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Friday, February 06, 2009

What's in the Box? (with bonus recipe for bratwurst and sauerkraut)

Hi everyone,
I am back from my ISP enforced internetlessness and ready to start meal planning again. My Monday meal plans are more likely to be Tuesday meal plans from now on because Tuesdays are when I get my delicious box of mystery from food connect. I got my first box (a standard veggie box) last Tuesday and it was awesome. The produce was top quality fresh and tasty, and it looks like a standard size box is just about right for our family, although we are eating a lot of vegetables at the moment so we may go up to a family size box in the future.

First out of the box on Tuesday night came the potatoes. I am not sure what variety they were, but they were white skinned and very firm, so firm in fact that even after fully cooking they still had an almost crunchy quality to them--not undercooked, but not at all soggy. I used them to make one of my favourite dishes shown to me by one of my favourite friends, an Eastern European dish of potatoes, sauerkraut and pork. I did a makeshift version of the recipe that went like this:

several potatoes, diced in medium chunks;
an onion, sliced;
a big helping of sauerkraut (about half a jar);
5 or so gluten free bratwurst;
a very large dollop of extra virgin olive oil;
salt.
had I not forgotten I would have also added large amounts of crushed garlic.

I pre-cooked the bratwurst in a frypan while I chopped everything else, then chopped the bratwurst into small chunks. Threw everything into an oven dish and coated it liberally with the olive oil, then put it into a 200 degree (c) oven for about 45 minutes. Delicious!

Wednesday was gadogado style steamed veggies (broccoli, corn, carrot, beans, onion) with a sliced boiled egg each and peanut/cashew sauce.

Thursday, roast veggie stacks with a tomato oregano, basil and garlic sauce.


The veggie stack was made up of slices of roast potato, butternut pumpkin, red capsicum, zucchini, carrot and onion, and the tomato sauce was made from black/purpley tomatoes out of the box. Everything in that meal came out of the box except for the basil, which was from the garden, and the pumpkin and garlic which I had purchased previously.

Tonight we have had a request from monkey moo for chicken, so I am thinking chicken and veggie burgers (though moo has requested 'no veggies' for her please, so they may need to be hidden vegetables this time).

We still have from the box: beans; carrots; some beautiful big mushrooms; a bunch of silverbeet; cauliflower; a large chunk of ginger; a bunch and a half of broccoli; what looks like a daikon radish; onions; one potato; two tomatoes; a couple of sweet potatoes; a cos lettuce; and half a zucchini. Definitely enough for three more meals there. In addition to that list I also have on hand: garlic; a couple of red capsicums, 2 ears of corn; half a cabbage; and a bunch of spring onions. I am thinking some kind of silverbeet and sweet potato pie or fritatta for Saturday, and I will likely pickle the cabbage and radish. That leaves Sunday and Monday dinners plus a few veggie lunches. Any suggestions of the best way to utilise this delicious produce?

1 comment:

SarahP said...

That looks and sounds awesome!