We’re not saving any money by joining a produce delivery service. Buying local and organic is hella expensive, and it’s even more expensive to have a Fresh Picks Double Box delivered to our door farm-fresh (or damn near it) every other week. That said, signing up for deliveries from Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks is one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. We worried we’d feel that we were wasting money, but so far it’s been worth every penny.

Why’d we do it?
For a couple reasons, really. Sure, we can get produce for much less from our local grocery store, but I love the idea of buying local and supporting local farmers. But that’s not the main reason we do this.

A Nudge in the Right Direction
The most common argument we hear from people considering joining a CSA or service like Fresh Picks, is that they’re afraid the produce will go to waste. But that’s the beauty of this, for us at least.

• The produce is SO much fresher than in the grocery stores it seems to have a never-ending shelf-life. Since we started we haven’t thrown a bit of produce away. We’ve easily been able to cook everything before it goes even a little bad; plus it lasts us the full two weeks between deliveries.
• We’re making TONS of veg for every meal now, and getting creative!! We’ve both lost weight and are feeling loads better since making this change to our diet. Having the piles of veg encourages us to (a) cook at home more and (b) cook with more veg, which necessarily makes everything healthier.
• We’re trying new things? Who knew rainbow chard would become a new favorite? When would I have ever bought fennel, or mizuna?  Probably never, but I’m having so many cooking adventures!

We’ve thought about joining a cropshare program, but the annual commitment scares me a bit. For now, we’re loving Fresh Picks and can’t say enough good things about them! We’re looking forward to a year full of new adventures in cooking with these interesting ingredients!

(Note: I found the photo all over the internets. I’d be happy to credit it to someone if I learn who the photographer is)

I’ve loved the original How to Cook Everything for years, so when my husband and I decided to become Less-Meatarians and make vegetables and fresh produce a more prominent part of our diet I immediately picked up the vegetarian version of the book and I’m so glad I did!!

For the tilapia served in this meal I just seasoned it with some Spice House Chesapeake Bay seasoning, but the star of this meal was certainly the Chard with Orange and Shallots.

Luckily, Mark Bittman has posted the recipe online to share with all, but I’m going to share it here with the changes that I made to the recipe.

Rainbow Chard with Caramelized Onions, Shallots and Clementines

• 1 pound chard, washed and trimmed
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced
• *1/2 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• *1 clementine, coarsely chopped with the skin on
• *2 tablespoons O Pomegranate Champagne Vinegar
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

You can get the prep instructions here.

The flavor was incredible. The sweetness of the orange and caramelized onions, the sourness of the vinegar, the bitterness of the chard greens and the clementine peel that softened deliciously and really completed the dish in a surprising way. I would actually consider making this as a main course because it was so delicious.

CONFESSION: I buy too many vegetables. Like way too many. Way more than we can eat, and we eat a lot of produce. Oh, I have good intentions, and yet it’s embarrassing how much veg we throw away. This is an especially bad problem when I’m cooking for the week and I know all the remaining veggies are likely just going to end up in the trash.

Also, when I cook for the week I occasionally get tired of the same ingredients. This particular week I had eggplant leftover from my stir-fry, and carrots, spinach and peppers left in the fridge, and I simply wasn’t in the mood for a chunky pasta sauce. But then I had a stroke of genius. (Okay, it wasn’t that great, but still…)

I puréed all of them. I sautéed all of the veggies I had leftover from the week with olive oil, two cubes of Dorot Frozen Basil from Trader Joe’s (oh, how I love the stuff). I then took my beautiful Kitchen Aid Immersion Blender and puréed it all right in the pot. I added the jarred spaghetti sauce and voilá!! The flavor was unbelievable.

I ended up with half a bag of mostaccioli and half a bag of bowties, so I made that and served it up with some Veal Parmigiana (have a looksee for my easy recipe). Absolutely dynamite, and a great new way to both add extra veggies to my menu and to use up leftovers. Brilliant!!

Spaghetti Squash casserole is one of my signature dishes and definitely one of my favorite to make, especially when cooking for the week, when I spend a full day cooking and spread the leftovers over the course of the week. The flavor of this gets even richer when made the day before!

