This week Broccoli Raab, Arugula, Slicing Tomatoes, Zucchini, Lettuce, Green Beans and Sweet Corn.

The first thing to go was the zucchini, grated and baked into Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread Muffins. I made a double batch and they lasted that evening and the next morning. All the kids love muffins. So do all the adults!

Green beans were blanched then iced, tossed with a mustard vinaigrette and topped with fresh basil. Yum.

Corn was boiled, buttered and salted for another side dish one night. The lettuce and tomatoes also made yummy salad sides for dinner.

Finally the arugula, sauteed with fresh chives then scrambled with an egg and served on toast. I skipped the blanching process so once again the arugula was quite bitter, but I ate it anyway. Next time I’ll blanch first.

This week red lettuce, spring mix, kale, potatoes, tomatoes, kolrabi, and cilantro.

The first night the potatoes and kolrabi were diced, oiled, salted and peppered then roasted in high heat until gooey and crispy.

The spring mix was sauteed in garlic and oil and added to a thai take out we had one night.

Kale was paired with the mangoes my mother brought up for me last week for a delicious Kale and Mango Salad.

Cilantro was chopped up and added to avocado for a lovely guacamole.

Finally I chopped up the lettuce and tomatoes into a salad.

A very green week this week, isn’t it?

Spinach, Swiss Chard, Garlic Scapes, Snap Peas, Cilantro, Potato Onions, and Asparagus.

The first thing to go was the swiss chard.

I stripped the leaves off, chopped it up and sautéed it in oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

I’m always surprised how little it cooks down too!

Potato onions were added into the mix for my turkey burger. I grilled them alongside the garlic scapes for dinner that night. Added sweet potato fries for a side.

The snap peas were parboiled and sautéed in garlic and oil. They made a nice match with our sushi and pot sticker dinner.

Another night, roast fennel and asparagus paired nicely with baked salmon and cilantro lime rice.

Finally, the spinach was used in green smoothies and salads.

This week carrots, broccoli raab, chives, tomato puree, crimini mushrooms, asparagus, spinach.

Immediately I used the crimini mushrooms with the broccoli raab. I did some research on the internet because I’ve never had a good result and found out that in order to get the bitter taste out of broccoli raab you have to boil it first. So I boiled it for about 4 minutes. While that was going on I sauteed an onion and the sliced crimini mushrooms in a pan with olive oil. Then added a bit of crushed garlic. Then added the boiled broccoli raab. It was delicious. It was so delicious that I actually ate half of it standing over the oven, digging directly into the pan.

Chive, Bacon and Kerrygold Cheese Omelet

Chives were snipped into various things, like a topping for my baked potato, into and egg and cheese omelet and on top of my salad.

The carrots were used up this way to, by piecemeal cooking. Two were shredded into salad, one was put into bolognese sauce, another few were braised with celery for a side at dinner one night.

I simply steamed the asparagus and tossed it in a little dijon mustard, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. The leftovers were chopped and added to that huge salad I can’t seem to stop talking about.

The spinach was made into yet ANOTHER salad. This 10 days of real food is killing my creativity! But it was exactly what I wanted. I wait all year for summer to come so I can eat all the wonderful fruit available. Watermelon, Rainer Cherries, and Peaches. My favorite way to eat peaches is to grill them. Here they are above, on top of the spinach in my grilled peach salad.

The tomato puree and leftover spinach was used in a lentil dish. Cooked lentils with tomato puree, onions, garlic, chopped spinach and other seasonings all tossed together and warmed. To be served over a bowl of brown rice. Lunch for a week!

I had the most amazing dinner the other night with a friend of mine. She quit drinking. She realized, on her own, that it was leading her down a bad path and was able to catch it and correct it. We talked in length about addiction. And how much support you need to actually stop it.

It made think back to the time I quit smoking. How difficult it was, how many times I had a bad day and just wanted to start again. Or how often I used it as a crutch. Or how many times I associated things like alcohol and smoking. How painful it was to reinvent these moments without the cigarettes. It took a long time.

I will say one thing about addiction. When you get to the point where you want to quit, you look at whatever you are addicted to and hate yourself to doing it. Every time I picked up another cigarette I was kicking myself for being so weak and not being able to stop.

Alarmingly I realized I had been having that same feeling recently. It’s something I’ve been sleuthing on the internet for a long time, but didn’t think I could change. It was too hard with all the kids around and I needed a naughty reward, didn’t I?

But the naughty reward wasn’t making me feel good anymore. I was sniffing around the kitchen numerous times a day sneaking sugar. Mostly chocolate. I would do it when the kids were distracted or sleeping, or with my back turned to them. And I was hating myself for it. I would wake up in the morning with a clean eating plan in my mind and by the end of the day I had failed, again.

Bolstered by my friend’s incredible strength and perseverance with alcohol addiction, I thought, why don’t I do the same? How many days was I going to cram refined sugar down my throat, then silently berate myself and look in the mirror and my pooch and cringe?

Now, I’m not sure if giving up sugar is going to get rid of the pooch, but I am hopeful.

Today I started the 100 Days of Real Food 10 Day Pledge. The thought of 100 days is daunting but I figure I can at least give it a go for 10 days, right?

