Week 3 Box 3

The Husband and I went on our annual pilgrimage to Cape Cod this weekend to celebrate the 4th with his side of the family. We drove up Thursday night literally in the first band of rain and wind from Hurricane Arthur. It was terrifying. Everyone around us was driving at 35mph on the highway with their hazards blinking. There weren't even that many people on the road but the wind and the rain was so intense, I spent at least 2 hours of the drive trying to convince The Husband that it was time for us to find a hotel room and hunker down. He remained unconvinced and we made it up there in a respectable 5.5hrs.  An hour better then last year when I drove myself up in basically bumper to bumper traffic. I am starting to think The Cape doesn't want me.

Friday, Hurricane Arthur passed over us in our sleep and we awoke to beautiful weather with temps in the high 70's and low humidity. Are you Jealous?

Needless to say I didn't  cook all weekend. We ate well, we drank well, I made Mojitos with the chocolate mint that came in the box last week and read my way through a really good book (The Son by Philipp Meyer - A fantastic novel about a family throughout the generations in the Texas frontier from 1800 - the present. This book comes with a MAJOR trigger warning and can be descriptively gory, but is worth the read). The vacation was exactly what I needed. We got  back late monday night to  boiling house, put the AC's on and passed out.

On Tuesday The Husband brought me home The Box. And while I was excited for it, I was exhausted and in no mood to cook. The Husband suggested a salad or something simple, but even that seemed like punishment for my tired body. So when my Father showed up with a pizza for him and my grandfather, it felt like being rescued on a white horse of sauce and cheese. Yummy. I went to bed early with a fully tummy, but don't worry I took the time to take a picture of my haul from this week. Here is what we got :

• Swiss Chard
• Collard Greens
• Fava Greens (my favorite!)
• Cucumber (big fat and happy)
• Garlic Curls (what the hell am I going to do with all of these?)
• Green Onions
• Blue Potatoes (YAY!)
• Lemon Basil 

It's nice to have some creative products to work with. The Chopped Challenge is being delivered to me on Thursday. Here is hoping it's not too difficult, but knowing The Husband... we shall see.

Week 9 Box 9

We had a very productive weekend. Not only did we bake Zucchini Bread, we cleaned and organized our office which it desperately needed. See, when we moved in we unpacked, but we didn't really think about where things were going. It was kind of a, let's just get everything AWAY so we don't have to look at it any more and we will deal with it later. Now, 1 year later, we've dealt with it, the office feels neater and my life less chaotic. Bonus: organizing the office freed up the giant tea storage box we had been using as a junk drawer and suddenly we could condense the 5 boxes of wedding gifts into one box, getting rid of the clutter! Think of all we could do if we just put in some shelves (hint hint).

In addition to the cleaning, we took apart the old entertainment stand in preparation for a Brand New (also ordered this weekend) Wall Unit. We drove the old broken down Subaru up to the MIL house for final disposal,  opening up the garage for our needs. We watched Identity Thief, drank way too much Port AND, to top all that off spent a wonderful morning with our Friends Amy and  Ben, breaking in their new home. It was busy, busy, busy but HEAVEN. I love when The Husband has weekends off.

In the Chaos The Husband, who does so much so that I don't have to and who loves me and is amazing, brought me home The Box. I was very excited and hopeful after last week's berry surprise. However, there wasn't too much exciting in this week's box.

Let me walk you through it:

Week 8 Box 8

The Husband and I are getting into a nice little rhythm. I guess we've moved into that sweet spot after the wedding where we start just being comfortable with each other and our roles. Not that we didn't have the sweet spot before the wedding, just that planning a wedding tends to mess with the natural equilibrium of things. Now we are just fat, happy and trying not to stress over the unplanned expenses that arise, and furniture shopping. It helps that the heat has subsided; I woke up this morning to 67 degrees and sunny. BEAUTIFUL. Now if we can make it through August without the heat rising above 90 I will remain a very happy girl.

