What I Made – Week 8

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You would have thought this week’s basket world have brought more salads, and it should have! Here’s what we ate instead.

This blueberry buckle has 4 cups of blueberries! Not on purpose, but it was an effective way to use everything up, so we’ll call it a happy accident.
Roasted broccoli is tossed with olive oil and harissa for this tofu quinoa bowl.
A salad! Lettuce topped with mozzarella, craisins, and chicken with a garlic scape dressing.
This cabbage is seared before being braised in a spiced tomato sauce. I didn’t top it with yogurt like the recipe said, so it could have used some lemon juice or another splash of something tangy.
These mini-burritos are filled with beans, rice, and chard, topped with cheese, and broiled until melty and just slightly browned.
I added a can of diced tomatoes to make this vegetable vindaloo with potatoes and carrots extra saucy! I did forget to add the peas.
And finally for birthday dinner, skillet steak with peas and asparagus, a very quick and very tasty early summer meal.
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What I’ve Planned – Week 8

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This is the perfect early summer basket this week! The boxes are getting heavier and the veggies are filling up both sides of our crisper, which is a sure sign we’re headed for peak season. I’m trying to take a break from pasta with my menu this week, although there’s no break from salads in sight!

What I Made – Week 7

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Our household comes down strong on the side of waffles in the morning debate of pancakes versus waffles. With blueberries throughout and topped with butter and real maple syrup, how could you not love these?
Blueberry muffins are pretty great, too. Especially when they make use of this incredibly simple-yet-foolproof muffin recipe.
Two whole-roasted components that were later disassembled into a meal: a chicken cooked per Ina Garten, but smeared with homemade pesto under the skin, and kohlrabi, later peeled and combined with peppers and feta.
It’s not very pretty to look at, but this zucchini chicken enchilada casserole is one on my go-to zucchini recipes these days. Instead of spiralizing them, I cut the zucchini into thin rounds and dry them a bit with a quick turn under the broiler before layering it into the casserole.
This pasta with sausage and peas was great on a rainy evening, and even though we used hot it’s,Ian sausage, it wasn’t at all spicy.
I actually roasted these beets early in the week along with the chicken and kohlrabi, so the assembly of this salad just required cooking the grain (freekeh, in this case), making the vinaigrette, and chopping the lettuce for a very quick weeknight meal. Is this meal prep?
I amped up the veggies in this clam pasta with white wine sauce by adding extra carrots, but it would also be good with some wilted spinach stirred in.

We still have more lettuce to use and a bundle of garlic scapes (in addition to what we harvested from our own garden)! We’ve frozen some of the extra peas, because we’re doing the same with what we’ve been getting from our garden, too!

What I’ve Planned – Week 7

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A good mix of roots and leaves this week. I’m trying to plan a lot of quick meals good for a busy workweek with long hours, or at least with parts that can be prepped ahead of time.

We’ll probably just eat the peaches plain and either turn the scapes into more pesto, or save them for another week.

What I Got – Week 7

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Happy first week of fruit share! Unfortunately with the cold weather, the usual farms are not producing much yet, so our fruit this week came to us from Georgia!

Clockwise from left: Orange Carrots, Little Gem Romaine Lettuce, White Kohlrabi, Red Beets, Garlic Scapes, English Peas, Peaches, Blueberries, Green Zucchini

What I Made – Week 6

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Let’s start with the most photogenic dish of the week, and also a surprisingly easy one! We used arctic char instead of the bass, and swapped the arugula for regular old lettuce.
This potatoes, fennel, and sausage skillet is an example of how I followed a recipe, but completely changed everything. I didn’t think my skillet was big enough to cook everything together, so I roasted the potatoes in the oven, adding the sliced fennel halfway through. I browned the sausage and onions in the pan, and cooked the onions in the sauce to make the glaze. Then I just topped the potatoes and fennel with the glazed onions and sausage. It was tasty, but heavy for a summer meal.
A pretty straightforward taco salad with last week’s shredded beef. We mixed a tablespoon or two of hot salsa and a tablespoon or so of spice blend into the beef to amp up the taco flavor.
I’ve made this recipe for salmon and napa cabbage many times, but didn’t follow the directions for the fish as closely this time. Do as the recipe says, not as I did if you want delicious crispy skin.
Another meal where I made some changes for the texture. I pan fried the tofu instead of marinating it, then just added oil to the marinade from the recipe to make a dressing. We left off the rice noodles this time, but I also like bean thread noodles on this.
Part salad, part grain bowl, the basic formula for this quinoa base with a lemon scallion vinaigrette and whatever cheese, dried fruit, and nuts you have (or not) is the recipe I always go to when I have a leafy green and no ideas for dinner.
Behold the collard breakfast sandwich! We followed the recipe instructions for the collards but managed to change just about everything else: an English muffin instead of a biscuit, peach bourbon jam instead of the aioli, country ham instead of pancetta, and a fried egg in place of the scrambled. But it tasted very good anyway.
Last but not least, rhubarb! lemon! cheesecake! I like to layer the curd throughout the cheesecake rather than just swirling it on top for maximum combination per bite. It’s also great with gluten free cookies for the crust.

What I’ve Planned – Week 6

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If you though the basket couldn’t get more green and leafy after last week, you will be amazed at how much we got for Week 6! This may be the time to start stocking the freezer for later months, if it weren’t too hot to turn on the stove most days!

I still need to make plans for the kale, but I’ll either toss it in with the chicken sausage and potatoes or hope it holds up in the crisper until I get a better idea!

What I Made – Week 5

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This chicken, kale and artichoke casserole was very easy to put together. I thought my skillet was too small for the last few steps where all the ingredients are combined, so I did it in a casserole dish in the oven instead and just cooked it 20-30 minutes. I would probably reduce the amount of liquid if I did it this way again.
Oh wow, another salad! This one with oranges, goat cheese, scallions, pistachios and some leftover red pepper dressing.
Finally I got both ingredients at the same time and made a strawberry rhubarb pie this year! It was a little more strawberries than rhubarb but you won’t hear me complaining.
These massive, meaty pork chops were the perfect accompaniment to this apple, kohlrabi and mint slaw. I will definitely make this again; it’s a great side dish that has so many flavors haters like me will barely notice the kohlrabi.
Unglamorous shredded beef tacos! I was too tired at the end of the week to make the salsa so we used leftovers from takeout (in the plastic containers) and topped with lots of lettuce and cilantro.

Not pictured was the sunchoke gnocchi and sautéed spinach we had (pictured here in Winter Week 15) and the many, many salads we made. We finally used up the last of the lettuce today so we only have a few red scallions rolling around the produce drawer. We’ve got to try to keep this pace up heading into the height of summer!