Shannon Phillips

Today’s box held a bag of peaches, a bag of nectarines, a pint of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of purple basil, two cucumbers, five big green-and-yellow pattypan squashes, two beets, two skinny heads of broccoli, two bunches of carrots, lots of little red sweet peppers, and a scant handful of okra. I truly hope that these five lonely okra pods are the trickle that heralds the deluge—I love okra, always have, it’s the Southern in me.

Tonight we’re having roast beef, with a side of squashes and okra sauteed with butter and salt. Tomorrow I need to finish up a pot of red beans and rice (I ended up making that last week instead of paella), so we’ll have that, maybe with cornbread. I have a zoo date with Wendy so I want to have dinner squared away anyway!

But I don’t want to let those tomatoes sit for too long, so Friday we’ll do a sort of villager’s salad with the tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and maybe the peppers, roasted? I don’t know, I’ll have to research and decide on a specific recipe. I might get some sausages to make it a heartier meal.

Saturday I have plans with friends, so it’s probably delivery for dinner; Sunday we’ll have a chicken roasted with carrots and beets, and I’ll make chicken stock from what’s left of the carcass. If I get ambitious I’ll make a nectarine and blackberry crisp…but who am I kidding, Robin’s not going to let the nectarines last till Sunday.

Monday I might try out that buttermilk mac and cheese I was thinking about? We’ll see. Often these meal plans seem to go wonky towards the end of the week.

I’m going to save the broccoli for sticking into Sam’s bento. Wendy made the excellent suggestion that putting in crunchy vegetables (and maybe some dip) is a good way to fill up the bowls without including too much food. Sam isn’t going to be delighted with this plan, but he’s good about eating what’s set in front of him, and don’t raw vegetables cure cancer or something? I’ll make sure to include cookies on the crudité days, so he doesn’t feel like I’m sending him off with rabbit feed.

Oh, and Mom wanted the recipe for the tabouleh I posted a picture of the other day: so here it is.

Toss in a large bowl: 1/2 cup of medium-grind bulgur; the juice of two lemons; 1/3 cup of olive oil; a half teaspoon of salt; a pinch of cayenne pepper; a huge bunch of parsley (or two smaller ones) all chopped up; a couple of nice tomatoes (chopped); some fresh mint if you have it, or a heaping teaspoon of dried mint if you don’t (use 2-3 times as much fresh mint, and chop it up, or chiffonade it if you feel fancy); and a diced cucumber. These ingredients are fairly elastic; you can put in a cuke or a ‘mater more or less and it will come out about the same. You can put in scallions or minced red onion if you want (I think I did, that day). You can guesstimate the bulgur if you want. It’s really a forgiving recipe, and I say this as someone who generally measures the water when I boil pasta.

Let the bowl sit on the counter until the bulgur is softened and fluffy, about an hour. Then put it in the fridge and let it sit for another hour. Taste it and add salt and pepper, or even more lemon juice and/or oil, if you want. It should be very bright and tangy, and the vegetable to grain ratio should be about two to one.

Another lovely, lovely vegetable box, even though there weren’t any tomatoes, which is sad. But we did get lots of fruit, and that’s always exciting: there was a bag each of peaches, nectarines, and apricots. I noticed as I was arranging them in our fruit bowl that the apricots were really very ripe: so I cut one up and gave it to Robin. He scarfed it down and instantly transformed into a demanding little monster who could only be satiated with apricots; he ate them all in one sitting and would have gone on to the nectarines if I hadn’t finally cut him off. I was afraid he might be ill but apparently his little tummy has no trouble processing great quantities of apricots.

We also got a bunch of purple basil, three red onions, about two pounds of potatoes, two bunches of carrots, a big head of broccoli, two cucumbers, a nice mix of summer squashes, and a lot of little green peppers. Last night we had burgers garnished with red onion slices; tonight we’ll have steak and pepper stir-fry, and I think Robin and I will eat the squashes for lunch. Tomorrow for dinner we’ll have a salad and chilled cream of carrot soup.

Saturday our friends Wendy and Zach are having a 4th of July BBQ: I can’t go, but I’m going to send the boys with a batch of potato salad made using the potatoes and red onions from our box. Sunday I think I’d like to make seafood paella; Monday, pasta of some description; and Tuesday, leftovers.

Also, inspired by Wendy’s beautiful bentos, I’ve started making Sam a lunch to take to work. I offered to do this a long time ago but he wasn’t very keen on the idea: he didn’t want to worry about food spilling in his backpack, and he liked going to restaurants with his coworkers for lunch.