I hope I’m not accidentally doing copyright infringement here but here are the rules from the website:

Anyone want to join me?

This week ramps, rhubarb, garlic, watercress, asparagus, and lacinato kale.

I went to work right away on some of these items. Grilling up the asparagus next to chicken for dinner the next evening. I added some kale chips as a side…

Finally I whipped that rhubarb into a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. I envisioned topping it with some vanilla ice cream but we were out so I used a little whipped cream instead. Jack was bonkers for it. Ben ate it all up and the twins licked the whipped cream off around the crisp. The next morning I sneaked some on top of my yogurt for breakfast. Hey! It’s got fruit and oats! It could be breakfast!

Watercress was used in a kitchen sink salad. I even added some of the leftover grilled asparagus in it.

Finally the garlic and ramps were put into my vegan dhal from one of my favorite cookbooks, Appetite for Reduction. I’ve been eating it next to Trader Joe’s frozen Naan and slopping it top of leftover brown rice all week. It’s so yummy I didn’t even offer it to the kids for fear of them dumping it all on the ground or taking one bite and wasting the rest!

This week asparagus, celery, ramps, zucchini, carrots, red leaf lettuce and chives.

Right away the asparagus was roasted in the oven at 425° with a little salt, pepper and olive oil. So simple and yummy. And exciting to see asparagus back on the menu!

I used the ramps and chives in whole wheat biscuits with bacon bits.

I thought they were really good but the kids were kinda meh about them.

The carrots and zucchini were added to a Harvest Cake. 

This turned out heavenly. I didn’t use the goat cheese frosting, instead I whipped up 6 ounces of cream cheese with 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 cups of whipping cream.

Leftover carrots and celery were braised as a side dish one night.

Celery and Carrots with Veggie Quinoa pasta and Bison Meatloaf

Finally I made a salad with the red leaf lettuce and the leftover asparagus. Threw in feta, cucumbers, tomatoes and all the rest of the leftover steamed veggies I had in the fridge – green beans and carrots, tossed it with some mustard vinaigrette and ate away.

Are you wondering what was on the menu for dye free food week 2?

For breakfast this week we had a simple Banana Muffins that turned out great. I replaced the all purpose flour for whole wheat pastry and whole spelt flours.

Also Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes (just Bob’s Red Mill 10 grain pancake mix with canned pumpkin and chocolate chips added)….

I whipped up another batch of Ina Garten’s Granola Bars with different add ins, this time only fruit and I actually think I need to go back to the peanut butter and chocolate chip one after this.

I revisited the Pioneer Woman‘s My Mom’s Muffins. I use her mom’s mix of spelt, whole wheat and almond flour instead of the recipe listed. All the kids love them. So does the hubby.

I also broke down and bought some store bought cereal, at Jack’s request. After all this fancy cooking, turns out he missed having just a bowl of cereal and cold milk. After eyeing my friend Becca’s blog, I went ahead and got Cascadian Farm’s Cinnamon Crunch. No dyes, whole wheat and a ton of sugar. Well, we can’t be perfect every day, can we?

For dessert I tried the Black Bean Popsicles, which I personally gave a miss, so did Jack. But Ben, Sam and Aaron all ate theirs with relish.

Quinoa Chocolate Chip Cookies, a recipe I morphed from Dr. Oz. I added an egg, and I baked them. They were okay, but not as crispy as I would have liked. But once again the kids all seemed to love them. I think I’ll try quinoa cookies again, but look online for a better recipe. Or maybe not, since this article on how Western’s love of Quinoa is killing Bolivians has been making the rounds on my facebook page.

From Sally’s Baking Addiction, I tried Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. Those were so good. FIVE star rating in my book, and sooooo simple. Only 5 ingredients.

From Chocolate Covered Katie I baked up the Greek Yogurt Cheesecake. Again FIVE stars! Absolutely delicious! I used coconut oil in the crust. Seriously, there is NO cream cheese in this baby!

And now onto week 3…

This week we received swiss chard, romaine lettuce, onions, blue potatoes, cucumber, scallion, carrots, and peppers.

That night I made Rachel Ray Tomato Basil and Cheese Baked Pasta. Only I substituted the basil for the swiss chard. I used one of the onions for this recipe as well. It was a decent recipe. The kids liked it but personally I didn’t taste any ‘wow’.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a cafeteria lady, making all these meals assembly line style three times a day.

I pickled the carrots and cucumbers. After seeing yellow #6 on our bread and butter chips, I had to do something! We can’t live without pickles! Every single person in this family loves them!

I actually made up my own recipe, based on an amalgamation of a few different ones on the internet…

Romaine Lettuce was used in a taco salad one night. I had some left over shredded taco chicken and repurposed it. Added some diced tomatoes, shredded mexican cheese,  store bought salsa, and topped with a dollop of sour cream. No dressing needed. 

For the potatoes, peppers, and one leftover onion from this delivery, I diced them all up along with a leftover jalapeno I had and roast them at 425° with seasonings like salt, pepper, paprika, turmeric, cayenne, onion powder, garlic powder, and olive oil and baked them until crispy. They were so tasty. None of the kids ate them, but I didn’t care, I put them next to my eggs in the morning, next to my leftover lamb chop from date night, and ate the rest as an afternoon snack!