This week's box arrived unceremoniously with no terrifying surprises, but again, no immediately clear cooking ideas came to mind.  Here's what we got:

care to guess?

Week 7 Box 7

After the disaster that was The Box last week. I was anxious to replace the rotting produce in my fridge with a fresh clean start. This week The Box was delivered to me by The Husband while I was at my Parents' house waiting for our wedding photographer to bring us our pictures (EEEEEEEEE!) and it was, un-ironically, delivered  in a box, which, because of my experience with the sp-sp-spider, I promptly made The Husband remove from the apartment as soon as we got home.

I have to honestly say this week The Box is giving me a little bit of a head scratch-er. This is not because there are any particular ingredients in it that are unusual or difficult to work with, but for precisely the opposite reason. It is going to take some thought to try and make the ingredients interesting.

Play your guessing game before looking at the list below:

Week 4 Box 4

Yesterday  my worst nightmare occurred: I got stuck in traffic.

On a normal day my commute back and forth from my job is 20 minutes. On a fantastic day I can do it in 15. Yesterday it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes to get home. I tried multiple routes, all had traffic. I sat at the world's worst planned intersection for a total of 5 light cycles and then sat in more traffic all the while calling and complaining at The Husband. I get terribly whiny when I get stuck in traffic.

Thank goodness for The Husband who loves me and  was patiently waiting for my arrival with more Garlic Scape Pesto, a bottle of Prosecco left over from our wedding night and the contents of this week's Box.  That and a pound and a 1/2 of mozzarella from the Italian Deli who always gives you a 1/4 to 1/2 pound more mozzarella then you ask for... and charges you for it (not that you would complain, the stuff is delicious).

I broke into the Prosecco before I addressed the contents of the The Box.

(Doesn't it look like a face?)

Introduction

The Husband and I, being happy go lucky newlyweds who love to cook, decided that we were going to invest in a CSA Farm Box. OK, maybe it was more like I decided I wanted a Farm Box.  I had had the privilege of consuming some of the amazing foods my BFF Becky created from her box the year before, and it looked like fun and simple enough. So when I heard that my MIL's temple had a Farm Share with Catalapa Ridge Farm I made a deal to split a weekly box with my MIL and convinced The Husband that this was a great idea.  In fairness to Former-Me, it seemed like a really good idea at the time.

Anyway, we received our first box last night and as The Husband laid out the contents before me:

• 1 Cucumber recognizable in shape and form, thank heaven
• 1 heirloom tomato, big and fat and glorious
• 1 bunch of red lettuce
• Onions with the greens still attached
• Rosemary
• Rhubarb
• Green Garlic
• Elephant Garlic Scapes

 I had a minor freak out. 

Now, in fairness to this first box, it wasn't much and the first five items I recognized easily enough but the last three items were totally new to me. What the HECK was I going to do???  The Husband MAY have laughed at me as I frantically began searching the net to figure out proper storage of the above items, and chomping into a random items to try and determine what manner of green they were. After exhausting The Google Machine and experiencing the worst garlic breath I've ever had,  I resorted to picking up the phone and calling the one person whose fault this really was: Becky's. 

That conversation went like this:

• Becky: Hello lovely
• Me: This is all your fault
• Becky: What?
• Me: I did something because I was inspired by you and now I have no idea what to do.
• Becky: What?
• Me: I bought a Farm Box and now I have Rhubarb sitting on my kitchen table and some other veg I don't recognize and YOU ... YOU MADE IT LOOK SO EASY.
• Becky: ::Laughter::

It took a bit to calm me down but with promises to provide me with recipes and resources Becky got my panic under control and, to her relief, got me off the phone.

I created this blog to document my adventures with the Farm Box. I'm sure this will be filled with lots of recipes that will most certainly go wrong and some that will go right. Inevitably some items will be deemed inedible by The Husband and others spoil in the fridge forgotten. But hopefully by the end of this year I will no longer panic when the box walks in the door. That is my goal and I'm sticking to it.

Now please excuse me, I have to go do more research on Rhubarb and Garlic Scapes.