A while ago, however, Sam got transferred into a different group where apparently people don’t have the same social lunch habits, and it got to the point where if I asked him what he had for lunch, the usual answer was “six cups of coffee and a Pop Tart from the vending machine.”

So I bought him a Mr. Bento lunch set, since for some reason he didn’t like the idea of taking his lunch in my awesome Batman lunch box that Nina gave me. You can tell Mr. Bento is serious and manly because it’s all grey and comes in a military-style canvas bag (although Sam’s came with a stainless steel spork instead of the chopsticks pictured).

It’s a little bit daunting filling the four bowls with four different things, but I bought stuff like cheese and crackers and cold cuts that I can use to fill up the bentos quickly, and then I round it out with leftovers or chopped up fruit. The first day Sam came home saying that he wasn’t going to be hungry for dinner because he had such a big lunch, which nearly nixed the whole enterprise, as I am absolutely not going to spend time fixing his lunch if it means he won’t eat my dinners! However Sam backed down from that position and so far the bento project is going pretty well. I might see about getting a smaller bento set, though.

We’re feeling a little down today. Yesterday we learned that the latest house we made an offer on—a house we are both absolutely smitten with—had twenty five offers and ours came in second. We’re the backup. It’s a hard position to be in because we’re reluctant to move on so long as there’s any chance we might get this (fantastic) house…so we’re just left hanging. I encourage you all to help us out by sending your good karma and visualizing hopeful, positive things, such as an asteroid landing on the heads of the people who made the first-place offer.

This is our fifth offer. Interestingly, it’s only the second where we were actually outbid (assuming we were outbid; our agent suspects that the winning offer might be a lower price but an all-cash bid). We canceled our fourth offer when we discovered this house, we were outbid in Martinez, and the other two offers fell through on the sellers’ end. So it feels like we’ve been searching forever when in fact it’s mostly just that we’ve lost time dealing with short sale nonsense and incompetent listing agents. Still, we’re tired and dispirited.

At least it’s veggie day! We got a bag of white peaches, another bag full of nectarines, a big bunch of basil, two cucumbers, several pattypan squashes, about a pound (maybe more) of fingerling potatoes, a small bunch of carrots, two small stalks of broccoli, six heirloom tomatoes, and five little red onions. I love summer!

Tonight I bought a chicken and I plan to roast it with the potatoes. Tomorrow we’ll have a huge garden salad with ham and hardboiled eggs, and a nectarine and blackberry crisp for dessert. Friday I’ll make a fritatta incorporating the squash and whatever veggies survive the salad, and Saturday we can have spaghetti with pesto. Sunday, pan-fried salmon cakes; Monday, cheesy garlic soup and homemade bread. We’ll eat the peaches straight!

There was a perplexing note tucked inside our veggie box this week, apologizing for the quality of the produce in the last few boxes. It had me scratching my head because I’ve been crowing over the boxes this last few weeks, and today’s haul was no exception: I clapped my hands when I saw the bright yellow pattypan squashes nestled among the vegetables. In addition to those little squashes we got a gorgeous bunch of basil, six more of those wonderful heirloom tomatoes (I devoutly hope they keep coming all summer long), a bag of lettuce, a bunch of beets, two red bell peppers, six baby zucchinis, nine white peaches, and a bunch of red spring onions. A very delightful box to open!

I realized when I put the beets in the crisper that we never ate last week’s broccoli. It is looking a bit scraggy at this point so I think Robin and I had better have the best bits as a snack this afternoon, raw with some salad dressing. And tonight I’ll make ratatouille out of the tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, onions and squashes (is it still ratatouille if it doesn’t have eggplant, or is it just vegetable stew?) and serve it over quinoa.

Tomorrow we can have a salad with roasted beets, blue cheese, walnuts, and what’s left of the red onions in a balsamic vinaigrette. I bought two big artichokes at the store that we can have on the side.

I noticed that there’s local lamb at the meat counter now; Friday I’ll buy some and we’ll have it all’araba. Saturday something simple—maybe that bulgur salad with kale and salami. Sunday is Father’s Day and Sam and I are planning an outing to a train museum, so I expect we’ll eat at a restaurant nearby.

Monday I’d better do something with fish if I want to keep to my resolution about eating more seafood. Maybe I’ll do that salmon-and-quinoa stew again. And then Leftovers Appreciation Night on Tuesday.

