F.O.O.D. Wednesdays - A Day Late

Once again, I'm late on my FOOD Wednesday post. I usually pick up our produce box first thing in the morning but yesterday was an unusual work day so Ryan picked it up before he went to work and I didn't even get to see the box until around 10 last night.

I'm really impressed with how the Fresh Option folks seem to spread out their boxes each week. What I mean is, one week we'll often have a lot of big bulky veggies that I often don't get to use within a week - last week we had swiss chard, 1/2 purple cabbage, broccoli, potatoes, etc. If I have a busy week it's a lot more difficult to use up those ingredients, especially because the chard is more like two veggies (the stalk and the leaves). But those big bulky boxes are usually spaced out well. This week we got more broccoli and a carrot and some smaller root veggies which last longer and are often easier to use. We also got basil! Beautiful, beautiful basil! Basil is probably one of my most favourite herbs to use. It goes with so many different types of foods, it makes amazing dressings, and tastes surprisingly nice on fresh fruit (by the way, fruit is never an issue with the fresh option box because who doesn't love fresh fruit?! We get a good amount of bananas, apples, oranges, pears, grapefruits, mango's, kiwi's, and lemons usually).


I've mentioned before that the Fresh Option box is good because it forces me to cook and eat foods I might not consider buying. There are some foods I've learned I'm just not crazy about and some I've learned I might not be crazy about but I can hide them pretty well in a lot of other foods. I have yet to find a recipe I like that really features swiss chard. It's often used as an add-in but never gets to be the main attraction. I've been searching through blogs to find something that will stand out.

But last night I went for the good ole' "hide it" option. Taco's are pretty common in our home. They're quick, easy, and deeeeelicious. I cooked up some ground beef/pork from frigs and chopped up 6 or 7 stalks of swiss chard. I pulled the leaves off and cleaned them for later use. After the meat was cooked through I added the chard, some taco salt, and let it simmer together for 15-20 minutes while I got my cheese, olives, yogurt (we were out of sour cream), and cabbage (we were also out of lettuce). The 'hidden' chard was surprisingly delicious. It gave the taco's a bit more of an earthy flavour but it didn't overpower the other tastes going on. The cabbage was pretty tasty too. I didn't take a picture because I was ravenously hungry by the time I ate this, but the purple cabbage made it look very pretty.


Last week we also got some really nice fresh dill in the box. I had meant to use it in the mashed potatoes I made last weekend but I forgot we even had it. It was in the same package as the chard, so I decided to break out the dehydrator again. I'm very happy to say, we're had the dehydrator for less than a week and I've already used it twice. I spread the dill out on the trays and popped it in at 115F. In about 4 hours I had a nice jar full of dried dill, kept separate from the store bought stuff because it's more special.