The bee sting has faded away but the fury in which I’m trying to use up these apples is still going strong.

Here’s what I’ve been busy with this week…

Doesn’t everyone start with apple pie? This time around I ditched my normal recipe. Sometimes the pie collapses and tastes gummy. Instead I tried this 5 star recipe: Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie. It was a winner. I’ll never go back.

Next I moved onto a German Apple Cake.

Insanely good. I think I ate half of it to myself. It used a full four cups of apples, which made me very happy.

We gifted apples to 7 different teachers at two schools, as well as doling them out to the babysitter, cleaning lady, and Adam’s office.

Apples made many appearances in lunch boxes and dinners. Simply sliced and, if needed to preserve the color, doused with lemon. On salads with cranberries, walnuts and goats cheese.

I also made Apple sauce in my slow cooker for another side dish.

I then proceeded to use the apple sauce to make these delicious Oats and Applesauce Muffins. Pretty healthy and yet another winner of a recipe.

I dried a few of them for snacking and putting into one of my favorite ways to make oatmeal – slow cooking steel cut oats with dried apples and cinnamon sticks.

I still have a huge bag of them! I’ll welcome any suggestions on how else to use them…

I’ve been bad about recording my Fresh Picks lately. But it’s been kinda boring.

Does anyone want to know I roasted, boiled or grilled everything I got one week? Snore.

But this week I was actually really proud of my creativity. Do you want to see what I did with this?

To the left, Pea Vine, Baby White Turnips, Rhubarb, Hon Tsai Tai, Asparagus, and Cilantro.

Summer is such a great time for fruits and vegetables! Instead of more root veggies we get this! Asparagus! And Rhubarb! And some strange thing called Hon Tsai Tai!

First thing I tackled was the Hon Tsai Tai. It’s an Asian vegetable (if that wasn’t obvious by the name). I read online it’s similar to mustard green or broccoli rabe, neither veggie that I use much. So I decided to roast it up with the turnips and some mushrooms I had in the fridge.

Served it next to some risotto and baked salmon. The Hon Tsai Tai cooked up similar to kale chips. It was a great meal, even if Adam and I were the only ones eating the veggies!

The next night I used up all the cilantro. I made a Cilantro Pesto, added it to some ground grass fed beef and shaped them into meatballs. Then I simmered them in marinara until they were cooked. They didn’t hold up as well as I would have liked but they still tasted yummy. I paired it with the asparagus for dinner the next night.

I cooked the rhubarb into a compote with strawberries. I used it all week long. First I added some of the blended compote into a bundt cake for breakfast.

Gone in two days, one afternoon of snacking and one morning breakfast.

I also used it over ice cream for dessert.

And I mixed the compote into high protein yogurt and froze them into popsicles.

One morning we ate the compote over yogurt for breakfast too.

Finally I used up the pea vine in a salad. I actually used the leftover cilantro pesto meatball sauce in this homemade pizza and served it with the pea vine salad…

The pizza came out delicious, but the pea vines made me feel a bit like a grazing cow. Maybe you are suppose to take the leaves of the stems? I think next time I won’t make them into a salad, but chinese stir fry them instead.

Here is a picture of pizza night. It is an example of how old expressions can take on new meaning once you have kids. Here is a father of four “double fisted”…

Has anyone been reading about wheat intolerance in our country? Does anyone know why we have it so bad nowadays?

Some people claim Gluten Intolerance from Roundup Herbicide is the reason. I wasn’t sure, but after reading it all of a sudden I was scared of commercially produced bread.

Enter my sister’s recommendation – Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

I had NO IDEA it was so easy to make bread. And how much more delicious it would be than the stuff you buy at the store.

Jack and I have become professional bakers!

So far we made a Boule bread and dinner rolls. Then we made Naan bread…

Which we turned into pizza….

Next we moved onto Challah bread.

Jack and I made matching braided breads.

At first the other kids were happy to sit on the sidelines, sipping hot chocolate and watching.

But soon we became a full on “baker’s half dozenish”.

Here is all the great shapes we came up with.

Jack made ‘car challahs’. Can you spot them? Ben wanted a braid of his own.

Here are the two braids Jack and I did…

It’s been so much fun to do this with the kids. More than I imagined it would be. And as an added bonus I’m saving money and feeding my kids less preservatives and added sugars. It’s a very satisfying venture all the way around.

