Remember last time when I went nuts in the kitchen and cooked like, a week’s worth of meals because I was worried the stuff in my organics box would go bad before I could get to it all? Well I keep it up as much as I can, because there’s nothing worse than paying so much for wonderful produce only to throw it out because it’s gone all funky in the bottom of the fridge. I’m also trying to think more lately of what I can do that doesn’t require turning on the oven. It’s pretty much summer already here, and I’ll be damned if I turn that bastard on if I don’t need to!
Recipes from this week’s box
- Roasted mushroom and sage ‘beanotto’ (risotto but made with cannellini beans instead of rice)
- Cheesy veggie slice
- Grilled haloumi, eggplant, and zucchini bake
- Marinated and grilled tofu Asian stir fry
- Grilled corn salsa
- Roast pumpkin, spinach and rocket salad with toasted pumpkin seeds (this is a similar but better recipe!)
Here’s what I got:
5 carrots
3 potatoes
4 x bok choy
1 x pak choy
1/2 broccoli
1/2 cauliflower
5 pears
5 oranges
4 bananas
2 x sweet corn cobs
3 x zucchini
1/2 pumpkin
2 x kale
1 x spinach
So here’s what I did:
- Chopped and roasted the pumpkin in a little oil, salt, and paprika
- Cleaned off the pumpkin seeds, roasted them with oil, salt, paprika and a little cayenne (I like them spicy!)
- Sauteed some leek, garlic, and mushrooms with the kale and popped in the fridge, ready for the beanotto
- Chopped all the veggies for the stir fry and put in fridge – bok choy, pak choi, broccoli, carrot, onion, capsicum
- Made cheesy slice – chopped up zucchini, kale, corn, and capsicum and then added egg, cream, salt, pepper, cheese and SR flour.
- Sliced and grilled the zucchini with some eggplant and haloumi, layered it with tomato sauce and popped in the freezer, ready for a topping of cheese and baked in the oven.
- Made the tomato sauce for the bake – sauteed the onion and some carrot with garlic, salt, pepper, herbs, tinned tomatoes, a pinch of sugar and some balsamic.
- While the grill pan was hot, I grilled a cob of corn and some capsicum.
- chopped and marinated the tofu, then grilled after the corn.
- the fruit went into the fruit bowl, and Abby ate an orange (and liked it!) for the first time in her life – she’s always refused it before.
- Cauliflower was left for a cheesy sauce further in the week.
- Spinach went with the pumpkin and pumpkin seeds for a salad later in the week.
- Potatoes were left to make potato fritters.
And the final result. It’s SO nice to have things straight up to hand during a busy week. In this way, one afternoon of busy means I get to indulge my lazy from Monday-Friday, haha. Party on.
And here’s what my kitchen typically looks like while I’m doing this – only picture MORE mess, and MORE toddlers pulling drawers out into my shins and standing on my feet!
You are a cooking ninja dammit!
I’m slowing down now that it’s hot! Sandwiches for lunch, FTW
Who do you get your organic box from and do you some times get things that you won’t use (or wish for things that weren’t in the box?)
We get ours from Kookaburra Organics: http://www.malenyfarmersmarket.com.au/
But when we move to Melbourne it will be Whole Larder Love veg boxes: http://wholelarderlove.com/generalstore/veg-box-info/ while we can get them!
Never get anything we don’t use/wish we didn’t get, because there’s no veggie we don’t eat. I don’t like fruit, but the kids eat it, so that solves that problem!
Very cool i just ordered mine through charlies online…but didn’t get a box i ordered what we needed for a 2 week meal plan. HOpefully it will all last alright for that long. Otherwise i have my norwex fruit and veg spray that can apprently delay food from going off and it’s all natural!
Yeah I find they aren’t TOO bad, but the fruit goes a bit crazy if we don’t get to it straight up.
Also just wondering do you find you have to buy more fruit through the week? I find there’s never enough fruit in those boxes
Yeah I do! I either get an extra fruit box on top of this, or grab some extra wherever I am that week. This comes on a Thursday, so it’s good to do a mid-week fruit topup at the Sunday markets 🙂
Yeah we always found alot of the boxes must cater for meat eaters cause us vegetarians use alot of veges 😛
ALL OF THE VEGGIES!
I’m always impressed when you do this housewifely magic with your veggie box.
hell, even I’M impressed, haha
You are a domestic Goddess Stacey x
Only sometimes, dude x
Man, I wish I were that organised. I usually go Masterchef challenge style: one beetroot, one cucumber, 50 million chillies and two tomatoes; ready, set, GO!
I am not this organised very regularly, trust me! It’s usually every now and then, and I think it all up on the spot. Then I need to recover from the trauma for weeks afterwards.
That”s some bloody good meal planning right there! I need to pull my finger out & get more organised, I am becoming super lazy in the kitchen because I’m going through one of those stages where I think “I’m hungry. What do I feel like? Nothing! But I’m hungry so I better eat something. Ok peanut butter toast/bagel /crackers it is!”” It’s shit! I wanna be like you 😉
Dude, you’ve just described my life 99% of the time. This just appeals to my frugal side like “I just paid $8 for broccoli, like fuck I’m letting that go to waste!”. So every now and then when I get a box, I think up a bunch of recipes on the spot and go nuts. I DO recipe plan most of the time, but it’s like I pick 5 recipes for the week and end up making about three of them. But during the day I just eat seventy pieces of toast.
Holy organisation Batman. We used to get veggie boxes, but then some weeks I’d get sick or things were super busy or I had a good book and things would get away from me. Or the kids would decide they would no longer eat corn. Or broccoli. Or food. Looking at all this is very inspiring however. Maybe time to get back into it!
I don’t do it every week! But when I do it’s rad. meanwhile, my kids have never eaten veggies. Until now. So we buy eight miliion carrots and sweet potatoes because that’s the veggie du jour.