I am the egg-plant

This is a combo post as I didn't post what i made from the last box yet - yikes

but first look at these gorgeous and cute eggplants! I'm never a huge fan when I make something with eggplants myself but I'm determined this time








So from last box check out these amazing grilled sweet potatoes! Marinated in Lime Maple marinade from "The New Vegetarian Grill" cookbook. They were so  so good, I had them with a grilled veggie burger -  and I had them the next day in a little taco with avocado and chipotle tabasco!

Then i did make the butternut squash soup in the vitamix, very easy, soaked cashews overnight then made cashew cream in the vitamix, roasted the butternut sqaush, sauteed onions carrots and celery, put it all in the Vitamix, and blended till it got warm. It never got really hot, and it seemed like from blending so long it got a very light frothy texture which is different. I ate it sprinkled with pumpkin seeds

Onto this week:
Slicing Tomatoes
Microgreens
Eggplant
Romaine Lettuce
Green Shallots
Sweet Potato Greens
Sweet Potato
Red Potato
Meyer Lemons
Gala Apples

Tomatoes, microgreens and Lettuce will be in a big salad! And I would like to find a salad dressing using the Meyer Lemons

Sweet Potato Greens - I will probably just saute, the box came with a recipe, onions, crushed red pepper and soy sauce, sounds good

Sweet Potatoes - I'm having a hankering for a curry made with sweet potato, and I know I've made one before so I'm going to scour my cookbooks and fine one!

Red Potato - I did make mashed potatoes with the ones from the last box, basic with coconut milk, Earth Balance and Follow Your Heart vegan sour cream. So with this batch I found a Potato Salad with Lemon Basil Dressing in my Blissful Bites cookbook.

Eggplant - something like this sounds perfect! Skillet Eggplant and Lentils with Almond Parmesan from Fat Free Vegan

Fall-ing in love w/my Local Box 10/4/12

oh puns, so fun yet so corny. there was no corn in this box so that was NOT a pun

Yes, this box seems to be a true transition to fall....

Assorted Lettuce
Basil Bunch
Greeen Shallots
Sweet Potato
Radish Bunch
Red Potatoes
Butternut Squash
Limes
Gala Apples

there was supposed to be an Avocado but it wasn't in there, sometimes they run out of something or it could have been a mishap, i'm so generally happy with Greenling all the time and i had avos anyway that i wasn't inclined to call and get it sorted. but i KNOW they would have fixed it if i had.

Lettuce = salad always, and i will put in the Green Shallots & Radish! I acutally did this already and the radishes are very spicy and lovely! They are white and sort of long, not round and red

Basil - will just add here and there or maybe attempt a vegan pesto

Sweet Potato & Lime -  I will make Grilled Sweet Potatoes with Lime Maple marinade

Red Potatoes - my son loves potato salad and mashed potatoes so lets see what happens this week.

Butternut Squash - I think I will make a soup in my vita-mix - like this one! Butternut Squash Soup - I could even add an apple to this

But my daughter is a Gala apple fan, one of the few fruits she eats so, they will likely be hers

see you soon with the results!

one potato two potato

Here is the delicious Dragon Bowl I made - modified from The Garden of Vegan: How it all Vegan again

Rice, kale, carrots, onion, tofu, and sweet potato topped with a home made dressing.

Here is the crazy salad i made

purple hull peas, microgreens, arugula and tomato from the box, very delish

I did grill the okra but forgot a picture, they were ahhhhmazing, i ate the whole batch - just toss with olive oil and salt and grill and eat

The regular yukon potatoes I made this fantastic Warm German Potato Salad. - The dressing was sauteed red onions and apple cider vinegar, the "bacon" crumbles were chopped up Tempeh with soy sauce, blackstrap molasses, ketchup and a bit of liquid smoke. topped with green onions!

Local Box 8/20/12

The first thing I saw when I opened this box was these two big beautiful tomatoes.  I was dinner time so made toast, marmite, avocado and tomato.  It reminded me of my best friend Claudia in London, it's the kind of thing we always made for midnight snacks as teenagers in London.

Nice usable box this week, here's the goods:

Slicing Tomatoes
Purple Hull Pease
Microgreens
Arugula
Okra
Yukon Potatoes
Persimmons
Meyer Lemons
Sweet Potatoes
Live Sage Plant

So, yeah, the Tomatoes - I so rarely buy big tomatoes, I'm always getting cherry toms for salads, but I love them, and i have this amazing harvest bread from Whole Foods, so I'm just going to use them up on sandwiches and toast things like that.

