This week I received Black Beans, Onions, Chard, Zucchini, Broccoli, Watercress, Red Pepper & Dill.

The very next day I churned out a black bean soup in my slow cooker, using my slow cooker bible, Slow Cooker Revolution. It called for a ton of onions, so I used the one pictured above.

I was overwhelmed with the amount of dill I was suppose to consume this week.

First I made crab cakes  and threw the red pepper in. I was planning to use dill in the dipping sauce but ran out of time…

Next I used up more dill in a bean salad I saw online. Canned beans of your choice, celery, garlic, and a dill vinaigrette. And the shallots from two weeks ago! I’m still working through those.

I happen to have some pomegranate seeds in the fridge that went great with the watercress. Added crumbled goat cheese and some slivered almonds in a rice wine vinaigrette. And the shallots from two weeks ago!

Zucchini fries for all, dipped in a little store bought marinara.

Steamed Broccoli for the babies.

Finally we sauteed the Swiss Chard in garlic for a side on night.

Even though my last 25 dinner post didn’t get a lot of comments on my blog, it did get me a lot of comments in person.

People are fascinated with what is for dinner. In fact, when I lived in China, instead of saying “Good morning, how are you?” They say, “Chi Fan La?” (Have you eaten yet?)

I know I’m always looking online and in cookbooks for new ideas. I am always trying to find something the kids will eat! Something with ingredients they like, something that sneaks more veggies in, or makes them palatable in plain site. Something healthy, but still yummy.

So you ready for 25 more dinner ideas? Here are some dinners we have eaten in the last few months…

This week I received Shallots, Purple Top Turnips, Red Potatoes, Carrots, Spinach, Lettuce & Collards.

Rarely when I get my fresh picks box do I instantly think of something to do with everything in the box. Most weeks I’m googling something just to see what it is!

When I saw this lot I immediately thought, soup in cubes that can be used for baby food as well. Not everything, but certainly the turnips, red potatoes, carrots, and spinach. I found a recipe for winter vegetable soup in my new Soupbox Cookbook, which I’m obsessed with lately. As usual, it came out smashingly good.

Shallots can be put in any salad dressing to liven it up, or as a substitute for onions. I put them to use in a mustard vinaigrette that I used to dress the lettuce. I added shredded carrots, artichokes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, tinned chick peas, leftover quinoa and my favorite Eggplant Bacon that I’m addicted to. I added them to another Greek salad. I still have a ton left but will work away at them slowly.

Every time they send me collards it reminds me of college. My roommates, mostly Heather, grew a garden one year. Everything in it died but the collards. We went to school in a former swampland, people. The collards flourished. They filled our freezer. Heather ate collard soup for months, wishing she could think of another way to cook them. That was before the Internet. Back when we walked around in ignorance. I don’t feel old but thinking back to a time when I was an adult and lived without Internet makes me realize the truth. I’m old.

Anyway, I did a quick garlic saute for the collard greens. Put it next to my grilled chicken, sweet potatoes and baked beans.

This week I Red Savoy Cabbage, Scarlett Turnips, Beets, Sweet Potatoes, Broccoli, Yellow Pepper & Chard.

Scarlett Turnips and chard were grouped together the next night. Honey Roasted turnips, garlic sautéed chard were eaten with a honey mustard chicken.

Finally the beets and sweet potatoes. A Beet and Goat Cheese Salad and baked sweet potatoes were served with the left over baked honey mustard chicken.

The yellow pepper was thrown into a salad the following night.

Finally, I used the red savoy cabbage in an asian stir fry dish and served it on the same night as the broccoli. The broccoli was used in a chicken and broccoli stir fry. A side of brown rice was added too.

The dinner post made me think about lunches. As with dinner, I try hard not to make the same thing over and over again. Still, there are only so many things you can pack into a lunch box, right?

I can make it exciting for about two weeks, then I tend to repeat the selection…

Two weeks ago I received carrots, sweet potatoes, dried kidney beans, garlic, collards, daikon, spinach and turnips.