Next up we are tackling bagels…

For November 5th we received carola potatoes, bunched carrots, baby bok choi, dried beans, arugula, parsley, crimini mushrooms and tomato puree.

Right away I used the tomato puree, carrots, some of the beans, potatoes and parsley in a big pot of soup.

I just chopped and chucked it all in along with whatever else looked interesting in the fridge like cauliflower and celery, added water to cover it, a parmesan rind, some salt and pepper, and simmered it uncovered for about an hour.

I missed out on the bok choy and arugula but managed to stick the mushrooms in Ellie Krieger’s Quesadilla Recipe.

For the past few orders I’ve not focused on using all the ingredients in my order. Sometimes it’s just too hard to be creative! But I came back with a vengeance on November 19th….

Pumpkin, Carrots, Brussels Sprouts, Onions, Celery Root, Potatoes and Spinach above.

The onions got diced up and put into Ina Garten’s Turkey Meatloaf recipe, it’s one of the staple meals that the entire family will eat.

I used some of the pumpkin, brussels sprouts, celery root and potatoes together for a roast vegetable dish. Tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted on high heat until they are both crispy and soft. Delish!

But I still have more of almost everything left over, besides the celery root. And I was determined to stop wasting!

So, I used up the rest of the pumpkin, carrots and potatoes in this gorgeous Pumpkin, Carrot and Potato Soup from Nigella Lawson.

I also had left over brussels sprouts. I found a tasty Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad that even Ben ate!

Brussels sprouts shaved in the food processor with hard boiled egg, pine nuts and grated parmesan doused in a lemon mustard vinaigrette.

And spinach, simply sautéed in olive oil and garlic. Sometimes simple is the best way…

I’m always amazed how much it cooks down!

I’ve been bad about my fresh picks order lately. I’m not using all the veggies as diligently as I should.

But I have used most of them.

On October 8th we received a pumpkin, fennel, broccoli, arugula, leeks, potato, and red onion.

I made the leeks and potato into a lovely, simple soup. The broccoli was steamed, the fennel was roasted. Red onion was put into a salad or something, I can’t remember. The pumpkin is decorating my house and the arugula was unfortunately wasted.

On October 22,butter lettuce, red peppers, cabbage, onions, spinach, squash, candied turnips, and onions.

Cabbage was shredded into an Asian Style Slaw.

I also used one of the red peppers for that. Squash, turnip, and leftover red peppers were cut up with some cauliflower and roasted another night. In the winter I love roast veg. There a few veggies that don’t taste great roasted with a coat of oil, salt and pepper.

Spinach made a nice salad. Onions in our house always get used but I can’t remember what I did with these. Finally, the butter lettuce died before I could get to it.

Acorn Squash, Radishes, Potato, Beets, Onions, Kale, Parsley, Romanesco Broccoli.

I was able to use up quite a bit of this delivery in a vegetable soup. Squash, Potatoes, Onions, Kale, and the Broccoli all made it in there. I also added tinned tomatoes, carrots and celery. Simmered it for about an hour and topped with parmesan.

The parsley was shared at a pot luck dinner at my friend Myla’s house. I brought a ratatouille.

Beets, as always were baked soft in the oven for well over an hour. Cooled and drizzled with a reduced balsamic vinegar and some goat’s cheese.

The radishes are looking quite sad in my fridge, but as of this moment I have NO idea what to do with them. Any suggestions would be helpful…

This week carrots, eggplant, corn, romaine, kale, spinach , cucumber, zucchini, frying peppers.

The first thing I did was boil up those two pieces of corn. Aaron will eat them all himself if we let him so they did not go to waste.

Saturday night we had the Harradines over for dinner.

The romaine went into a chopped salad for dinner. So did the cucumber.

The kale was sauteed into Ellie Krieger’s quesadilla’s. Then more of it was put, along with the spinach, in smoothies. Best way to hide greens in your kids meals! (Husband too!)

The zucchini, peppers, and eggplant all went into a Tunisian Style Grilled Vegetable dish. It was a lot of work, but it was tasty. I think I could find a quicker way to make grilled veggies yummy, in fact I like them with just a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper best!

Finally the carrots. Braised with celery and served as a side dish. ‘Til next time people!