thoughtful consumption

First up… watermelon spritzers!

Wednesday afternoon was hot and I needed to use up some watermelon chunks from a couple of weeks ago to make space in the fridge. So I used that watermelon, some seltzer, and the stevia from this week’s herbs…

to make two of these…

Kinda fun and different. Here’s what else came in this week’s box…

blueberries, melon, apples, and tomatoes

beans: soy and green (but no soylent green)

bay leaf, yellow squash, zucchini, okra, and lemon grass

ratatouille, coffee, and baba ghanoush

I also placed an order from the online store:

ground beef, butter, yogurt, and eggs

Scheduling Fun

We’ll be out of town for most of next week, so I’ve cancelled next week’s box of goodness. Now I’m facing a double-whammy. We’ve got to eat up some things before we leave, and I want to have some stuff ready when we get back.

Before we go…

First, we’re eating up the apples. That’s easy. Blueberries are already frozen, so no problems there. I’ve chopped up the melon. We’ll eat some of it before we leave, but considering how long the watermelon chunks lasted in the fridge, I won’t worry if we don’t get to all the melon before Tuesday. Same thing with the lemongrass. I use it for tea – a smushed-up frond to two cups of boiling water makes a nice afternoon pick-me-up. The fronds and the stems will do fine in the fridge for a few weeks.

I’ve also divided the green beans into three bags according to diameter. The biggest ones will last until we get back, the smallest ones I’ll cook before we leave, and the middle ones can go either way. The tomatoes we will slice and possibly cook down to mix with some pesto I’ve got that also has to be eaten.

I’m going to steam the soybean pods in the microwave – about 4 minutes with a couple of tablespoons of water. (Here are some instructions from the Food Network.) We’ll eat some of them salted as a snack. The others I’ll mix with rice vinegar and some diced sweet onion for a little salad. Like Natalie’s recipe listed in the comments here, but I’m subbing onion for radish.

My plan for the okra is to walk it over to Lucy’s house. I pretty much only like okra fried, and I don’t see me frying okra in the next two days.

For when we return…

I’ve frozen the ratatouille, which smells marvelous. I don’t know whether we’ll eat it as ratatouille or serve it over pasta or polenta. Maybe add some shrimp or sausage. Also, you could spread it on one of those ready-made pizza dough things, add some feta or mozzarella, and make a great veggie pizza with it. (The baba ghanoush, by the way, is long gone. I ate it with a spoon Wednesday with my watermelon spritzer.)

I half-made and froze a shepherd’s pie with some aging red potatoes, yellow squash, onion and garlic, as well as the bay leaf and some of the ground beef and butter from this week. Here’s the set-up…

And here’s the pie…

Finally, we’ll cook the big green beans and the squash and zucchini that’s left and eat it with Anson Mills polenta or grits with chopped Hodge Ranch summer sausage thrown in. Before we leave, I’ll make sure the beans and squash are dry and in dry bags. That will help them stay fresh for a few more days.

I think that will see us through Wednesday week.

Enjoy your food!