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 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 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 33 in Review

The Score
Eaters - 9      Compost - 0.5     Carry Over - 2.5

Another delicious week in the kitchen, with most of what I set out to achieve accomplished.  I didn't get around the the persimmons pudding (though plan to make that this coming week as the persimmons are still in great shape) and we purposefully left the yams out of the plan to save for next week.  We have some avocado, and a bit of the carrots and celery, left over as well.  While some of the lettuce bit the dust yet again, it does feel like we made and ate a lot given last week's hefty box bounty.

The Best

• I'm a huge Mark Bittman fan, both from a recipe and a food politics perspective.  Using up the spinach in a rice cake recipe from his recent Brown Rice article exceeded expectations - it was amazing!

The Good

• In this ode to the pumpkin month, it was great to enjoy a savory pumpkin recipe.  The pumpkin ravoli recipe - broiled in the oven at the last minute with a sprinkle of brown sugar - was a delight.

• The ode to pumpkin continued with these delicious pumpkin cookies, which really were more like mini pumpkin cakes... light, fluffy, yummy.

• Both soups made this week were fantastic.  The butternut squash soup was hearty (though I skipped the bacon and added a pinch of cayenne at the end) and made for a perfect fall dinner.  The chicken and wild rice soup with carrots and celery seemed like a great recipe for a weekend away in the snow.

• Used up a couple week's worth of carry over grape tomatoes - both yellow and red - in an easy tomato sauce that was embellished with homemade meatballs and spaghetti.  Those may have been the last really fresh tomatoes of the year... sigh.

The Rest

• While radishes aren't really loved by anyone in this family, pickled radishes didn't do much for any of us either.

Week 32 in Review

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

Lots of good eating this week, though many of the meals were my lunches instead of family dinners.  With one sick child, and another one busy with baseball playoffs, there were fewer sit down family dinners this week.  That freedom allowed me to play with spices and flavors that the kids aren't 100% comfortable with just yet.  Although I once again failed to get through all of the lettuce and chard, I do feel like I personally ate a lot of vegetables this week to make up for what everyone else wasn't eating. 

The Best

• I stumbled upon an amazing website of recipes this week (101 Cookbooks) and found a recipe for Otsu, a buckwheat noodle salad.  The dressing was amazing, and the recipe allowed me to use a generous portion of cilantro from the box.  Though this time around I substituted sauteed chicken for the tofu, I can see making this delicious recipe again and again with a variety of proteins.

The Good

• Over the weekend, my husband made pork tinga, which was a great hit with the kids.  The crunchy tostadas were the perfect canvas for the avocados, lettuce and cilantro from the box.

• Another fabulous lunch was a spinach salad with chicken, almonds and apples, tossed in a spicy mango dressing.  Hearty, healthy, and super tasty.

• This lemon green beans with marcona almonds dish is definitely the best preparation of green beans that I've ever made; possibly the best green beans dish that I've ever tasted!  I seriously could have eaten the entire bowl.

• Fall ingredients like pumpkin and persimmons made for a lovely, moist muffin.  Definitely got me in the mood for Thanksgiving!

 

• One simple family dinner was linguine with zucchini and mint.  Though I'm still avoiding pasta for the short term, it smelled SO good - and the kids gobbled it up.

  
The Rest

• While the lemon garlic spinach (with some mushrooms thrown in for the fun of it) was great, the almond crusted chicken was overly garlicky and really greasy (between the olive oil and nuts).

Week 31 in Review

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

Our mix-it-up week went really well.  We had some delicious meals, and I had a lot of fun in the kitchen!  The idea of using others recipes as guides really resonated, but allowed for some fun playing around that ended up quite well.  Ingredient proportions are all the more important with baking, but even the bread turned out great.  For the past week, I've been back on an elimination diet for health reasons - meaning that I didn't eat everything that I made - but I was sure to get feedback on the items that I wasn't eating myself.

The Best

• I know I'm probably a bit biased here, because this was one of the few items that I could eat this week... but my pumpkin curry soup (based on a combination of this and this) was so delicious that I ran out, bought another pumpkin, and made a second batch!

