of kale that we receive in future salad recipes.

Week 21 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 9    Compost - 1     Carry Over - 1

Our 'over the rainbow' ingredients made for several great meals this week.  So good, in fact, that this may be the first week where there were really no recipe duds at all in the meal plan.  That said, I continue to struggle using up all of the lettuce, with some hitting the compost again this week.  We also have a couple of lemon cucumbers and grapefruit left over that will follow us into next week.  On second thought, perhaps I just came up with a great idea for tomorrow morning's juice!

The Best

• The Thai beef skewers with peanut sauce and Thai (Lemon) Cucumber salad was, in my mind, one of the best meals that I've ever made.  I changed things up a bit and made a peanut sauce recipe from the Sept/Oct Cooks Illustrated magazine (the recipe for is only available if you are a magazine subscriber, or sign up for a free 14 day trial), but the combo of the marinated steak, peanut sauce and cucumber salad was really fantastic!  I didn't quite get the lime fro yo done on time for dessert, but it was enjoyed later in the week, and was wonderful too.

The Good

• The mashed potato and Kale recipe that was accompanied by chicken, chorizo and red pepper sauce was a big hit with the entire family.  The cheesy potatoes and kale will likely become a staple recipe for us; it was that good!

• The lightness of the (once purple, but after cooking) Green Beans, Grape Tomatoes with a lemon ricotta sauce over pasta made for a perfect summer dinner.

• It's hard to go wrong with (heirloom!) Tomatoes, fresh Basil, garlic and olive oil!  We used this tri-colore checca to make bruschetta, and tossed the leftovers with pasta.

• The moist Carrot muffins were enjoyed for both breakfasts and snacks, and were pretty with flecks of purple and orange (from the carrots) and yellow (from the pineapple). 

Week 20 in Review

The Score
The Eaters - 10.5     Compost - 0!     Carry Over -0.5
If you are just tuning in, at the end of each week I provide a summary of how we did getting through the ingredients in the box.  This week, we started with 11 ingredients.

Being at home with our (so far) very good puppy created a lot of time for cooking and enjoying our summery box.  There were a few items not incorporated directly into our meals that ended up making a lovely juice, and heading into the weekend, we just have a single tomato left.  Best week of using up the box yet!  So, thanks to Olive (like the name?) for allowing me to keep up with the plan this week. 

Olive

 The Best

• The Green Bean, Arugula, potato salad - with a lemon yogurt dressing - was a fantastic summer salad.  We could eat salad like this all summer long!

 

The Good

• Second runner up was definitely the Tomato basil quiche.  Though I'm pretty sure that this is the first quiche that I've ever made, it actually turned out pretty much as anticipated.  The tomatoes were delicious and almost made the quiche taste like it was filled with a savory sauce.  

• Hard to go wrong with pizza when you have such lovely raw materials.  We made one with gorgonzola, prosciutto and Arugula, and other with fresh Tomatoes on a pesto base.  

• Nothing too fancy about this salad, but the Lemon Cucumbers were beautiful and tasty (and accompanied by Lettuce and Carrots from the box). 

The Rest

• Not much to look at, but I made a appetizing juice with Carrots and a 1/4 of the Yellow Watermelon from this week's box, as well as a leftover Grapefruit and (regular) Cucumber from last week's box. 

• Not ready for prime time yet, but I have had the sauerkraut fermenting for five days now.  It's quite an interesting process; particularly squishing the cabbage and finding how much liquid actually comes out.  Looking forward to tasting it when it's ready!

Week 11 in Review

The Score

Eaters - 10.5    Compost - 0     Carry Over - 0.5

The produce bins in the fridge are almost completely empty. That hasn't happened in a long while. It's a sign that a) we ate up most of what was in last week's box, as well as the heads of lettuce from the previous week, and b) we are really getting to the point where meal planning is resulting in consumption that matches what we're buying. Don't get me wrong: this whole project has taken up quite a bit of time and really required us to plan ahead and shop with purpose. That said, we have wasted less food over the past few months than I can ever remember, and I'm glad for that. Our freezer and pantry isn't bursting at the seams, since we're trying to use up ingredients that have been sitting around for a long time and we buy what we need. That is freeing up space that I hope we'll be able to better utilize with the produce coming from the box, and sooner or later the garden. The more that we embrace this whole experiment, the more we learn that there are so many ways to can and freeze the good stuff so it can be available later! 

The Winner

• The only unfortunate thing about this week's winner is that the bacon wasn't the stuff that my husband is currently working on (curing a piece of pork belly from our meat CSA).  Who knew a BLC (bacon, Lettuce, Cucumber) was so fantastic?  The spiced, minted mayo (with Green Garlic) put it over the top, and was a huge hit with the entire family.

The Good

• The Lemon Basil chicken salad made for some delicious holiday weekend sandwiches, accompanied by some warm homemade baguettes

• The strawberry jam was simple, but has been quite a treat.  As I was making it, I kept thinking that we'd have a year's worth (a baker's dozen half-pints), but at the rate we're going through it, I'm not so sure.

 

• The Orange and Beet salad was both beautiful (using the dark red leaf Lettuce) and tasty.  Next time I'd add a little blue cheese for both color and flavor.

• Forgot to take photos of the Lemonade and the hot Spinach artichoke dip, but both we're huge hits with dinner guests over the holiday weekend (and the latter was so tasty using fresh, vs. frozen, spinach).

The Rest

• This spaghetti recipe got a big thumbs down from both of the boys.  It got a 'Mom - I really like kale, but the Swiss Chard just makes everything taste weird in this.'  Unfortunately, I sort of agreed with his review.