Week Eight

This week brought the start of more of a variety of veggies, with a sweet pepper, some pickling cukes and a few baby redskin potaotes, in addition to a bunch of zuchini.  I really need to make up some of my ginger dipping sauce and start stir-frying my lunches, I still ahve a couple zuchini from last week!  The Patty Pan squash is pretty cool- the newsletter said that we may possibly have one in the box (ours did!)  and they would be rotating them through the boxes.  I'm guessing those who didn't get the pattypan got additional zuchini. 

I didn't know that zuchini could grow so fast- the newsletter mentioned that last week they harvested anything bigger than a finger, and I got some big zuchini- the largest was 2.6 lbs!



In the box this week:
Basil: 2.9 oz: $2.90
Bigger bunching onions: 11.8 oz $2.00
Zuchini: 3 big and 2 small 7.1 lbs total. $3.44 (at one farm stand large ones are $1 each, smaller are 90 cents/lb)
Patty Pan squash: 1.3 lb: $1.00 at least (I haven't seen these at the stands yet)
Sweet pepper: $0.50 (non-organic farmers stand pricing)
Pickling cukes: 5 small, 5.3 oz.  $0.50 (at least, I have to check out local pricing on these, usually it's about $2/quart box)
Red baby potatoes: 3 small (and 2 tiny), 6.3 oz:  $0.35 (I think it's about 90 cents a lb at the stands)
Total estimated value: $10.69

For the first week the value is "under" the average weekly cost, but much of what I am comparing it to is non-organic produce.  IMHO this week is still a good deal, as long as we can polish off the zuchini as quickly as they give it to us!

Week Seven

As we're getting into summer it's nice to see more veggies, as my husband and I are about charded-out.  I don't think it would be so bad if it wasn't so hot and we had lettuce to mix into salads with the chard.  Hopefully it will start to cool off a bit soon so we have a chance at a late lettuce crop.  One good thing is that any hot peppers we get will be spicier because of the hot and dry weather.  I can't wait for the onions to really start to get big, I'd like to try them in my french onion soup...  recipe to be posted in the next week or so, whenever I get the chance. 

I also remembered that sage is really good added in to Alton Brown's Sawmill Gravy for Biscuits and Gravy.  I'm in the mood for that, maybe we will have that sometime this week- last week's sage is still going strong and I need to do something with it.  The 1 lb sausage tubes don't generate enough leftover grease for the recipe, I just use butter or if I have it, some leftover bacon grease.  I usually end up adding more milk since it thickens up fast.  The recipe also works nicely with ground beef, Scott's dad told me that the biscuit gravy reminded him of how he would have a similar gravy but with hamburger as he was growing up.  I just had to try making it the next time they were over at our house, and it makes a great dinner over biscuits or dinner rolls.  I admit, I cheat- I use the biscuit-in-a-can.  I made Alton's biscuits once, and while the ones from the 1st cutting were superior to the canned ones, the later cuttings were a bit tougher.  I decided that for now, it wasn't worth the extra time and effort to make the biscuits myself.


In the box this week:
Sorrel: 3.4 oz $3.40
Basil: 1.8 oz: $1.80
Swiss Chard: 13.3 oz $4.35
Bigger bunching onions: 11.6 oz $2.00
Zuchini: 2 big and 2 small 2.7lbs total.  $2.00 (at one farm stand large ones are $1 each, smaller are 90 cents/lb)
Small garlic bulb: 1 ea $0.30
Beans: 9.9 oz $0.84 ($1.35/lb non-organic at farm stand)
Total estimated value: $14.69


One thing I like to do with zuchini is to make up a stir-fry for lunch, usually with onion and bell pepper. A while back I got addicted to Benihana's (a chain Hibachi restaurant) ginger dipping sauce, and I had googled up copycat recipes. 

Ginger dipping sauce:
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup vinegar (rice wine or apple cider vinegar works best)
 2.5 oz onion
4 oz fresh carrot, cut into pieces
1 oz fresh ginger root (start with slightly less, I love lots of ginger in mine)
2 oz lemon juice

Toss everything in a blender and let it have at.  A 1/3 cup serving is 38 calories.

