Diving right in

It is not really fair to be diving in like this, as my partner in crime is not in town this weekend. She is attending the Eatwell Farm Solstice campover (did I just make up a word?) with her family - how fun! We are just not campers, or we would have loved to go. We have no camping equipment to speak of, and just got back from a long vacation back east. I can't wait to hear all about it and see some photos. I'm also dying to know if they heard coyotes, and how loud they were.

One thing I would like to do each week on here is to share my weekly menu. My husband and I both work full time and need to have our meals pretty scheduled so we know what we are doing when we get home. We still don't eat before 7, but the girls are pretty used to it. (Until we figure out how to differentiate authors, I guess we will sign off on the bottom. One clue is that I (M) have two girls and (R) has two boys.)

Our box from Eatwell this week was fab - but next week's looks even more amazing. The best part of this week's delivery was a non-food item: a HUGE bunch of lavender!

In our box this week were:

Cherries
Strawberries
Lettuce
Garlic
Onions

Green beans
Summer Squash (green zucchini)
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Radishes or Turnips (we got turnips)
Red Cabbage
Lavender
Mint

The lavender immediately went on my table...and the rest in the bathroom! It is pure luxury to have a huge bunch of it in my bathroom like that. I am purposely doing nothing else with it :) The other thing I scored was a 2nd bag of cherries. Someone left it in the trade box - I have no idea why someone would do this. There was also an extra bunch of lavender, but I dared not take two extra items!

Anyway - our menu for this week, incorporating the above goods, looks like this:

Shepherd's Pie

- Husband's specialty. He'll use the potatoes*...that's about it. The carrots would have been used, but we are saving it for later in the week. The ground lamb comes from Diamond Valley. Not exactly local, but it is minimally processed, free range, etc. He will use the onions* and garlic* we received.

Stuffed flounder, green beans*, wild rice, maybe salad*

- The flounder is a new find from Trader Joe's. Pacific flounder stuffed with crab and cheese. It is *very* rich.

Couscous w/ Fatted Calf merguez, chicken legs, carrots*, zucchini*

Steak, fries, salad*

Stir fry shrimp (includes cabbage*, leftover vegetables*, onions*, garlic*)

That's what we've got up until Thursday. Tonight we are having mojitos (mint*!) and calzone (I know, they don't go together in any way) using swiss chard* I had sauteed and mixed with ricotta a few weeks ago. Thanks to a fellow Eatwell member for that fabulous idea.

If you haven't figured it out, the * indicates what came in our CSA delivery. You may have noticed I have no usage for the turnips. I'm not a huge turnip fan. Usually I give them away, but I'm thinking of pickling this time...

Ok - this was fun - can't wait until R gets back!

- M