Last week I didn’t make everything I had planned—I didn’t get around to making the tuna casserole until Wednesday night, and I didn’t make the baba ghanoush and tabouleh at all. Instead we ordered pizza. Last night we had leftover tuna noodle casserole and a fresh heirloom tomato salad:

The tomatoes were in our box, of course. It was a heavy box this week, stuffed full of goodies: bok choy, lettuce, five red onions and two white, a bag of little white peaches, broccoli, baby carrots, and many small green peppers, in addition to those lovely tomatoes. Tonight we’ll do a big salad with the lettuce, red onions, and carrots, as well as hard-cooked eggs and some bacon; tomorrow I’ll make the pepper steak that Sam likes with the green peppers and the white onions, and some brown rice. Sunday we can have pork chops with the bok choy on the side. And then, assuming I don’t get sidetracked during one of those days, I’ll make the baba ghanoush and tabouleh on Monday.

Today’s veggie box was another delight to open. We got strawberries (which Robin immediately set in on), a bag full of peaches, a bunch of oranges, a head of lettuce, a head of broccoli, some bok choy, several spring onions, a few carrots, and five huge beautiful heirloom tomatoes.

Tonight we’re having hot and sour soup with the bok choy; tomorrow, pasta with fresh tomato sauce. Friday we’ll have grilled sausages and a salad.

Saturday two of our dear friends are getting married, and holding a potluck reception afterwards. I’m going to make a spinach-mushroom lasagna and a peach pie to take with us.

Sunday I’m thinking tuna casserole; Monday, baba ghanoush with pita bread and tabouleh. And Tuesday will be devoted to leftovers.

I’m so glad summer is here! In our box today we got a pint of strawberries, a bag of apricots, four spring onions, a bag of lettuce, a bunch of carrots, a bunch of radishes, a bundle of fresh rosemary, and two little paper bags—one filled with beautiful heirloom tomatoes, the other with yellow gypsy peppers.

I wanted to work with those tomatoes and peppers immediately, so I made panzanella—Italian bread salad with tomatoes and other veggies. Here’s the recipe, adapted from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Cookbook.

Press two or three cloves of garlic through a garlic press and into a small bowl. Add 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, a pinch of salt and several grinds of pepper, and mix it all up with a fork. Set aside.

Cut a loaf of country bread (we used whole wheat and it was delicious) into inch-wide slices. Toast or grill the bread slices, and when they are cool enough to handle, tear them into bite-size pieces and put them in a large salad bowl. Alternately, if you have slightly stale bread or really good croutons, you can use that instead.

While the bread is toasting, cut your tomatoes—two or three pounds of lovely, lovely tomatoes—into bite-size chunks and put them in the same bowl with the bread.

Add whatever you have to hand. A cucumber is good. If you have sweet peppers you can chop them up and throw them in. Anchovies or capers are good (six to eight anchovy fillets, minced, and/or 1/3 cup capers). As Wikipedia says: “Sometimes thought of as a ‘leftover salad,’ additional panzanella ingredients vary widely, and include lettuce, white wine, capers, anchovies, celery, carrots, red wine, red onion, cucumber, tuna, parsley, boiled eggs, mint, bell peppers, lemon juice, and garlic.” So, you know, you can put in any or all of that. I used the peppers, cucumber, and anchovies.

Whisk 1/2 cup of olive oil into the vinegar and garlic mixture until you have a vinaigrette. Pour half of your vinaigrette over the tomatoes, bread, and other ingredients; give them a good toss, then pour the rest of the vinaigrette in and toss again.

Pick out a tomato and a chunk of bread and taste them. If the panzanella needs more salt and/or pepper, add that now. Take a bunch of basil (a couple dozen leaves) and scatter them over the panzanella. Give it one more toss and it’s ready to eat. (If you make the panzanella ahead of time, the bread will soak up the dressing, and you may need to add a bit more olive oil before serving.)

Ours looked like this, and it tasted like summer through and through:

For dessert we’re having a fruit salad of strawberries, blueberries (on sale this week at Whole Foods), and apricot slices. On a long lovely evening like this we can only be grateful for our good fortune.

Would you believe that we actually forgot to pick up our veggie box (from the front doorstep) on Wednesday? Our neighbor Tony, who lives one floor down, brought it up to us. And it was an exciting veggie week too: we got chard, lettuce, dandelion greens, a pint of strawberries, a bag of apricots, six baby artichokes, two spring onions and two stalks of green garlic.