This week's newsletter recipe:

Carmelized Onion Dip
1 cup onion
1 Tablespoon sour cream
1 Tablespoon Mayo
1 Tablespoon cream cheese
dash of worcestershire
butter or oil to sautee onions

Directions:
Brown onion in oil for about 2 minutes.  When onions are cool mix in with the rest of the ingredients.  Refrigerate overnight.

Week Six

Sorry I haven't posted sooner, and have been pretty light on the new recipes lately, we went on vacation last week and I'm still catching up with everything.  It was nice to see that the zuchini is finally comming in, it's one of my favorietes for stir-fry.  The newsletter says that if they can keep the squash beetles at bay we should have a very good crop of cukes and zuchini.

In the box this week:
Sorrel: 1.8 oz $1.80
Sage: 0.4 oz $0.40
Basil: 1.7 oz: $1.70
Swiss Chard: 1.3 lbs $8.00
Bigger bunching onions: 7.5 oz $1.50
Zuchini: 3.1 lbs $2.00 at least (looks equivalent to what one of the farm stands is selling for $2/quart container of zuchini)
Small garlic bulb: 1 ea $0.30
Purple coneflower: $2.00 (not quite sure how to price it, but this seems a fair price)
Total estimated value: $17.70
This week's newsletter recipe:

Zucchini Fries

Ingredients
2 zucchini
1 egg white
1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

Vegetable cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425°. Cut zucchini into 3-inch sticks.  Whisk an egg white in a small bowl, and add milk. Combine Parmesan and seasoned breadcrumbs in a separate bowl. Dip zucchini sticks into egg mixture, and then roll in breadcrumb mixture. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray, and place zucchini on sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

Week Five

Week five, and a good-sized batch of peas came in my box!  I still have the bok choy from last week (greens can keep up to 2 weeks for me if I put them in plastic grocery bags, loosely tie them, and pop them in the fridge).  Some of the 'skinnier' pea pods and the bok choy would go well for a stir-fry sometime this week!  I'll probably just munch the rest of the peas raw, it's one of my favorite snacks :)

In the box this week:
Sorrel: 2.3 oz $2.30
Swiss Chard: 1.53 lbs $9.00
Bigger bunching onions: 4.9 oz   $1.00
Lettuce: 4.4 oz $2.00 (organic pricing)
Basil: 1.7 oz: $1.70
Peas (edible pod): 1 lb $3.49 non-organic (Festival online pricing)
Total estimated value: $19.49

One thing I do have to mention, many recipes call for removing stems of greens (like swiss chard).  Lately I've been leaning to using as much as I can of any produce I can get,.  For things like swiss chard I will eather finely chop the stems and use that in the same dish - cooking it up a little before I add the leaves if it is a cooked dish, or I will chop the stems and freeze them on a baking pan (and move them to a zip-top freezer bag when frozen) for use later in soups and stews.  A while back I got some celery at Aldis and it had leaves on it, they made a great addition to my salad and a soup I made at the time. 

I compost what I can't use (mainly roots) so it's not like it's going to a landfill, but over the past year as I've been striving to eat healthier I've also learned to waste as little as possible. 


This week's recipe from the newsletter:

Spanish-style swissw chard with raisins and pine nuts

Ingredients:
4 cups swiss chard, stemmed and chopped
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts (the Paquettes use cashews)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1.  Chop all ingredients, preheat pan to medium heat
2. add oil then sautee nuts and raisins until brown
3. add swiss chard in manageable amounts, and sautee until limp, about 2 minutes

Pricing updates

I finally managed to make the Menominee Farmers market, and they did have a vendor there that had organic herbs and greens.  Right now about the only thing I'm missing about living in the 'burbs of a big city is the sheer volume of vendors at farmers markets, and having over a dozen markets within a reasonable driving distance. 

Herbs were $2 for what looked like an ounce and a half to 2 oz, so for now I'll go with $1/oz for fresh herbs.  Leaf lettuce was $2 for a bag, about the same quantity as what was provided in week 4.  Swiss Chard was $3 a bag, what I got this week was at least 3 bags worth.  Kale was $4/bag, about the same quantity in the bag as the chard (I know, we didn't get kale yet, but if it's at the market it should be comming soon unless the crop totally bombed).  The local organic pricing seems to be comparible to what I remember organic produce being in the Detroit area, so I'm fairly confident these new numbers are an accurate representation of actual value.

