We have been enjoying our produce boxes for the last couple of weeks.  This one was a doozie……

It included eggplant, lettuce, micro greens, potatoes, tomatoes, figs, sweet peppers and Edamame.

I spent the first night looking up recipes for some of these items.  We started out with potatoes, onions and red pepper  cooked in foil packets.  The “meat” for the night were fried eggplant slices that had been dipped in egg and bread crumbs, and sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Dessert was made by dipping sliced figs in sugar and then sautéing them until they had caramelized.   It was excellent served with ice cream!!!!

Planning for the second night meant that I had to find out exactly what Edamame was!!!   A quick Google search taught me that it was Soy Beans!!!

I started trying to shell them and found that it was incredibly hard.  So, back to Google, and found out that you should cover them with boiling water for 3 minutes, dunk them in cold water, and the beans pop right out!!!!  Hurray for Google!!!!

We used these the next day to make fried rice using onions, carrots, soy beans and rice.  We seasoned it with soy sauce and red pepper.  We fried more eggplants and enjoyed some of the yellow tomatoes as well.

 

OK….so much for our dinner menus!!! 

Hopefully I will someday again write a post about quilting!!!   I am doing a bit, but dont have anything to write about just yet!!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me……

When Michael and I returned from China, we wanted to try to improve our diet by eating more fresh vegetables and fruits.  The problem that we had was two fold….firstly, it is not very easy to get good fresh vegetables here and secondly, we didn’t grow up eating lots of fresh vegetables and simply didn’t know how to cook them.

Enter Michael’s colleague Daniel!!!   He is part of a local produce co-op where you get a box of miscellaneous fresh “stuff” each Tuesday.  And, as fate would have it, he was going to be gone on the day that it was to be picked up, so he offered it to us. 

We were SO excited to see all of the goodies for the week…..

  

Doesn’t this look wonderful.  We had a Cantaloupe, blueberries, potatoes, garlic, lettuce, Baby Bok Choy, sweet pepper, mixed green beans, heirloom tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes and cherry tomatoes!!!!

Now what should we cook!!!

For our first meal we decided to use the potatoes and green beans in a stir fry, starting first with a bit of chopped red pepper in the vegetable oil.  We decided to julienne the potatoes and then add the beans…..

It had a light, slightly spicy flavor and was the perfect accompanying to a grilled chicken breast.

I also made a Blueberry Crumble (with double the amount of crumble)…..

Now for the second day we wanted to use a couple of pork chops that we had, along with the  Baby Bok Choy.   We started out by stir-frying the pork chop slivers.  Next we  added the chopped Bok Choy….starting with the thicker portions and then added the shredded leaves.

The final touch was to add a splash of Teriyaki sauce.  It was excellent….

 

The salad was made using the fresh lettuce and the heirloom tomatoes.  Don’t these two look great….

A splash of olive oil and Balsamic Vinegar finished the side dish…..

We enjoyed these vegetables so much that we have now bought into the co-op and will start receiving our new box each Tuesday……CANT WAIT!!!!!

 

Maggi asked whether the turkeys were sweet or savory so thought I would give a bit more info.

The are DEFINITELY sweet!!!!  Crumbled cake is mixed with icing, formed into balls and then dipped into chocolate before decorating.

I searched the internet and came across this book…..

which gives lots of information about making cake pops for all occasions.   Looks like fun!!!!