Week 29 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 9     Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 0.5

It's definitely starting to feel - and taste - like fall.  Our meals this week were of the heartier sort, and went over very well as the days start to get darker and cooler.  With the exception of the lasagna, everything was fairly quick in terms of preparation and was consumed at one setting.  Although it's hard these days to find time for meals that take more than an hour to prepare, having lots of leftovers made for a lot of tasty, easy lunches later in the week.  I'd love to find a way to make more time-intensive dishes like the lasagna on the weekend after we pick up the box.  Food for thought for future meal planning efforts!

The Best

• We all loved the chicken and grape skewers served with a quinoa pilaf.  The flavors were fantastic and it was simple to prepare.

 

The Good

• In all honesty, I was a little scared of the kale, zucchini and pinto bean enchilada recipe, but it was really yummy.  Next time, I would chop the kale even more (I left some pieces too large), but this will definitely be made again.

In process

Enchiladas after baking

• Before really reading this recipe, I was thinking that I'd just be layering in slices of tomatoes, but in reality the first step was making a tomato sauce with the tomatoes that I had.  So while the fresh tomato lasagna took a good hour to prepare (plus additional baking time), the end product was great!

• This salad was simple but good, and incorporated lettuce, cilantro and avocados from the box!

 

The Rest

• I was really hopeful that this watermelon cocktail would be good, but it was actually way too sweet.  The triple sec overpowered the deliciously sweet watermelon, and I couldn't even drink it.  Most watermelons just don't taste as good, I guess, as the ones we've been getting in our box.

Other Fun

Planting a fall garden with my son at his school

 

My other son's class has their turn to plant

Week 26 in Review

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

With the exception of some lettuce that once again hit the compost bin, we ate everything except one tomato, one cucumber and a couple of onions - all of which will get consumed in the next week.  It was a week of fairly simple meals, allowing me to incorporate the box into meals that could be mostly made quickly or in advance.  I've been missing the time that I had over the summer, especially on the weekends, to cook great meals or get ingredients ready for later in the week.  Between a busy work schedule and a full fall sport schedule (soccer and baseball) these days, weekends - and evenings for that matter - have not allowed for much food preparation.  So if simple allows me to get the ingredients into our meals and bodies, I'll take it for now.

The Best

• The curried chicken salad with grapes was amazing, partially because the grapes from the box were some of the best that we've ever tasted, partially because the combinations of flavors and textures were spot on.  The meal also featured cucumbers, strawberries, and a Greek pasta salad with red peppers from the previous week's box. 

The Good

• Turkey burgers are a staple around this place, enhanced by some delicious tomato slices as well as some roasted pasilla peppers and brioche buns found at the same farmer's market where we pick up our box.

• Turkey tacos are another staple.  This week's were made that much better by the presence of fresh, simple, three ingredient salsa - all from this week's box.

 

The Rest

• I was really excited about the zucchini, carrot, banana bread recipe that I had found.  In a rush, however, I neglected to add a very important ingredient - baking soda.  The result was a flat, mushy bread that had good flavors but horrible texture.  I hope to have the ingredients to try it again and get it right.