So, here's my updated estimates:

Week 4:
Sorrel: 4.5 oz  $4.50
Swiss Chard: 1.54 lbs $9.00
Oregano: 2.9 oz $2.90
Radishes: 4 (1.6 oz total) $0.33
Bigger bunching onions: 5 (4.1 oz) $1.00
Pok Choi: 2.2 oz $2.00 (used pricing for organic lettuce)
Lettuce: 3.7 oz  $2.00 (organic pricing)
Basil: 1.4 oz: $1.40
Total estimated value: $23.13

Week 3:
Oregano: 7.2 oz,  $7.20
Sorrel: 2.1 oz, $2.10
Swiss Chard  11.1 oz, $3.09
Sage: 0.7 oz, $0.7
Radish: 3 small, 1.1 oz.  25 cents.
Garlic scapes: 3 scapes 10 cents
Total estimated value: $13.44

Week 2:
Petchoa: $1.98
Sorrel 3.1 oz $3.10
Swiss Chard  10.2 oz: $2.87
Oregano 5.6 oz: $5.60
Spinach 10 oz total: $1.75
Bunching onions 2.7 oz: $0.59
Total estimated value: $15.89

Week 1:
2.16 lbs rhubarb: $6.46 (revised pricing, Angelis has rhubarb at $2.99/lb)
4 oz oregano: $4.00
1.6 oz thyme: $1.60
2.9 oz sorrel: $2.90
1.1 oz bunching onions (sort of like green onion): $0.10
6 oz wild spinach: $2.00 (going off quantity of organic greens at farmers market)
Total estimated value: $17.06

Strawberry Basil Salad Dressing

Well, I finally figured out what to do with the basil that would take advantage of how aewsome it is.  Tuesday night I had tossed some in with the strawberry/sugar mixture I had made for some strawberry shortcake.  The result was amazing, and it reminded me of some strawberry basil salad dressing I used to pick up on occasion at the Royal Oak, MI farmers market.  I had kept an empty bottle of the stuff in hopes of trying to replicate it, but I think somehow it ended up in the garbage during the move.

After looking up some recipes online, I decided to try this one.  After a bit of tweaking (a half pound of strawberries got me to about 2 cups according to the blender, but it was way salty) I came up with this:

Strawberry Basil Salad Dressing

Ingredients:
1 lb strawberries, de-stemmed and halved (locally grown and really ripe preffered)
0.7 oz basil, stems included (more or less to taste, start with about half and increase as needed)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar (I used the 4-leaf aged type.  Start out with 1/2 Tablespoon for 3-leaf or 1 teaspoon for unmarked or 2 or less leaves)
1 Tablespoon agave nectar (or sugar) 
Zest and juice of 1/2 to 1 lime (or about 1/2 lemon)
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
pepper to taste

Toss everything but agave nectar/sugar in the blender and give it a whirl.  Add more basil, sweetener, lime/lemon, salt and pepper to taste. 

While it's not quite as tasty as the salad dressing I remember (though I had to resort to Califrornia strawberries, since no one at the farmers market had local berries), it is still very good and I will probably be playing around with it for a while to perfect it.  Local ripe berries would greatly improve the flavor, but if you have to use grocery store berries, it's best to get ones where the display smells like strawberries from several feet away.  Frozen berries might work also, if you can find ones without sugar added. 

Swiss Chard Balls

Last night I made the Swiss Chard Balls from the recipe provided in this week's newsletter (I posted the recipe Tuesday).  I ended up quartering the recipe due to a severe lack of bread crumbs.  A quarter of the recipe used about a quarter of the Chard I recieved, and made 8 balls.  I ended up chiffonadeing them and then chopped the strips.  At first I didn't think they would stay together, and I had to re-make the first one, but once I worked all the ingredients a bit they stayed together nicely.  I added some of the fresh oregano to the mix, and used one of the bunching onions I got in the box as well. 

Eight balls made a nice side dish for two people, and they were very good.   The flavor is hard for me to describe but it was kind of like a mix between regular dressing/stuffing and a toasty fresh chard flavor.  Like the chard dressing I made for the chicken a bit back, it didn't have any of the cooked greens flavor that I don't like.  To mix it up a bit next time I think I'll add some bacon or maybe some garlic to the mix, or more fresh herbs.