week two: lowered expectations

Here's what this week's produce box has in store for me:

Fruit:
3/4 lb. BC Rome apples
1 Granny Smith apple
1 lb. bananas
1 avocado
1 mango
2 Navel oranges
2 D'Anjou pears
1 red pear

Vegetables:
1 1/4 lb. carrots
1 celery
1 jumbo garlic
1 romaine lettuce heart
1 lb. yellow onions
1 bunch spinach
1 lb. potatoes
1/4 lb. Roma tomatoes
1 acorn squash

Good variety from last week's box, especially given the fact that it's January and we're in the middle of a frozen wasteland.

But what am I going to do with an acorn squash that doesn't involve some kind of pureed soup resembling baby food?

wilting, wilting, wilting

This first week has been pretty successful! Roommate has taken it upon herself to ensure that no piece of fruit goes uneaten, so most of that has disappeared as it has ripened. We're still waiting patiently on the mango. Come on, mango!

I only really took pictures of the wilted chard with bacon, which I made with chicken breast instead of pork because I'm lazy.


First, I washed and chopped my chard. (Check out the awesome knife safety, there.)




Then I chopped and browned some bacon. Vegetables are still good for you even when they're covered in bacon. Honest.


Everybody in the pool!


Wilting.


I put the wilted chard aside and made the sauce.


Last of all, I ate the hell out of it. The sauce was delicious, and was a great way to use marjoram, an herb I rarely use. I'm not going to lie to you - I took the lazy way out and made it with plain yellow mustard. Next time I'm going to make it with Dijon.

As for the chard itself, cooked greens are not something I have a lot of experience with, as we didn't eat that sort of thing (spinach and other greens) when I was a child. This is the first time I've made anything like this myself, in fact. The texture was okay, but a little tiresome after a while. I think maybe the key is to really just wilt them - don't cook the life right out of them. It's a work-in-progress.

Later on that evening, I was feeling peckish, so I made guacamole:


I love guacamole, but I was underwhelmed by my own effort. I basically winged it and threw in approximate amounts of all the stuff one puts in guacamole. It was only okay. I'm getting another avocado this week; any suggestions on how to improve my guacamole?

In the interest of honesty and transparency, I'm admitting to you now that I threw out most of the romaine lettuce. It got dried and brown very quickly, and I'm not a big salad eater, particularly on cold January nights. Mea culpa.