Last night I made two strawberry tea breads—one for us and one for Tony—and a springtime green pasta using the green garlic, baby artichokes, some peas, fava beans and mint (the recipe is from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market Cookbook). I took a picture but the artichokes ended up looking sort of dark and slimy in the picture, so I’m not posting it. It was actually very good.

Oh and I should note, mostly for my own reference, that last week’s dinners were a smash success. The beef enchiladas were really, really terrific: that recipe was from the Cook’s Country Cookbook, which has quickly become my very favorite cookbook. It’s just solid, familiar recipes for American home-cooking: perfect for the kind of cooking I do every night. Of course the enchiladas did involve two cups of cheese, so I don’t think I can justify a weekly Enchilada Night, but I do think I’ll slide it into the rotation monthly or so.

After our veggie meal the next night, I made pepper steak (beef strips stir-fried with bell peppers and onions, served over brown rice)—again from the Cook’s Country Cookbook—I’ve made this several times before and it’s very quick and easy. I know Sam likes it, but I think the last time I made it was before he agreed to ramp up his feedback levels, because I honestly had no idea how much he likes it. He likes it as much as the enchiladas! And this is a dish that I have zero health qualms about (we buy grass-fed beef, which is a lean meat and a good source of vitamins). I also made a fish stew (using rockfish fillets and a handful of mussels) and a pot roast, both of which were well received.

For tonight I’m planning a dandelion salad with bacon and a red chard risotto. Tomorrow it’s Robin’s day to hang with Daddy while my gaming group meets, so they’ll be on their own for dinner (generally they pick up burritos from down the street). Sunday I’ll roast a chicken and make a simple green salad; Monday I want to try Mario Batali’s 2-Minute Calamari. Yes, I haven’t given up on squid, even though my last attempt at dealing with it was a flop (Mark Bittman’s Squid in Red Wine Sauce was quickly christened “squidghetti,” and the copious leftovers sat in our fridge untouched until I finally threw them out.)

Robin is a voracious consumer of fresh fruit, and has already devoured half the apricots: I’m sure they’ll all be gone by tomorrow. Not knowing we’d be getting so much fresh fruit in our box, I bought raspberries when Whole Foods put them on sale. I bought some fancy local yogurt too. We felt very high-falutin’ eating our raspberries and sheep’s milk yogurt from Sonoma. Here’s Robin stuffing his face like a proper gentleman:

Notes from last week’s dinners: you guys, that bulgur salad with kale, salami, and olives is good. We had it twice! The catfish was good too, but between it and the chili we had a lot of leftovers, and I didn’t get around to making everything I’d planned.

In this week’s box: a bag of baby lettuces, a big bag of snap peas, 2 spring onions, a head of green garlic, a pint of strawberries (ROBIN WILL BE PLEASED), a bunch of skinny new carrots, a big bunch of pencil asparagus, and a bunch of dandelion greens.

Since I didn’t make the beef enchiladas last night, I’m making them up tonight: they’re in the oven and smelling delicious. I also put the lettuce and snap peas into a simple green salad. We’ll have the strawberries for dessert, or breakfast tomorrow: strawberries don’t keep.

Tomorrow I’ll make dandelion salad with bacon and green garlic, and a hot dish of braised carrots and asparagus (using a recipe included in the box; I’ll reprint it if it’s particularly good).

Oh look, the enchiladas are done. I’ll have to finish the menu planning later!

This week’s box held snap peas, two different kinds of lettuce, a bulb of green garlic, four spring onions, a bunch of wee little carrots, a bunch of pencil asparagus, a box of strawberries (yay again!), and another bag of walnuts, which I am perfectly happy to add to the collection in the pantry.

They had catfish at the fish counter today, so tonight I’m going to do that panko-crusted catfish with garlic chard, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Tomorrow we’ll have roasted asparagus and the rest of the veggies (except the onions) in a big salad.

I’ll put the onions in a big pot of red bean chili Friday night and make some cornbread to go with it. Saturday we may or may not be visiting houses so I need dinner to be quick and easy: some kind of pasta would be good. The Cook’s Illustrated recipe for orrechiette with broccoli rabe and sausage is a favorite.

Sunday is Mother’s Day so I’m not cooking! But Monday I’ll make beef enchiladas. At some point during the week I also want to try out this recipe for bulgur salad with kale, salami and olives; I’ll probably make it for Robin’s and my lunches.

And I think we’ll keep Tuesday as Leftovers Appreciation Night.