I love starting with a small spaghetti squash — a little squash goes a long way, so keep that in mind. My favorite squash are about 7″ long, which  makes enough for about 4 big servings. This is so heavily vegetable-based, this is great for big, light servings.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 1 baby eggplant, diced (I use half a small japanese eggplant and used the rest for a stir fry)
• 1 sweet red pepper, diced
• 2 small carrots, diced
• 6 mushrooms, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 1/2 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
• One small–medium onion (depending how much you like onion), chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 can fire-roasted tomatoes (I like Muir Glen Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes)
• 1 lb lean ground beef

Using a very sharp chef’s knife, cut your squash in half. Scoop out the guts and seeds and throw them away. Take the halves of the squash and place them on a microwave safe dish, cut side down with a little bit of water for 6 minutes. If you can’t fit both on the plate, do one at a time. Let them cool while you’re prepping the veggies for roasting.

Toss the diced vegetables in some olive oil, a little salt and pepper and Italian herbs. Spread in a baking pan and roast for 15–20 minutes. While they’re roasting, brown and drain the ground beef.

Scoop the spaghetti strands out of the squash with a fork and place them in a mixing bowl. Combine all the roasted veggies, the meat, the can of tomatoes with juice, and half the shredded mozzarella in the bowl and mix well. Flavor with Italian Herbs (basil, oregano, etc). Place everything in a casserole dish and top with the remaining mozzarella.

Put the casserole dish in the oven and bake for 45 minutes, uncovered. The flavor is great right away, but it intensifies overnight! It’s also easy to make for groups, and taking the meat out makes it fantastic for vegetarians, or substituting chicken can make it even lighter.  Definitely one of my favorite recipes!

CONFESSION: I am hugely skeptical about tofu that claims to be something else. Unless it’s made by Quorn. Then it’s cool.

That said, it’s not a surprise I’m not terribly impressed with Smart Strips Chick’n Strips. They simply tried to make them too much like chicken, which is awesome in its own way, I guess, but I kind of wanted a tofu product. However, I will continue to sing the praises of one of my favorite things, the House Tofu Cutlet.

This stir fry is loaded up with onion, sugar snap peas, orange pepper, yellow squash, bamboo shoots, oyster mushrooms and pea shoots, one of my new favorite vegetable finds thanks dinner with some Chinese friends who knew just what to order in Chinatown.

For the sauce I just used the leftover JES Korean BBQ Sauce from last week’s Boolgogi and served it over brown rice.

This Mother’s Day we didn’t get together with family, since we spent the day before at my husband’s college graduation surrounded by both our families. After joining some friends for an absolutely amazing brunch at Over Easy—where I had the smoked salmon omelet and became inspired to host a brunch with friends, for Mother’s Day dinner we decided to make something fancy that we most likely could not make if we happened to have kids, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of our freedom as non-parents.

The rest of my Mother’s Day, what wasn’t spent cuddling with my boys—our cats Pippen, Romeo and my husband—was spent going through and reorganizing my spice rack after another stop at Penzey’s, where we replenished some things and picked up a couple new things to play with.

To prep this, I rubbed the tilapia with some lemon zest and dill weed before sautéeing it with a tiny bit of olive oil. We picked up some locally grown baby broccoli (which might be my new favorite veggie!) and purple asparagus from our local Trader Joe’s, which I steamed in our Black & Decker Handy Steamer. To finish it off I sautéed some leftover penne pasta with butter, a dash of lemon juice, dill and fresh garlic.

Paired with some sangria, this was an unbelievable way to end the weekend!

In the bounty we have:

• Purple Bell Peppers
• Purple Fingerling Potatoes
• Orange Cauliflower
• White Eggplant
• Tiny Purple Cabbages (yeah, red cabbage isn’t THAT weird, but still, these are TINY purple cabbages!)
• Purple Basil
• Sweet White Onions (sweet onions are supposed to look like Vidalias… not pictured
• And a perfectly yellow spaghetti squash that just looked pretty in the picture

This week is going to be quite the cooking adventure. I can’t wait to try some fun, strangely colored recipes!