Week 45 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 11     Compost - 1     Carry Over - 0

Valentine's day made for a great occasion to use up a bunch of ingredients from the box.  That meal alone featured spinach, celery, oranges, parsnips, and marjoram from the box, and made for three fun and flavorful courses.  Interestingly, however, it wasn't that meal that was the highlight of the week; perhaps that much good food all at once makes it more difficult to pick a favorite?  All in all, it was another great week.  We did get through most of the box, though ended up having to compost a few stalks of celery that went rubbery and one avocado that just didn't ripen. 

The Best

• This Italian wedding soup (featuring kale and fennel) was a huge hit with the entire family.  It wasn't super easy to make, but the savory, fennel flavored broth was worth every bit of effort.

 The Good

• Valentine's dinner started with a lovely parsnip soup.  This flavorful soup - with a little olive oil drizzled on as garnish - will definitely be put into rotation when parsnips are in the box.

 

• Dinner continued with this delicious spinach, celery and orange salad with candied almonds.  I'd eat this every day.

• We finished our meal with roasted chicken featuring a marjoram pesto, served over egg noodles.  I don't think I could have eaten one more bite by the time we were done!  

The Rest

• Though I can't say this featured anything from the box, my other valentine's week goal was to make cinnamon swirl bread for my kids.  It was definitely the most complicated baking project that I've ever taken on, but the final product was amazing.  Can't say that I'll do this every year, but was a fun labor of love for my mini Valentines.

 The dough after its first (of four) rises

 Adding in the 'swirl' mixture

 Filled dough is cut and braided

 Baked loaves

 Delicious swirl bread with golden raisins

Week 43 in Review

The Score

Eaters - 10     Carry Over - 0     Compost - 1

Combining at least two ingredients into each meal or recipe made it rather easy to get most of the box into our bodies this week.  For weeks when I'm short on cooking time, this is definitely the way to go!  I had a fun time making up my own recipe, and ended up taking a planned recipe and worked to make it simpler because I didn't have time to make the original.  Though some of the dill and the celery hit the compost at week's end, everything else was enjoyed.  Each week in this process gets easier and easier, and I feel more and more comfortable experimenting with ingredients that once seemed quite intimidating.

The Best

• Admittedly, the end result was a bit bizarre looking, but the rainbow potatoes with kale were very yummy.  I started with about 2 lbs. of multi-colored fingerling potatoes, which were cut in half, covered in water + 2", then boiled for five minutes.  I destemmed and coarsely chopped one bunch of kale while the potatoes were boiling.  After the five minutes had passed, I added the kale and boiled the entire pot for another 10 minutes.  Checking to be sure the potatoes were done, the water was drained out of the pot.  I mashed the potatoes together with the kale, then stirred in 1 cup of chicken stock and 1 cup of shredded white cheddar cheese.  Add salt and pepper to taste, and you're done.

Fingerling potatoes in the pot

Coarsely chopped kale

Rainbow potatoes with kale

The Good

• I used up the rest of the fingerling potatoes that I had bought in this chunky potato soup recipe, which featured celery and dill from the box.  Though soups are always a bit of an unknown with the kids, they really liked this soup.  It went nicely with a lettuce and arugula salad from the box.

• Once I got ready to make the butternut squash, caramelized onion, and spinach lasagna, I realized that I did not have enough time to follow the recipe.  So, I got the onions caramelizing, and then shredded the butternut squash.  I sauteed the squash with garlic, eventually adding the spinach until I had a nicely cooked vegetable blend.  I layered the no cook lasagna noodles with a jar of homemade tomato sauce, the vegetable mix + caramelized onions, then shredded fontina (and repeated three times - in process view below).  It was light and yummy and well received by the entire family.

 

• We didn't end up making the planned scrambled egg recipe, but used up the remainder of the lettuce in a salad with avocados and a few other leftover veggies from the fridge.

Week 37 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 3     Compost - 3     Carry Over - 4

As expected, not a banner week for the box.  Honestly, I only really got one recipe made, though I did use up a few other items via juicing.  But, that's what you get when you have two nighttime holiday parties followed by three and a half days of work travel.  You win some, you lose some.  This week, sadly, we lost a bit of our box to the compost pile. 

The Best (and only...)

• The kale and onion tacos were delicious, and perhaps were the most healthy thing that I ate all week.  I put the delicious recipe on top of some refried beans, and went back in for seconds.

Since I don't have much to share in terms of recipe results for this week, I figured it might be fun to share a photo of the wonderful garden that I've been working on at my sons' school.  More than 600 students participated in fall plantings, and eveyrthing - lettuce, carrots, broccoli, chard, radishes, onions, garlic and cabbage - has been growing like crazy.  Over the holidays, those radishes that haven't yet been consumed by the students will be harvested and replanted, and some lettuce will be harvested as well.  Looking forward to the official harvest celebration with the kids in late February/early March!

Week 35 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 7     Compost - 2     Carry Over - 2

I was actually a little surprised as I was downloading photos from the week to realize how much stuff actually got made this week.  It felt like we ate thanksgiving leftovers for most of the week, and truth be told we did.  But in between those big meals, I did enjoy some playtime in the kitchen after all.  This week, I didn't worry so much about 'using up the box,' so the green beans and lettuce ended up hitting the compost.  Instead, I started to think about the holidays ahead, and how I could use some of the ingredients in the box to make gifts that could help spread a little of the joy that I've been experiencing this year with others.