The Carrots and Spinach were used in a tortellini soup. The kids loved it, even though they skirted around the carrots and spinach, fishing out the tortellinis.

I roasted the garlic in a bit of olive oil and squeezed it into homemade hummus.

The daikon was added to pickled with carrots and used as a side dish for lunches.

I used the dried kidney beans also in a Roadhouse Chili recipe from the Soupbox cookbook. I didn’t realized how much dried bean expanded. What a nutritious and cheap way to eat! I still have 1/2 the container.

Turnips were used in yet another soup (I’m cooking my way through the entire Soupbox cookbook!). I threw them in with next week’s delivery…

Leeks, Red Pepper, Red Potato, Snap Peas, Artichoke, and Root Vegetable Soup Mix.

I used the root vegetable mix along with one leek, the red potatoes, and the turnips from last week to make a great soup that everyone can eat. The veggies were all diced and soft so the babies could eat them. The older boys liked theirs pureed with a hunk of bread.

I plan on steaming the artichoke and dipping in butter one night. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

As for the snap peas they make a great snack or lunch time side.

The last leek and red pepper are either going into a quiche of I’m going to make savory and sweet crepes one night for dinner.

Are you bored of cooking dinners yet? Trying to find something new and exciting but still same enough that the kids will eat it?

I’m constantly asking my other mom friends what they are making for dinner. In fact my friend Beata told me she plans a monthly calendar of dinners for her family. I was curious to see what her meal plan was. Maybe she would give me some new ideas?

Or maybe I could flip it on it’s head and give my readers some new ideas. Why don’t you see what we have been eating the last few months? Let me invite you to our table.

Here is a gallery of 25 dinners. A month of home cooked meals. I hope it gives you some good ideas for your own family.

The pictures were taken as the kids eat them. No, I do not cut Adam’s meat for him. But us adults ate the same things with some variation. For example tacos had a salsa added to them, and the white chicken chili was garnished with chopped pickled jalapenos, avocado and cilantro.

Not every meal was a success either, but I try to keep it varied and make the kids try ‘at least one bite’.

This week I received Beets, White Hakurei Turnips, Yellow Onions, Japanese Sweet Potato, Acorn Squash, Pea Tendrils, Spinach and Rosemary.

Immediately I put the beets and sweet potatoes in the oven to roast. The sweet potatoes were mashed up as a side dish for the kids one night. The beets cooled and stored in the fridge for salad.

The pea tendrils and spinach made for a lovely salad…

Spinach, Pea Tendrils, Pomegranate Seeds, Feta, Red Onion, Walnuts in a Balsamic Vinaigrette

I used the rest of the beets and spinach in another salad another day.

I had no idea what to do with all those green peppers. In the end I added one of them to the coleslaw I made with the cabbage from the last delivery. Adam does not like the creamy stuff so I used a sweet vinegar base instead.

Acorn squash made for a nice soup. Actually since we are going to Florida soon I added the acorn squash and any other veggies I had in the fridge that seemed suitable in a soup. Cauliflower, carrots, onions, celery, spinach, all got chopped and dumped in a pot with a box of strained tomatoes and some water. It was seasoned with the fresh chopped rosemary, salt and pepper.

The poor turnip got ignored. I need to up my turnip game if they decide to keep sending me such a varied assortment of them.

Last month the person in charge of the website for Irv and Shelley’s must have been on holiday because they never updated the site, or the invoices. As a result, I have an invoice listing the delivery items from the week before, which I must say looked much better than what I got on November 21st! The delivery the week before had pumpkin pie!

Above is, I think, some kind of purple lettuce, parsnips, butternut squash, cranberries, red potatoes, one sweet potato, and some onions.

I purposely didn’t buy any veggies today at the store, thinking no matter what came in the delivery, I’d find something to make as a side dish tonight. But after seeing the delivery I had no idea what to make with any of it! Certainly I couldn’t whip anything up quickly.