Purple Hull Peas - i already cooked them up and I found in my Wild About Greens cookbook a Pinto Bean salad with watercress & Dill, that has Arugula in it, so I will make it with the peas instead, it uses a tomato too! Oh, and i will actually sub the Micro Greens for the watercress. yes!

Okra - after the huge success of the grilled Okra last week I think i'm going to do it again here at home and see if my kids like it! I predict my son will, my daughter won't

Yukon Potatoes - I just finally read through an issue of Vegetarian Times i've had lying around for weeks, and found a very tasty sounding Warm German Potato Salad  - it has temeph as the "bacon"

Lemons - not sure - meyer lemon's seem so special, but I will probably make salad dressing,

Sweet Potatoes - i kind of just feel like steaming these and eating them in a rice bowl with kale and avocado.  I also found in my cookbook The New Vegetarian Grill by Andrea Chesman, a recipe for Grilled Sweet Potato with Maple Lime Marinade.

Grillerific

So the secret stuff I couldn't post last week was that I was bringing a bunch of the food to a bachelorette party for my BFFL Cory. She knew we were having the party, she just didn't know where, what or how.

The place we went had some fancy camping - nice huge tents with beds, porches, electricity, AC and GRILLS!
Another girl was bringing tomatoes and mushrooms for kebabs, so I added the zucchini, and we grilled that

We sliced an oiled the the eggplant and grilled that

We grilled avocado

We squeezed the limes on the avocado and everything really

but the star of the grill, the grill thrill - was the Okra. Everybody went mad for the okra, just a litte bit of oil and salt and perfection

Ok, so I tried the pear in a salad, it was good. Crispy and a little bit sweet, here it is in the salad with box lettuce, and avocado.

The most amazing thing i made this week were the Butternut - Black Eyed Pea tostadas.  LOOK AT THEM!

topped with onion, avocado, lettuce and fresh jalapeno.

White Eggplant - Local box 9/6/12

I love it when i get a vegetable in a different form or color than is usual. Feels exotic!
This week I got White Eggplants!

Here's the list:

Sweet Potato Greens
Lettuce
Avocados
Okra
Eggplant
Limes
Zucchini
Persimmons
Kefir Pears
Butternut Squash


I have secret plans for the Zucchini, Okra, Eggplant and Avocados that cannot be revealed in public...yet - .hmmmmm, you will have to wait till I post the box results next week.

I'm drinking LOTS of smoothies lately though and will probably use an avocado in one this week, I also bought these cool new things made by Amy's, frozen Sandwich Rounds, vegan and gluten free, that kind of beg to be toasted and topped with avocado & tabasco

Sweet Potato Greens - I think I got these last year but I don't remember what I did with them - I did some research and found that you can treat them like spinach.  I still haven't used my Wild About Greens cookbook! What looks good to me right now is Curried Spinach & Chickpea Soup - sub the sweet potato greens!

Limes - I really want to make this Cilantro-Lime Dressing - will just sub Agave for the Honey

Kefir Pears - there was a note with the box pointing out that this kind of pear is hard when ripe and suggests slicing in a salad - yeah! So will do that with the lettuce

Persimmons - these baffle me - I don't think I had success last time we got these, and there are a ton in this box! Here is a site with Five Ways to Eat Persimmons that is helpful - mine are green so I think they are not ripe yet, I will leave them in the bowl for a few days and see. I'll keep you posted

Butternut Squash - the cutest tiny butternut squashes ever! keeping the trend of using a cookbook i've never used before (i'm a cookbook hoarder!) - I want to make Black-Eyed-Butternut Tostadas from Viva Vegan by Terry Hope Romero - ps this recipe calls for making your own tostadas by frying corn tortillas, i am WAY too lazy for that so will use premade tostadas :)

Delish

I had a good delicious time with this box!

Check out this ridculous salad - Amaranth Micro Greens, Lettuce, cherry Tomatoes and Red Bell pepper from the box. Sooo amazing

There was also mushrooms, cucumber, pumkin seeds and tempeh bacon, and i topped it with Annie's organic Goddess Dressing

The peaches and pears ended up in the kid's first week of school lunch boxes.

Acorn Squash - this soup was so good, a little bit spicy, perfect. I ate it here with Toast and Hummus

here is the Recipe - and it's from an Austin blogger!  Roast Acorn Squash Soup



Again i made marmite roasted potatoes, even better this time, gooey crispy edges, yummy marmite saltiness.

I think there's some new interesting items coming in this weeks box!