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