I joined their program shortly after moving to Austin and learning how supportive the Austin area is of not only local businesses but local agriculture as well. I love the idea of the whole Slow Food movement and I wanted to join in the fun. It has been an amazing decision so far. Each Friday I feel like a kid waiting to be taken to the candy shop for a surprise bag of treats. Except I'm not a kid and these are vegetables...but, it is still a surprise that I love opening. They post a list of what might be in your box each week but you still never really know. Getting this box has really helped me challenge my creativity in the kitchen. I mean...what do you do with 2 pounds of carrots on a weekly basis? And dill...don't get me started with the dill. I've been freezing it in hopes that this summer they will deliver lots of cucumbers. ;)
This week the box had: an avocado, grapefruits, oranges, broccoli, beets with their greens, lettuce, dill, spinach, spring onions, carrots and mustard greens.
The avocado and citrus I haven't gotten too creative with. We eat the citrus and they are AMAZING...so juicy...and I used some of the juice this week to make a citrus vinaigrette for salads. The avocado so far is just getting sliced up in salads and on sandwiches.
On Sunday I made Roast Chicken with Balsamic Bell Peppers from Cooking Light and to go along with it made mashed potatoes with broccoli.
Basically, I just boiled a large baking potato (cubed up) like you do when making mashed potatoes and in the last few minutes I threw in about 1.5 cups of broccoli to cook with it. I drained everything together, mashed and threw in some sour cream, salt, pepper and 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. These were a HUGE hit with the man and I would highly recommend the chicken dish. It had some very unique and different flavors. My second favorite part of this dish, after eating it, was eating it again reinvented for lunch today. I used the chicken and leftover onion/bell pepper mixture and shoved it in some pita bread with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce. YUM.
Monday night I sauteed up shrimp with garlic, butter and lemon juice and to go with it an Israeli couscous dish with roasted beets, carrots and goat cheese. This dish took a little more time but it was well worth it. I roasted the beets and carrots in two separate aluminum foil packages (about 1.5 cups of each) in a 375 degree oven for oh...about an hour I would say. I let them cool, peeled the beets and diced everything up. Later, I cooked the Israeli couscous in some chicken stock and when it was done I simply mixed the veggies in along with 2 ounces of goat cheese. Again, HUGE hit. We had never had Israeli couscous before but boy was it tasty.
We did have one little snafu on Monday night. Sometimes when I get the vegetables I can't quite tell what they are. I make assumptions, look up pictures and go with it. Mostly this works out. However, last night I instructed Max to wash up this lettuce we got to make a big salad. He did and made his favorite balsamic dressing and brought it to the table. He took a huge bite...chewed...chewed...and ran to the trash can to spit it out. I knew the lettuce was a bit spicy but we figured it was some sort of arugula. Um, no. It was mustard greens. OUCH. Too spicy to eat raw...worse than horseradish actually. We set it aside to saute up with Tuesday nights dinner. Live and learn...now we know what mustard greens are I guess.
More dishes to come...tonight I am roasting a turkey tenderloin, tossing together the mustard and beet greens and making some sort of brown rice dish. Oh, and maybe carrot bisque for lunch today or tomorrow. Hopefully everything is edible.
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