What’s for Dinner

Last week I pretty much failed at vegetables. First, I tried to get rid of our squash backlog by making butternut squash puree, as I read you can use squash puree instead of pumpkin in recipes for pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, I only got as far as roasting the squash; then I forgot about them, and left them in the oven for two days, at the end of which they were moldy and had to be thrown out. I felt more relieved than guilty, to be honest, but I do think I’ll call up Capay Farms and ask them to reinstate the squash in our box.

Then, a couple days ago, we all came down with a horrible cold. Well, Robin and Sam mostly just had stuffy noses, but I seemed to be hit harder; for a while I was afraid I actually had the flu, as in addition to the congestion I was running a low fever, ached all over, and could barely muster the energy to move from bed to couch. Yesterday I was pretty much flattened, but today I felt much better and went about our routine as normal. Anyway, I didn’t cook for a couple of nights.

So going into this new week (vegetable weeks start on Wednesday, as that’s when our box is delivered) we had on hand: lettuce, chard, leeks, and bok choy. Then in our box we got more leeks, more chard, and more lettuce, along with kale, broccoli rabe, six kiwis, and a bag of fingerling banana potatoes.

Tonight I made the polenta with chard recipe that I didn’t do last week, using both bunches of chard and all of the leeks as well. Tomorrow I’ll make hot and sour soup with the bok choy, and then on Friday a winter pesto with the kale and collards.

Saturday I’ll make some kind of salad. Sunday I’ll roast a chicken with the potatoes, and then make stock from the carcass, as I’m out of chicken stock. Monday, pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe—and then we’ll be all caught up with vegetables!


2 Responses to “What’s for Dinner”

  • Nina Says:

    Ugh, sorry to hear about the cold. They do say that pregnancy knocks your immune system down. Glad you’re feeling better.

    I am intrigued by the winter pesto! What’s in it? Do you cook the greens?

  • shannon Says:

    I use this recipe: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2418

    Only I use at least a whole bunch of kale, and sometimes two bunches of greens–and it makes enough to sauce a full pound of pasta. It’s really good too, probably because of the half pound of cheese. Ricotta salata is very yummy. I don’t know why they tell you to grate it when it is such a crumbly cheese: all you have to do is crumble it up with your fingers.

    I’ve actually never tried it with collard greens but I see other recipes online for collard green pesto, so I think it should theoretically work okay.

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