making risotto is nothing like making rice.

More veggies! Our sweet delivery folk are on a two week hiatus, which should give me some time to get through the produce mecca that I call our fridge. Once again, this week did not disappoint.

frozen curly kale, frozen butternut squash puree,
hydroponic arugula, onions, apples, potatoes, turnips and carrots

A note about apples: I will never buy an apple from the store again. It's so nice to enjoy an apple without consuming that weird, waxy substance grocery stores use to make them shiny.

The curly kale turned into a kale and onion frittata, kale and shallot greek yogurt dip and just regular kale to eat in a salad.

yum. butternut squash risotto
topped with hydroponic arugula

I decided to forgo the obvious choice of making soup with the butternut squash puree and found a simple recipe for risotto on my food site. After reading the recipe, searching two stores for the correct rice and thawing the puree, I went to work. Clearly I disregarded the "labor of love" warning within the post, because 25 minutes in I was sick of stirring and standing over the stove. For this whole risotto thing to work, you have to ladle one spoonful of broth into the rice at a time and wait for the liquid to absorb as you stir gently. This takes upwards of half an hour (depending on how much you make). Who knew?

I profoundly apologize for every time I've described risotto as being "just like rice, but better". It's not just like rice. You can literally make rice in one minute. I also want to thank every chef that has ever prepared risotto for me at a restaurant. I never knew of the hardship I was putting them through as I ordered.

Yes, it was worth it. Yes, I'll be making it again.  

goods.

After picking up the delivery of Field Goods last week, I took everything home and wondered what I was going to do with it all. It felt like we had so much stuff.

crimini mushrooms - my new favorite food

Frozen kale: lasagnas (I made 2, both hit the freezer for a night where we're short on time).
Crimini mushrooms: sautéed with light olive oil, garlic and onions. Used for omelets and to top roast beef paninis.
Satina potatoes: cut up, seasoned with Dinosaur BBQ Cajun rub, added onions and made home fries.
Beets: roasted and popped in the fridge to use in salads later in the week.

The jury is still out in the huge radish... we'll see. Update: I gave the raffish to my parents, jury is still out.

...and then we got more stuff.

frozen blueberries, frozen sweet corn, cabbage,
pea shoots, micro-greens, carrots and apples

we have veggies!

I picked up our first delivery of Field Goods and was pleasantly surprised by the quantity and quality of the contents. My kale is defrosting as I type and I've only sampled an apple so far, but I was impressed.

Marley was equally impressed. And eager to eat some beets.

Checking out the goods.

Really curious now...

The goods: crimini mushrooms, red beets, apples, daikon raddish,
frozen kale, frozen green beans and satina potatoes. 

I ordered weekly vegetables.

In the spirit of smart training and health promotion, I've been food journaling (also as part of my Boot Camp Challenge marching orders) and it's been pretty insightful. Since the journaling started, it seemed fitting to cook at home 4+ nights a week. And so here we are.

If you haven't stopped by Gina's blog - you should.

Her recipes are easy to follow, don't require any
crazy ingredients and are always delicious.

Pinterest has been my BFF lately. I basically pin everything and anything that isn't pork that comes through my skinnytaste.com RSS feed to my "eats" board so I remember to try it at a later date. My annoying, obsessive training plan habits have crossed over into meal planning. I'm embarrassed exceedingly proud to admit that I now plan meals a month at a time. Yes; all of my March dinners are planned and hanging on a calendar on my fridge. Another plus - this is making grocery shopping (my least favorite activity) a breeze. 

Winter in the northeast doesn't exactly bring the best selection of produce to the local grocery stores and many of the local farmers markets disappear, or are severely limited. So when I heard local vendor, Field Goods, was offering to bring me a bag of veggies to work weekly, I said "yes please".

Side note: not only do they offer fresh vegetables and fruits, they also have the option of cheese and bread subscriptions... I didn't commit yet for fear of gaining an immense amount of lbs, but if this works out I can foresee a loaf of bread being thrown into the mix. When I inquired about the types of bread, the Field Goods representative responded with "you get a full loaf every week. Last week it was pesto - so good... The week before it was sun-dried tomato, it was amazing... Really all the bread is wonderful."

Hurry up, Thursday!

I opted for the 1-2 person bag of veggies for the week...it was all I could do not to click "add bread subscription" at checkout...The first shipment comes next Thursday and I'm pretty excited. The variety of fresh veggies change weekly (aka I will have to try a plethora of new produce I probably never would have purchased otherwise) and comes with an e-newsletter detailing the benefits of each vegetable, how it is grown and what (if any) pesticides are used and (the best part) recipes for each item in the bag.

Cheers to fresh veggies, new recipes! ...and eventually adding the bread and cheese subscription.