Week 52 in Review

The Score 
Eaters - 10     Compost - 0     Carry Over - 1
This was a week that my husband picked up the box, and unlike me, he took it 'as is.'  Often, I take one or two items that are hard sells with the family, and exchange them at the farmer's market for ingredients that I know that will be well received.  Seeing as it was our last official week of the year, however, it seemed like a reasonable challenge to accept the box as it was.  Interestingly, a few items that almost certainly would have hit the compost nine months ago were not that hard to integrate into our meal plan for the week.  We ate up everything this week, with the exception of a few avocados that weren't quite ripe enough to consume, but they will definitely get gobbled up in the coming week as we all love avocados. 

The Best

• Surprisingly, we all loved this very simple sausage, white bean and swiss chard soup.  This was a delicious, quick alternative to the Italian wedding soup that took many hours to prepare several months back.  This may have been the first time that our entire family willingly ate swiss chard at the same seating!

The Good

• While it was a little bitter for the kids, the grown ups quite enjoyed the Indian style mustard greens and spinach.  Served with some brown rice, curried chicken, and homemade naan, I was pleased to find a recipe we liked using mustard greens.

• While quite simple in many ways, this Thai-spiced salad could act a great base for a number of proteins.

• Arugula on pizza is fantastic!  We all loved this recipe with fig jam and prosciutto.

• Never one to want to waste, I took our left over curry chicken, mixed it with some shallots, golden raisins, crushed cashews and a bit of mayonnaise to make a yummy and pretty curry chicken salad.

• Using lemons from the box and our backyard, I made this tart and tasty lemon bar recipe.  I could eat these every day.

Week 50 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 10     Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 0.5

It was a good week in the kitchen.  I was able to make everything that I had planned, and only ended up losing a small bit of lettuce this week to the compost.  We have a bit of celery left over, but have plans to use that up in a tomato sauce this weekend.  The week also brought a lot of variety - from Irish, to Italian, to spins on Mexican and Indian.  Wish every week could go this smoothly! 

The Best

• We all really enjoyed the arugula pesto and sausage lasagna.  It was the most complicated of the recipes made this week, so I tackled it on the weekend when I had a bit more time.  The arugula made for a nice twist on traditional pesto, and the fresh tomatoes really livened up the sauce.  A fantastic lasagna!

 Tomato sauce in progress

Arugula pesto gets combined with ricotta

Final product

The Good

• It doesn't look fancy, but once a year, gotta love St. Patrick's Day dinner.  With green cabbage and orange carrots from the box, and a variety of potatoes from the farmer's market, it certainly was a colorful plate.

• I started with a sauteed spinach and mushroom recipe, and then added it and some cotija cheese to whole wheat tortilla to make a lovely quesadilla.

• The curried cauliflower soup was quite simple, but very delicious.  It allowed me to use up the entire head of cauliflower, as well as some left over potatoes that had been purchased for our St. Patrick's day meal. 

 All the veggies in the pot

 The soup is served

• The kids didn't love the broccoli and red pepper gratin, but I thought it went perfectly with a turkey meatloaf dinner.

Week 41 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 10     Compost - 1     Carry Over - 0

This week was an ambitious week, but it helped that I was able to come home from the farmer's market and throw several ingredients straight into the oven.  The workload of my 'real job' is getting more and more outrageous, leaving not enough time to prepare dinner these days, much less document it.  So, loading activities onto the weekend is becoming a better and better plan.  I really have been enjoying my adventures into the world of canning, though sadly the end products just aren't lasting long enough to fully merit the process.  The learning continues! 

The Best

• We all loved the roasted tomatillo and poblano salsa.  I took 2 lbs. of tomatillos, a handful of bunching onions, three poblanos, and a jalapeno that I had sitting around, and put them under the broiler.  About 5 minutes in, I added 6-7 cloves of garlic, flipped over the peppers, stirred up the onions, then continued to broil another 10 minutes.  When everything was nice and roasted, it went into the blender - juices and all - with about 2 cups of cilantro.  Blended until it was nice and smooth, and done!

In process shot

The finished product

The Good

• A closer runner up this week was the arugula salad with sugar snap peas.   It is one of the best salads that I've ever tasted, between the arugula, peas and sauteed mushrooms; my family almost didn't get any.

• My husband made the black bread, which was a delicious, wintry treat that incorporated some carrots from the box.  It reminded me of the year that I spent in Prague after college.  With that in mind, I tried it with some butter and homemade pickled radishes.  Yum!

• The spinach lasagna was simple and good.  My husband didn't like that it didn't include ricotta and my kids also complained that it wasn't cheesy enough.  But, for a quick evening meal, it did the trick.

• The strawberry tangerine marmalade is a tasty change of pace from the strawberry jam that we've been eating since May.  It's tangy flavor goes great on crepes and waffles.

