The Food Box Chronicles

My food box for the week of March 31, 2010:

It contained apples, onions, carrots, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, cucumber, bananas, asparagus, salad mix and crunch bean sprouts.

And I made:

A pasta salad with cucumbers, parboiled carrots, red onion and crunch bean sprouts.

Applesauce muffins.

A citrus and mint salad.

And, my new favourite dish, Roasted Asparagus and Eggs (I'll get a better picture next time).

Yum!

I have Minions!

The sale of my condo closes on April 30 and I am thick into the "planning for renovations" stage. I have even hired my own set of minions who will start making things pretty on May 3! At this point, things are going smoothly, but I live in fear that everything will suddenly collapse and I will be left will a disaster a la Holmes on Homes or that things will drag on for 5 years and cost me 10 times as much as planned.

So, rather than dwell on that, I am debating the more important things, like what surface to use for my kitchen counter top:

Option 1: Bianco Carrara Marble

Apparently a nightmare in the kitchen, but oh so lovely.

Option 2: Quartz Reflections Cesarstone

This is my current favourite, but it is so expensive and I don't know what people will think of it in a few years.

Option 3: Kashmir White Granite

Granite is not my favourite material. I find that there is just too much going on colour-wise unless it is very dark in colour. However, I do like this Kashmir White and the price is right. It may be the best of both worlds (price and durability) although I think that it may eliminate the use of my longed for blue glass tile backsplash.

My kitchen minion thinks that I should choose granite. What do you think?

The Food Box Chronicles

Yikes! It's been a crazy few weeks. I bought a condo and my computer had a major incident. My brother is also moving to town and I've gone apartment hunting with him a couple of times. It's been intense and it's no wonder that I can hardly drag myself away from the couch. In any case, I missed a couple of weeks of food box documentation and am just now posting about my March 3 delivery. I hope to get back on track over the next few days because lack of food preparation = cheezies in my cupboards = bad news!

Here is what I received on March 3, 2010:

Delicata squash, apples, onions, potatoes, rutabagas, oranges, grapefruit, pears, gold beets, kale and salad mix.

My first dish was a favourite standby, Potato Crusted Quiche. As a vegetarian, I never use the fillings this recipe calls for and, instead, used the potatoes, onions and kale from my food box to make a tasty pie.

The next order of business was stocking up on Botanical Burgers (I freeze them for work day meals). This took care of more onions and potatoes as well as the rutabagas and gold beets. I have to say that I prefer the red beet version, but these were good too.

I also tried this fresh citrus salad for the first time. A delicious taste of spring.

The bitter salad mix I received worked perfectly when stirred into Barley Risotto. Mmm. Perfect for a wet and dreary day.

And finally, I roasted my Delicata Squash with maple syrup and then mashed it into my kitchen sink muffins. I am not a huge squash fan, but love it in muffins with cinnamon and cloves (and chocolate chips, of course).

I can feel my winter eating habits (soup!) giving wait to a craving for crisp greens and tart berries. I can't wait until the local foods start rolling in!

Brownies

I love brownies and Smitten Kitchen's Best Cocoa Brownies are winners! Not only are they delicious, but they are super simple to make. As Smitten Kitchen found, these brownies take 10 minutes longer to cook than suggested in the recipe.

The Food Box Chronicles: The Week of the Broccoli Failure

It was another successful week in the land of the food box. My daily vegetable quota is on the rise and I almost think I could handle weekly deliveries of fruit and veggies as I have already plowed through my last box, which was delivered 1 week ago today.

This box (being carefully inspected by my food inspector, Oliver Twist) contained kale, blueberries, broccoli, potatoes, pea shoots, tomatoes, lemons, lettuce, hazelnuts, apples and kiwis.

I had my first big food box failure with this set of veggies when I attempted to make my favourite broccoli soup using broccoli and potatoes. It turns out that vegetable stock (which I was out of) is not something you can easily omit - blech. So, in order to make up for this, I bought some yams and used the food box tomatoes to make my favourite African Yam and Peanut soup. Mmmm. So good.

The next item I used was the kale. From this I made some Balsamic Roasted Kale (not chard) and had this as a side dish to some left over veggie chili that I had made a few weeks ago and frozen.

I made several salads with the lettuce, pea shoots and hazelnuts. Delicious. There is nothing better than a good salad and I am glad to be heading back in to salad season!

I used the kiwis to top some Sticky Thai Coconut Rice. However, I do have to say that I am not a huge kiwi fan and this rice is better with pretty much any other fruit! I will be adding kiwis to my food box "never send" list.

I cooked up my blueberries to make a blueberry sauce.

And I used this sauce to serve with crepes. I love crepes and will eat them for any meal of the day. My favourite toppings are either nutella or a fresh strawberry/butter/syrup combo, but this combo of blueberry sauce and greek yogurt was good too!

I even used some of my left over blueberry sauce to top my Sticky Thai Coconut Rice the next morning for breakfast. Much better than kiwi!

Last night, I picked up a few more potatoes and combined this with my food box apples to make Potato and Apple Soup, a new recipe I just stumbled across in an old magazine. It was delicious and creamy and packed with goodness.

Lastly, I have been sick with laryngitis and have been using my food box lemons for my favourite sickie beverage - hot water with the juice of half a lemon and a teaspoon of honey.

So, the week of the broccoli failure started badly, but ended well. I can't wait for the next box!

The Food Box Chronicles

So, what did my food box lead to this week?

Carrot, onion and zucchini soup.

Braised Turnips with Poppy Seed Bread Crumbs.

Vanilla Roasted Pears.

Applesauce.

Applesauce muffins.

Oh, and unrelated to my food box but worth a mention, I also made some very delicious Best Cocoa Brownies.

The Food Box Chronicles

I'm almost caught up with my Food Box Chronicles just in time for the next delivery!

In my most recent delivery, I received frozen blueberries, apples, onions, pea shoots, oranges, beets, lemons, pears, bananas, ginger, baby bok choy and red leaf lettuce. I also upgraded my order with a loaf of Anise Fig bread from Wild Fire Bakery.

Using the left over sweet potatoes from my last delivery and the ginger from this delivery, I made Sweet Potato Coconut Soup. I also made several great salads with the lettuce and pea shoots.

The next thing I made was a Beet and Brown Rice Salad with Goat Cheese. This salad sounds and looks a bit odd, but it is my favourite use for beets.

I also made up another batch of Vanilla Roasted Pears and two dozen "kitchen sink" muffins with the blueberries. However, my absolute best recipe find was Roasted Salmon with Thai Red Curry and Bok Choy. This delicious dish used up my baby bok choy and lemon and is absolutely company-worthy (I replaced the salmon with trout as I was able to get this fresh). Highly recommended!