Any purple lettuce I found on google seemed to be more decorative, the stuff you add to landscaping. So I decided to taste it. Was I a good enough cook to make something great from this without a recipe? I briefly day dreamed about becoming the next iron chef.

It was waxy, and a bit bitter. I lost interest. I forgot about it until the next delivery came. I ended up throwing it out. Shame on me!

The Squash was pureed into baby food.

I used the cranberries in muffins. I found a cranberry pecan muffin recipe online. It was pretty healthy and the kids weren’t into them, I think our frequent Starbucks visits has engendered them to prefer a sweeter taste.

Onions always have use in our house. These particular ones help build a base for a tomato soup and the start of a bolognese sauce.

The potatoes, thyme, and parsnips all were used with the next delivery of vegetables…

Daikon, Rutabaga, Red Potato, Cabbage, Squash, Rosemary, Leeks and Lettuce

I made Minestrone AKA as my garbage soup. Dumped some of the red potatoes, some of the carrots, the leek, and the squash all in there along with some other things.

Another night I chopped the sweet potato, the parsnips, the rutabaga, carrots, and daikon radish, some more red potatoes alongside a few other hearty veggies I had in the fridge. I tossed them with the thyme and rosemary, salt & pepper, and olive oil and roasted them. Served beside baked salmon.

Half the cabbage was used in a mongolian beef dish another night. The rest was made into a cole slaw with a vinegar based (instead of mayo) dressing.

Green leaf lettuce tossed with Paul Newman’s Caesar Lite dressing and paired with grilled eggplant.

Over 40 and Feeling Foxy

Last night Adam took me to Alinea.

If you have not heard of this restaurant, please let me expound.

It has received many accolades. It was given a 3 star Michelin Guide rating. It was also voted one of the best restaurants in the world by Restaurant Magazine. The owner and chef was voted best chef in america in 2008 by the James Beard Foundation. And so much more. In fact, it might be easier to name what this restaurant did not win then list it’s accomplishments.

And if all these awards didn’t make him famous enough, in 2007 Alinea’s owner and chef, Grant Achatz, made headlines for being the “chef who couldn’t taste”. He was diagnosed with stage 4 tongue cancer. He is now in remission and his sense of taste has slowly returned.

Achatz’s style of cooking is called Molecular Gastronomy. Sort of how fusion cooking was the popular trend in the 80s, and gastropubs were the hot item in the 90s, molecular gastronomy is the cutting edge trend these days. And Achatz is considered the leading American chef in molecular gastronomy.

What is molecular gastronomy? Good question. One that I figured I could answer after eating it. But I’m almost at a loss for words. It was so many different things. It was whimsical, it was scientific, it was an explosion of taste and color.

Technically it’s combining science with food. Every single dish that came made me wonder how long they spent in research and development. Every dish was so perfectly crafted, so unusual, so unique.

One dish was a block of ice that you stuck a straw into to drink with. The straw had a butternut squash soup and lots of little bits of different tastes in it that changed as you sucked it up.

One dish was made almost entirely of corn, except for a sour cherry accent.

“Corn”

Adam splurged on the expensive wine pairing and every wine paired perfectly with all the complex tastes. The corn was paired with a Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc. It changed dramatically before and after I tasted the food.

The first few courses were very specific. Eat them in a certain order. I thought, another controlling perfectionist chef. But just as I thought that, this dish came…

“Lamb”

Let me show you the dish in front. You were meant to try each of the different lambs with the different tastes and textures on the plate. This one was paired with a Lebanon’s most famous wine, Chateau Musar.

At one point we were served a helium balloon that tasted like a green apple.

For the last dish they put a mat down, then painted the table with sauces, took a chocolate ball and smashed it on the table. Inside was more delightful flavors and textures.

In the end I realize that, no matter how much I try to describe it, you really have to experience it for yourself. Amazing, amazing night. Thank you Adam!