What's For Dinner? November Week 1

Want to know what's significant about this weeks dinner post?? Well, friends... it's the anniversary week of my very first dinner post here TWO YEARS AGO!! That's right. For two whole years, I've been documenting what goes on my family's table each week. I'm not fancy or gourmet... I'm not a skilled food photographer... And my endeavors are not always wildly successful... (not by a long shot). I'm just a busy mom with a passion for real, wholesome food and a powerfully strong belief that the most important lessons children learn and the most valuable experiences a family can have are centered around the dinner table and the sharing of a meal together. It's a ritual. It's a parenting method. And it's something I work hard to keep stable, as well as promoting others to do the same.

Veggie bag from October 25th:

Contents: another HUGE kohlrabi (still just eating this raw & sliced - love it!), a buttercup squash (never seen/eaten one of those before!), purple broccoli, bunch of parsley, cauliflower, 2 cucumbers, 2 green peppers, sweet potatoes (yes, I was assured that these are, in fact, sweet potatoes and there are actually at least 3 different varieties of the sweet potato... these were red skinned and white on the inside), 2 tomatoes and a bag of green beans.

Menu for the week of October 29 - November 4th...

More pumpkin waffles for breakfast with sauteed apples and walnuts in a maple syrup glaze. Plus many that were frozen for future weekday breakfasts.

Not pictured this week:

1) our chili & grilled cheese dinner with friends and the leftovers that followed

2) taco salad - you know what that looks like - nothing exciting ;)

Also on our menu were:

3) Apple Cashew Salad with Poppyseed Dressing and more grilled cheese... this time with sharp cheddar and sliced apples in the middle. (We ate a lot of grilled cheese this week.)

Apple Cashew Salad with Poppyseed Dressing

1 head iceberg lettuce

1/2 bag spinach

2 large apples

1/2# baby Swiss shredded

1 small tin of cashews

dressing:

3/4 cup sugar (seems like a lot! I used less)

1 tsp dry mustard

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup cider vinegar

1/2 tbsp chopped onion

1 cup canola oil

1 1/2 tsbp poppy seeds

Mix dressing ingredients in blender and chill 2 hours. Toss with salad just before serving.

*I just eyeball all the salad ingredients when making individual portions up and then drizzle dressing on individually as well. But if you were making it for a potluck, you could toss all the dressing with the above measurements of salad.

AND...

4) An all-veggie meal!

On Friday night, I got home from work without a meal plan in mind (say what?) and no real desire for a complicated main dish. I had veggies out the whazoo from our CSA and all of them sounded good at once. So I just did a couple veggie things and called it dinner!

This "recipe" was something I remember doing years ago with sliced green pepper instead of green beans, but I thought I could easily substitute the fresh green beans from this week's CSA. First, I parboiled the trimmed beans for 3 minutes, rinsed them under cold water and patted them dry. Then I sauteed them in my wok with some garlic, olive oil and Italian seasoning. After about 5 minutes, I added in a bunch of halved grape tomatoes and, at the last minute, tossed in some croutons. This is SOOO fresh and delicious. If you make it with green peppers, you can skip the parboiling step. Just slice and saute.

I also roasted some cauliflower and broccoli with olive oil, salt and pepper. The broccoli we get is a little more delicate than I'm used to and it got kind of crispy.

A few slices of sharp cheddar cheese gave this meal just a little protein and tasted delicious alongside the veggies.

And that was it!