Introduction

I've recently signed up to an organic fruits and veggie delivery service.  Every Friday I get a new bin of various fruits and veggies, some of which, I have never used before.  I'm in my third week and am really enjoying coming up with new ways of using these ingredients.  So far, I've made a veggie soup that I was able to alter every day for a week so that it seemed like a new meal each night.  I've also made a minestrone that was so much food that I had to freeze half of it, however it was so good, that each night my 8 year old daughter ate 3 huge bowls of it!  The salmon that I made with an avocado, grapefruit and spinach salad along with some pan fried sweet potatoes with fennel, ginger and garlic, was also amazing.  However my most recent meal, a salad with a combination of spinach and leafy green lettuce, topped with some grapefruit, celery, carrots and cauliflower turned disastrous when I chose a honey mustard vinaigrette that turned out to be so spicy that both my daughter and I, after adamantly trying to choke it down, finally decided that it would be best to just not eat the lettuce parts.  We ended up finishing our meal with ruffle potato chips and bacon dip.

I have noticed since starting this delivery service, that we don't eat out at all and each night we look forward to coming home to see what new meal idea we can come up with.  We also seem to be feeling slightly healthier, and it is relatively cost effective.  I spend about $40 a week on a huge bin with a variety of about 10-12 different fruits and veggies, and the only thing I really purchase outside of that are a few specialty ingredients, like salmon or fresh parmesan cheese or maybe a rotisserie chicken.  There is so much food that comes in each week that it usually carries over into the next.

This week, I received baby bok choy and collard greens.  I've never cooked with either of these ingredients before and have no idea what they taste like, so I've been scouring the internet trying to decide the best way to cook them.  I ended up cooking some of the bok choy in a pot of simmering beef broth (because I didn't have any chicken broth) and butter, until the bok choy was tender and then I boiled down the broth and butter to make a sauce for the bok choy.  It turned out to be quite delicious.

Tonight I'm going to tackle these collard greens, so we shall see what becomes of them!