A Big Green Box of Goodness

French Lentils, Kale, Mushrooms

Leah and I decided to sign up for Green Bean Delivery, in order to keep me out of the grocery store, where I spend ALL THE MONEY. It's a pretty neat service wherein you place a standing order which you can modify weekly. It provides a lot of local, sustainably grown, and certified organic foods.

So far, it has not been much of a cost savings. But I think it's a very good value - I may not be saving money but I'm certainly not eating out for lunch, a time at which I make grievously poor food choices.

Broccoli and Parmesan Frittata

I've also been working more eggs into our diet. Eggs have so many good points that it would be hard to list them all here, so I'll limit myself to saying that they are cheaper than eating chicken, and that if we hope to homestead one day we are going to be knee deep in them. We might as well get used to consuming mass quantities now!

Scalloped Tomatoes and Turkey Mignon

Cooking every night gives me something marginally interesting to post on Instagram (where I am mymadetomeasure). Most of the time the pictures turn out better than this one. Promise.

Cheesy Couscous with Oven Roasted
Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Carrots

Our order includes vegetables and milk every week, automatically. If I want something else, I have to add it to the order. Mostly I don't, so mostly we're eating vegetables! This goes so well with all the documentaries we have been watching about how the American Lifestyle is devouring everyone's resources like a plague of designer jeans wearing, early gadget adopting, 401k balance watching locusts.

Quinoa, Kale, Carrots, Tomatoes,
 Feta and Cilantro Ranch
(AKA First Watch Knockoff)

Having a lot of variety makes it easier to attempt to copy things you've had at restaurants. It doesn't usually come out the same way, but it's rarely bad! Actually, it's kind of hard to go wrong when you start by sauteing onions and garlic and just throw things in from there.

Zucchini Gratin

Of course, ready made recipes are wonderful, too. I've been making a lot of Barefoot Contessa recipes lately and they have been uniformly wonderful. Ina Garten is clearly some kind of culinary fairy godmother. And I've been eating so many veggies that I don't feel the least bit sad about all of that bread and cheese. Hey, the French do it.





In addition to all of this, the local options have been increasing as the season rolls on. This week we'll be enjoying local cabbage, kohlrabi, yellow squash, and kale. I was crazy excited about the local farmer's market when it started up in the spring but it only runs until 7pm on a weekday. I don't get out of work until 5pm, and by the time I got to the market the only things left were beets and people packing up empty bins because they were completely sold out. One of the farms that provides produce to us is less than ten miles from our apartment and I don't have to run my car in rush hour traffic trying to get to my greens. It's a win-win!


And there's one more benefit which can't go unmentioned:

Zeus. Honestly, we DO pet him from
time to time.

There's a little hole in the lid of the delivery crate that is the perfect size to hold the stem of the cat toy.