First week...

We picked up our first CSA fruit/veggie box on Monday. I meant to take a picture of it, but in my rush to get it taken out of the box, sorted, and put away, I completely forgot. We received carrots, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, strawberries, beets, zucchini, radishes, green garlic, bunching onions, leeks, and red onions. We also received some purslane. Purslane is actually a weed, but, like dandelion greens, is edible and has the benefit of being highly nutritious. These are dark leaves, so they follow the rule that the darker the leaf, the more nutritious. You usually see this comparison between spinach and iceberg lettuce. I have yet to try the purslane. My anticipation is that it will be pretty spicy/peppery, so I don't think I will try it with the kids yet. ;-)

I also went to Sprouts to pick up some things to fill in the holes...we got some apples, spinach, mushrooms, grape tomatoes, peaches, blueberries, bananas, pork chops, 4 types of chicken sausages to have on Father's Day on the grill, nonfat plain greek yogurt (going to try to use this as a partial substitute for sour cream), eggs, rolled oatmeal, agave nectar (interested about this and wanted to see what it tastes like), feta cheese, broccoli sprouts, two tubs of hummus, a cucumber, some packages of couscous/rice mixes (for convenience), two cans of tomatoes (to make marinara sauce), two cans of pizza sauce, green garlic salad dressing, and some pitas and whole wheat bread. For a treat we got peanut butter cookies. My total was about $80.

Last night we decided to attend a concert in the local park. It actually was pleasant (even if it *was* still 95 degrees). I wanted to bring lots of healthy items instead of the usual fried chicken or hoagies and chips. So I shredded some of our carrots, sliced some cucumbers, rinsed and packed some spinach, and cut up some strawberries and mixed them with blueberries. We brought pita sandwiches and DH and I had hummus, cucumber, sprout, spinach, carrot, and feta cheese in ours. DD and DS had pitas with peanut butter in them. I also made a quinoa, green bean, corn, and tomato salad and tossed it with the green garlic dressing I picked up at Sprouts (super easy: cook quinoa, add in blanched green beans, halved grape tomatoes, and fresh corn kernels; toss with dressing). And of course we brought the peanut butter cookies for dessert. I have to say: everyone was satisfied, we had plenty to eat, we all had healthy food to eat, and it felt great to bring such great food with minimal effort.

This weekend I plan to try making some marinara sauce for spaghetti next week. I ran out of my supply of spaghetti sauce in jars, so I thought I would try this. I expect to get enough out of the recipe that I can freeze some for another night. We'll see how the family likes it. We will also have mushroom-brown rice risotto (may have to make mac and cheese for the kids), make-your-own pizza, chicken sausages on the grill plus salad and veggies, pork chops with zucchini-rice casserole, and maybe some potato-leek soup. Not sure what else to do with those leeks...or the beets for that matter.

Any suggestions?

Good luck to you!
--Katie