Weekly recipe ideas for Thursday, June 9th, 2011

by Brie

When I opened my box this week I was the most excited to see a bunch of cilantro. That's right, cilantro. Cilantro is one of my favorite herbs because of its zingy flavour and its versatility. You can use it in a tomato salsa or curried carrots or kale and mushroom enchiladas. Cilantro is actually the leaves and stems of the Coriander plant. While I also like to cook with powdered coriander and dried coriander seeds, nothing beats fresh cilantro.

Kale is from the cabbage family. High in vitamins and minerals, kale is full of antioxidants. Kale is a common vegetable in Europe, historically and in the present day, and you will find many regional dishes make use of kale. Like Ireland's colcannon, Portugal's caldo verde and Germany's gruenkohl. A great way to cook kale is to steam it, letting you preserve the vegetable's nutrients.

Mini peppers are a small hybrid of sweet peppers.Their size makes them great as a stuffed appetizer, like in this shrimp and artichoke recipe or this turkey sausage recipe. They are also great oven roasted and served over lettuce in a salad.

Carrots are root vegetables that come in a variety of colours, most commonly orange. Carrots are a perfect addition to salads, a favorite meal in our house during the warm weather. From the classic carrot salad to a Korean-Russian carrot salad to spicy Moroccan carrot salad, the possibilities with carrots are endless! For those that prefer soups over salads, try this cashew and carrot soup.

As for the avocado in this week's box. Sure you could throw it in a carrot salad or make some bruschetta with celery, but even better is this recipe for oatmeal chocolate chips cookies (with avocado). Yum.

This week's box had some great summer fruit.The peaches and raspberries will make great lunch or afternoon snacks on this hot days.

These are some of the ideas on my menu plan this week. What are you cooking?

Brie loves eating food and is learning to love cooking food. She also blogs about motherhood at Capital Mom and about Ottawa with kids at Kids in the Capital.

Thursday, January 27th box: soup, more soup and kale my kid will eat

by Brie

After the great box last week I could not wait for this week's delivery. We ate so well last week! And having the box helped me in coming up with our meal plan for the week. I used what we got and built around it, shopping on Saturday for the extras I needed to supplement my recipes.

This week I am focusing on soups. I am fighting a cold and, well, with the cold weather outside soups are a perfect meal in my mind. The acorn squash and apple soup recipe I made last week was amazing. I took it to dinner with friends and it was a hit. I don't know if it was thanks to the organic apple, the only sweetener, but it was like eating candy! I am tempted to make it again using the butternut squash that came this week. I have also been thinking about trying out some butternut squash soup recipes. I like this one for the combination of orange juice and ginger with the squash.

My all time favorite soup is French onion soup and it was my first thought when I saw the 3 lbs bag of red onions in the box. I have never tried making the soup with red onions, but I found this recipe and I am going to give it a try. If I had more onions I would be adding roasted red onions with butter, honey and balsamic vinegar to my meal plan and making a side of pickled red onions to go with burgers.

I am pretty sure the pint of grape tomatoes we got will be turned into salsa with the fresh cilantro and red pepper that also came this week. My husband loves to made fresh salsa with a vinegar, sugar and garlic vinaigrette. But. But, I may hold off and try these sautéed cherry tomatoes with garlic and basil or baked cherry tomatoes as a side dish one night this week.

The hardest choice this week was deciding how to use the big bunch of kale. I never used to know how to cook kale, but then I discovered a kale pizza recipe and I was hooked. It is really versatile and can use used in place of other greens, like spinach. I have heard good things about baked kale chips, and I will try them one day, but after making a zucchini phyllo pie last week (and my four year old eating three servings) I have decided to try a kale version of spanakopita. If you wanted to you could try making a squash and kale phyllo pie. I am going to see if I can get my girl to eat three servings of these kale phyllo triangles.  

The box this week had some broccoli, a big bag of Gala apples, some Anjou pears and Satsuma mandarins/ tangerines. While we are big fruit eaters in the house, and I expect the kids and I could work our way through it all, I have decided to set aside the pears and try making spiced Anjou pear bread. I love raisin bread and thought this would make a great bread to take to visit friends.  

This is what's on my menu plan this week. What are you cooking?

Brie loves eating food and is learning to love cooking food. She also blogs about motherhood at Capital Mom and about Ottawa with kids at Kids in the Capital.

Organic Harvest Box for September 17, 2010

Here's a quick look inside this week's Organic Harvest Box:


A few years ago I had never seen a piece of fruit with a papery, light-weight covering. And then I was introduced to ground cherries! Ground cherries come from a small shrub similar to the common tomato, and can be grown as an annual or perennial. This tiny round fruit can be eaten raw, used in salads, tossed in desserts, or used as a flavoring. It is also fantastic in jams and jellies. Ground cherries are decadent when dipped in melted chocolate. And did you know they can also be dried and eaten? Yes, they can!

So I set off on a mission to gather some good quality ground cherry recipes for you. At the top of my list: this Ground Cherry Pie and this Ground Cherry Clafoutis. These small cherries lend themselves well to baking, but sometimes the key is making sure you have enough with which to bake. Another fabulous dessert to try are these Poached Ground Cherries. Fancy a good jam once in a while on your morning toast? Give this Ground Cherry Jam a go and be sure to let me know if you test it out, I'd love to know how it tastes! And I see endless possibilities for this Ground Cherry Sauce.

Like many, I was not a fan of brussels sprouts for a large portion of my life. I can pretty much guarantee that once you taste brussels sprouts cooked properly - in a suitable recipe - you will thoroughly enjoy them. A good place for you to start is with these Roasted Brussels Sprouts from Simply Recipes. And then I found an even better site to see each how-to step in making Roasted Brussels Sprouts - check it out, it's worth the click! Another simple, but tasty, method in which to try brussels sprouts is Sauteed Brussels Sprouts.

To awaken the true chef inside you (or for hard core foodies) you may want to try Braised Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta, Shredded Brussels Sprouts and Apples, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Shallots and Figs, or this fantastic and delicious Brussels Sprouts with Walnuts from celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse.

I was all set to write about leeks this week, but I decided I'd hold off another week or two since I know that more are on the way! So instead, I'm talking cilantro.

Nothing beats fresh cilantro - it is widely used and is a part of many salad and pasta recipes. I tried to gather a few different uses for cilantro this week, recipes you may not have thought of before.

You can read about cilantro here and check out some interesting recipes - cilantro pesto, cilantro rice, etc. I like the looks of this Tomato and Onion Relish with Cilantro Chutney and think it would compliment a variety of different meals. I've tried this Avocado Salad with Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette and it does not disappoint. A decadent Lime Cilantro Butter Sauce is a wonderful topping to many meats or vegetable dishes. I am anxious to try this Thai Grilled Chicken with Cilantro Dipping Sauce because I have a hunch my whole family will enjoy it (my children will eat anything that is associated with any kind of "dipping sauce"). And most interesting recipe of the week? Definitely this Carrot, Avocado and Cilantro Soup - a mix of tastes I had never considered before, in a soup I suspect is out of this world! Until next week, happy organic munching!