 

Pumpkin Curry Soup

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pumpkin (small sugar), cut in half and seeds removed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional for pumpkin
• 3 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1.5 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 can light coconut milk
• salt and pepper

• Heat oven to 375
• Coat pumpkin flesh with olive oil or olive oil spray and roast, skin down, in oven for one hour until soft throughout.  Remove from oven.
• Sautee onion in olive oil for 5-7 minutes, until translucent.  Add garlic and thyme and cook for one additional minute.  Remove from heat.
• Scoop out flesh of pumpkin and put into a soup pan.  Add in onion mixture, chicken broth, and curry powder.  Heat over medium until it reaches a boil, then simmer on low for 15-20 minutes.  
• Take soup off heat, and add coconut milk.  
• Puree in blender, or with immersion blender.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Garnish with fresh basil and/or crushed cashews. 

The Good

This zucchini banana bread (based on this and this) finally hit all the right notes - sweet but not using bananas in addition to sugar, moist thanks to yogurt not oil - and was a big hit at home and at a school bake sale!

 Zucchini banana bread (this loaf with walnuts only)

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups zucchini, yellow or green, shredded
• 2 bananas, very ripe and mashed
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

• Heat oven to 325.  Grease and flour two 9x5 bread pans.
• Beat eggs until light and fluffy.  Beat in oil, brown sugar, sugar and vanilla.  Fold in zucchini, bananas and yogurt until well mixed.
• In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. 
• Carefully fold the wet ingredients into the dry, until the batter looks just combined.
• If desired, fold in chocolate chips and walnuts (you can use one full cup of one if you don't want both, or nothing at all).
• Pour into two bread pans.  Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 50-60 minutes.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on wire rack.

I wasn't able to eat it, but the frittata (based on this and this) went over very well with my family and was quite nice to look at!

Frittata with Bacon, Potatoes and Swiss Chard

• 5 slices bacon
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, stems removed and chopped
• 3-4 small potatoes, blue or red - cut into chunks and boiled until soft
• 1 clove of garlic
• 6 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• red pepper flakes, if desired
• salt and pepper

• Heat oven to 400
• Cook bacon slices in oven proof fry pan until crispy, remove from heat and cool
• Leaving 1 tablespoon of bacon fat in pan, saute Swiss chard until wilted.  Add in garlic and potatoes, and cook for two more minutes while chopping up the bacon into small bits.  Add bacon bits back into pan.
• Whisk ricotta into beaten eggs, then pour over mixture in pan.  
• Cook in oven for 8 minutes.  Egg should be mostly done at this point.
• Switch oven to broiler
• Add parmesan and red pepper flakes (if desired), then put under broiler for one to two minutes until cheese has melted.  Salt and pepper to taste. 

The zucchini banana bread (based on this and this) was another thing that I couldn't eat this week, but it was a big hit at home and at a school bake sale!

 Zucchini banana bread (this loaf with walnuts only)

• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups zucchini, yellow or green, shredded
• 2 bananas, very ripe and mashed
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

• Heat oven to 325.  Grease and flour two 9x5 bread pans.
• Beat eggs until light and fluffy.  Beat in oil, brown sugar, sugar and vanilla.  Fold in zucchini, bananas and yogurt until well mixed.
• In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. 
• Carefully fold the wet ingredients into the dry, until the batter looks just combined.
• If desired, fold in chocolate chips and walnuts (you can use one full cup of one if you don't want both, or nothing at all).
• Pour into two bread pans.  Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 50-60 minutes.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on wire rack.

I did eat a lot of this vegetarian lentil soup (based on this and this), which helped me get into the spirit of autumn.

Vegetarian lentil soup

• 1/2 pound lentils, placed in a large bowl and soaked in boiling water for 15 minutes
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 leeks, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 stalks celery, diced
• 3 large carrots, diced 
• 1 bunch of spinach (4-6 cups), finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 6 cups low sodium vegetable stock
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or lemon juice
• Parmesan cheese (optional)

• In a large soup pot, heat olive oil.  Saute onions and leeks for 15 minutes, then add garlic, celery, carrots, and thyme and cook 10 more minutes. Add spinach and saute until wilted.
• Add lentils, salt, pepper, cumin, and vegetable stock.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, then lower heat and simmer for one hour.
• Add vinegar/lemon juice and check salt and pepper.
• Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and/or a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

The pesto pasta with green beans dinner didn't end up requiring a look at a recipe after all.  Our pesto was based on this (minus the walnuts), though I tend to wing it these days when assembling pesto.  The green beans were steamed, then I added some smoked chicken and parmesan cheese.  The boys ate it twice this week.

Also thrown together without much ado was a chicken salad, eaten by my husband on a baguette, but by me salad-style with spinach and avocados.  I made a simple mustard vinaigrette (olive oil, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, fresh tarragon) and combined it with chopped cooked chicken, minced shallots and slivered almonds.