Week 30 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 8.5     Compost - 1.5    Jack-o-Lantern - 1

My lack of planning turned out about as expected.  I threw together a few meals with what we had around, but without really planning to use all of the ingredients, a bit more hit the compost this week than I would have liked.  That said, it was nice to have a little more flexibility.  On the heels of this experiment within an experiment, I'm thinking that I should plan 4-5 meals in advance based on the ingredients in the box, but give myself a bit more flexibility during the week as to when they are served.  Frittata planned for dinner and my husband forgets to look and makes scrambled eggs for breakfast?  Then I'll switch meals around... you get the idea.

The Best

• After finding some delicious pepperoni at a local Italian deli, my son and I did a little improvisation with a traditional bolognese recipe substituting pepperoni for pancetta, adding in fresh tomatoes, and garnishing with chopped arugula.  One of the best meals that I've ever made!

 'Bolognese' in process

The completed meal

The Good

• With avocados like these, they tend to outshine everything else on the plate.  Serving guacamole with a simple mango salsa on fish tacos was a hit with the entire family.

• With lots of green vegetables in the box and in my fridge, I prepared a simple stir fry with chicken, and included spinach, swiss chard and squash from the box.

• I roasted some veggies, including squash, in the oven, then combined with some quinoa for a yummy side dish.

• While not featuring much from the box except some garlic from a previous week, I made a meal this week that used up some items from my pantry.  The hummus-crusted chicken with lemon and rosemary was simple and good, and the millet 'risotto' with artichokes and mushrooms reminded me that it is possible to make great meals beyond the confines of rice and pasta. 

The Rest

• Let's just say that I cook better than I carve!

Week 27 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 11     Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 0.5

We're all loving these fall boxes.  Having a bunch of ingredients that require very little preparation time is just what the doctor ordered for these busy fall days.  That said - after more than a month of over scheduled weekends - I was finally able to spend a good portion of a day in the kitchen this past weekend.  That really set me, and the entire family, up for a successful week of meals that made the most of the fall ingredients.  The results weren't necessarily fine dining, but everything was enjoyed and very little was left to waste (a bit of basil hit the compost, and one avocado is carrying over into next week). 

The Best

• Though I often struggle to use up the salad greens, making two salads for a weekend dinner with friends was a great way to both consume and enjoy both lettuce and arugula.  We had two amazing salads that simply showcased what our CSA box is all about.  

The Good

• Fall strawberries are in, and they give the summer ones a run for their money.  They are indeed perfect, sweet berries for a fresh strawberry pie.  

• Last week's dud turned out to be a delicious bread once made correctly.  The zucchini, carrot, banana bread was embellished only slightly by the addition of pecans in one loaf and some dark chocolate chips in the other, and made for a delicious dessert all week.

• We continue to eat up this kale, onion and potato frittata every time that I make it.  The sprinkle of smoked paprika on the 'grownup's side' made it extra yummy for some of us.  

• There wasn't a lot to this Chinese chicken salad, but it was a good way for us to eat up our lettuce this week!

• Though not in the meal plan, I had some help making fresh yogurt this weekend.  It's easy enough that my son could manage about 80% of the process.

The Rest

• Sadly, this black eyed peas recipe fell a little flat.  They certainly tasted fine, but could have been any kind of beans simmered with ham hocks.  (They were served with some leftover tomato arugula salad).  

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 15 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 12     Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 0.5

When writing last week, I forgot to mention that we didn't end up being able to attend the farm tour.  I had been down and out with the flu and, the day we were supposed to drive down to San Diego, I still had a 100+ degree fever and my husband wasn't feeling so great either.  While we were super disappointed to miss the opportunity to see where all of the GREAT produce from our box comes from, I was all the more saddened when I saw the recipes for what was served that day.  I'm already looking forward to next year's tour, and hoping that we will all be healthy that time.

As far as the week went, taking it nice and easy seemed to work well for us.  Finding a balance between being very prescriptive, and leaving some room for spontaneity probably will work well for us during grilling season!

The Best

• The Blackberries have just been amazing (only wish they had more available!).  I sauteed them with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and about a tablespoon of lemon juice, and the syrup made for some delicious breakfast crepes!

The Good

• Hard to go wrong with Caramelized sweet onions!  I made a large batch, then have been using them in meals all week.  

•  My favorite meal was probably when we used the onions on top of grilled steak, then served with a simple Arugula, apple and Radish salad.

• Caramelized onions were also called for in the strata with Swiss Chard and sausage recipe, but by the time I got making the recipe, it was almost dinner time (note to self: always COMPLETELY read the recipes in advance).  I didn't have time to bake the strata for an hour, so I improvised the ingredients into a faster cooking frittata.  Flavors were great, so have to imagine the strata would have been amazing.

The Rest

• The Zucchini bread was a big hit, even with double the zucchini and cutting the sugar by one cup.  Next time I want to try a version of this recipe that replaces vegetable oil with coconut oil, cuts the sugar by half, substitutes in some applesauce, and still doubles up on the zucchini.
• The Basil-Green Garlic pesto got made and is in the freezer for another time.
• The gorgeous blood oranges made for some delicious juice.