About Me and the Farm Box!

My name is Jackie and I have a Farm Box. With this Farm Box I explore the wonderful world of wild, wacky and sometimes overwhelming ingredients which you can find in a CSA or your regular grocery store. I'm sure you are familiar with them. You stare at them with awe and fear wondering what they are, what they taste like, how to use them and then you move on to the safer, more proven ingredients saving those others for another day where  your courage is higher. 

I know the feeling, that used to be me. Until I signed up for my Farm Box on a whim and suddenly found myself drowning in ingredients that MUST be used or they would spoil. That's why I started on this journey. I wanted to learn how to approach an ingredient with no fear. With the confidence to use my know-how and my skills with The Google to make delicious things appear out of even the most unreasonable ingredients. 

Does that mean that every dish is a success? Of course not. Most of what you find in here will be failures, or half successes. Not to mention injuries and hissy fits.  The point isn't to make a perfect recipe, it's to prove the ingredient can be used, and if it can be used once, even unsuccessfully, then I won't be so scared about using it a second time. And if I can struggle with an ingredient and tell you honestly about it, then YOU won't have to struggle. You will know the challenges the moment you pick up that ingredient at the grocery store or Farmer's Market.  I'm not the smiling blogger with perfect cuts and fanciful stories, I'm YOU and I have the scars to show it.

My first summer with my farm box was filled with lots of recipes, some edible and some not, and one very minor trip to the emergency room. I learned A LOT about myself and my own skills. Most importantly I learned what foods I actually didn't like vs. those which I had previously found terrifying but are actually quite yummy.  
(To see where the story began check out my first post here!)

Now that I've adjusted to the Farm Box and I am on my second year, things aren't as scary as they used to be. Most of what will come to me I have seen before, and even those that I have not seen before I can now approach with more excitement then trepidation. This new-found confidence has prompted a new challenge by my husband, known affectionately to my dear readers as "The Husband." Rather then getting new ingredients from my Farm Box, he brings me a "Chopped Challenge" - four items in a basket for me to use in a recipe from the top of my brain. The Farm Box is still there, and I still cook from it but (ideally) once a week I make a dish, sight unseen, with whatever his whim decides. ACK! (To see what I am talking about click HERE!).

Remember the goal is to learn about ingredients as they come, to take charge and be willing to try new things and to never pass up an opportunity just because I'm scared. I can't promise perfect recipes, though some come out quite delicious, but I do promise honesty and good solid tips learned the hard way... So you don't have to.


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