The Best

• The apple butter made using the box's fuji apples, along with some pink ladies and extra fujis that I picked up from the farmer's market, has been a huge hit.   Though it took all day (I actually started mine early morning, and let it sit in the slow cooker all day), I know that we will enjoy this apple butter well into the spring.  Pretty good timing, since we only have one jar of home made strawberry jam left and need some sort of preserves to fill its place until strawberries come back in season.

 Cooking the apples on the stove

(they didn't quite fit into the slow cooker for step one)

 The apples after they'd been passed through the food mill

and put into the slow cooker

 Apple butter - dark and delicious and preserved for the coming months

The Good

• After getting completely sick of the turkey and sides, we made some spicy kale and chickpeas, along with chicken masala for a nice change of flavors. 

• French toast is always a favorite weekend breakfast, especially with fresh challah and fruits from the farmer's market.  The fall/winter strawberries were so sweet, and delicious with the crunchy apples and sprinkling of almonds!  No syrup needed.

• The avocados from the box can't be beat, and a little spicy guacamole (with some added jalapeno) were also a nice change from the mellow turkey-day dishes that we'd been eating for days. 

• When all else fails, I try to get out the juicer.  This apple, carrot, spinach juice with a little bit of added ginger was good - even the kids liked it.

The Rest

• After the success of the apple butter, I was excited to try and find a use for some granny smith apples that I had purchased.  With mint overflowing in the garden, I decided it would be fun to try a mint jelly recipe.  Unfortunately, it didn't jell, though it tastes good and makes a pretty good syrup.

Apples and mint on the stove

 Mint syrup

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 22 in Review

I'm very late in getting last week's review up, but I think I have a good excuse... I was doing this:

For the last eight months, I've been working with a friend to plan for a learning garden at our children's school.  It's a typical urban public school, with too much asphalt and not enough green.  After a tremendous amount of generosity from community businesses, this weekend was the build, and getting ready was all consuming.  The garden is now about 80% done, and I'm ready to take a breather and get back to the rest of my life!

The Score
Eaters - 11    Compost - 0.5     Carry Over -0.5
Fueling up for the big build meant a lot of good eating.  We had friends over for dinner twice this past week, and that helped us get through almost everything.  One of the amazing avocados is still ripening up, but that will certainly get eaten up when it's ready, and a little cabbage did hit the compost bin.  All in all a great week, with some fun projects to boot.

The Best

• The meal itself was nothing fancy, but the process of making the sauce was fun and the end result was quite tasty!

 Twelve pounds of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes ready for roasting

Juicy goodness with yummy basil leaves

We got seven pints out of the batch

Heirloom tomato sauce with spaghetti and meatballs

The Good

• We made grilled fish tacos one night, but the true highlight was the pico de gallo.  I'm not sure if I've ever had sweeter tomatoes, and with the fresh cilantro, the entire bowl was gone in seconds.

• Remember that batch of sauerkraut from a few weeks back?   It was finally ready to eat, so we enjoyed it over bratwurst with a fresh garden salad and super sweet cantaloupe.  

• I can't say that I love the texture of okra, but given the fact that this was my first time preparing it, I could be partially at fault.  That said, this was a delicious veggie curry dish that could make for a great base for any variety of ingredients from the box (this batch included okra, kale, tomatoes and onions).  

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 3 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 6.5    Compost - 1    Carry Over - 3.5
This week I found it very hard to keep to the meal plan.  My husband was on the road Monday through Thursday, and I not only had to take care of all of the cooking, there was also a lot of mid-week running around that was mine to get done.  The end result was that cooking time was significantly impacted, and there was also one less adult to help with the eating.  There were two meals - the penne and stir fry - that I never got around to making so we ended up with a lot of carry over (rapini, tatsoi, as well as some lettuce, carrots and leeks).  This week's cilantro wilted amazingly quickly and went into the compost bin, but fortunately I had some left over from last week's box that was still in great shape and contributed to one of the week's recipes.  I'm just grateful that most of what we do have is fresh enough to carry over from week to week, as there will often be crazy weeks like this!

The Good

• My husband's chicken dish with braised fennel and leeks was amazing... a perfect lazy Sunday meal
• The pork chops with apple chutney were delicious, and accompanied by last week's yummy beets.  I neglected to mention that my husband was SO excited about the way we've been eating with our produce CSA that he decided to join a organic meat, poultry and eggs CSA (more on that another time).  This meal was devoured by the boys, and was the first meal rated (by one) a perfect "10"!

Happy, post-meal beet teeth!

The So-So

• The kale with lentils was quite tasty, but I'm still on the quest for a good tikka masala recipe.  This week's attempt was way too runny, and void of some of the flavors that I was looking for.  The cilantro-mint chutney was alright, but I feel like the addition of yogurt threw the flavors off a bit.  There is still so much to master in this cooking adventure.

The Ugly

• The only unfortunate meals this week were the ones that never got made.