The Produce Box

Thanks for sharing your great pumpkin photos with us... here are a few of the entries we received for our decorating contest!  And CONGRATS to Naomi (and her expert-decorator son, Jacob!) -- the winners of a free specialty item from TPB! An awesome carving by Brien Cute Karis had fun pressing her pumpkin kit stickers on  with a little help from her daddy!   A  few more little ones showing their wonderful pumpkins... And Jacob -- our winner! -- showing his cool pumpkin!

Was feeling a little like a Real Food Failure this week. Not up to the "Challenge" at all ... and then I came up with "TPB Secret Sauce Spaghetti" and now I'm back on track!! My kids were intrigued by the name and ATE IT UP. I was psyched by a healthy dinner prepped in minutes!!! What did I do? LITERALLY threw 3/4 of my box from this week -- peppers, onions, zucchini and squash -- on the cutting board. Then I ROUGHLY chopped (5 minutes) everything and tossed it nto a pan with some olive oil. Cooked all those veggies for a few minutes (5 maybe) and then put them in a saucepot with a JAR (don't tell - this is the secret part for moms!) of spaghetti sauce and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Last I took my immersion blender and WENT TO TOWN!  This turned it a delicious-looking group of veggies into a SECRET sauce that a 5, 8 and 11 year old would gobble down!

These can be served as a dessert vanilla ice cream or just served salted as a snack. They're delicious! Fresh Chestnut Preparation for Roasting Preheat oven to 425 degrees F With scoring or small sharp knife cut an “x” into the flat side of the chestnut Put on a slightly greased baking sheet for 20-30 minutes Chestnuts will be HOT when cooked Peel off the outer shell of nut Then salt them or sprinkle with cinnamon or even saute with a little butter, cinnamon and sugar. It's up to you!   Are you hooked?  Join our farmer - High Rock Farms - at their SECOND ANNUAL CHESTNUT ROAST next Sunday... visit their site to order tickets and get details...  www.high-rock-farm.org  

You guys are the ones who say it best! Here’s what our members have had to say about incorporating healthy, fresh, local, REAL food into their busy lives.    • Yesterday on the way to church we had mugs of warm crockpot apples (apples, cinnamon, water) over vanilla Greek yogurt. Yum!! That's my kind of "fast (real) food".  - AMBER  • I have a baggie of Produce Box apples with my lunch today  - CAIT  • Just ate a salad with lettuce from last week and this week and cucumbers and radishes from this weeks box! Yummmmmmm  - STACY  • I've been making lettuce wraps with the bok choy, eggplant, other veggies and either shrimp or chicken. Super tasty and the leftovers are great on top of brown rice for easy lunches/dinners.  - JULIANNA  • Spaghetti casserole with peppers, field tomatoes, onions, and squash purée in the sauce. Salad with lots of greens. Watermelon. And for dessert crockpot apples over vanilla ice cream- yum!  Made ...

With cooler weather coming I decided it was time to pull out the crock pot.. Check out what I made for dinner last night: Beef Roast in Crockpot Just let me say - ooh so very tender and great leftovers :-) Eat real food! Enjoy!

This is absolutely delicious.  It is a light dessert, and is very tasty :-) I had not worked with puff pastry very much and just let me say - it was very easy! 1 package of puff pastry sheets (thawed)  (these are typically packaged 2 to a box) 1 egg 1 Tbs water 2 Tbs sugar 1 Tbs flour 1/2 tsp cinnamon 2 large apples, peeled, cored, thinly sliced.  you can really use any kind, I mixed a large red with a large tart green apple decorating sugar crystals (if desired) Heat oven to 375.  Beat egg and water in small bowl with a fork.   Stir sugar, flour and cinnamon together in medium size bowl.  Add apples and raisins and stir well to coat the apple slices. Unfold pastry sheet on lightly floured surface.  Roll pastry sheet into 16x12 rectangle.  Spoon apple mixture onto bottom half of pastry sheet to about 1" of the edge.  Roll up as if it was a jelly roll.  Tuck the ends under to seal the juices in....

I bet you think washing lettuce is difficult.. But it's really not! What I do is rip the lettuce apart at the base and throw out the hard core. I then pull out what I think we'll eat that night and put it under running water, piece by piece.  Doesn't take as long as you think. Then shake it off and lay it on a kitchen towel.  Press a kitchen towel on top of it. Let it rest about 20 minutes, remove the top towel and let it air dry about 10 more. One time I thought of getting a salad spinner, then thought, 'oh one more appliance to clutter up my pantry'.. And that last picture is more caramelized pecans that I put on the salad.  YUM!! I promise this works just as well! :-) Enjoy!

We love squash here.  We grill it/saute it/bake it/etc. This time we decided to grill it.  Yum! green squash/summer squash, washed and ends cut off slice lengthwise fairly thick - maybe 1/8" to 1/4" slices brush with good quality olive oil crack black pepper over both sides, and I also cracked garlic over mine (love garlic!) (you can also grill onion slices this way and they are delish - but we were already eating at 1130pm, so we decided the squash was enough!) Fire up your grill to a fairly high temperature. Lay the pieces directly on the grill. Grill on one side until you can see the grill marks on them, flip and grill the other side as well Enjoy immediately!!

Order your produce box for REAL FOOD CHALLENGE WEEK # 3 Planning for next week's box order? We've got some delicious recipes for your  HARVEST BOX online at  www.theproducebox.com/realfoodchallenge . Ginger honey broccoli, apple chestnut saute and simple but delicious roasted chestnuts! Fall is the in the air at The Produce Box!

I challenge you to EAT REAL FOOD! I love to cook with fresh food. It has made such a difference in the wa y I view food and think of food and plan on how to COOK the food. You can do it! It's not hard..   Try!!

So this has been a busy week for me so I am getting my post out late ;-) Friends in town celebrating a birthday.  My birthday.  A big one ;-) Sooo, tonight I made caprese salad, as my friend Kim begged me to make it for her.  She flies home tomorrow and wanted something light and yummy for dinner tonight.. I used fresh tomatoes and a block of mozzarella cheese.  You can use small tomatoes, large tomatoes, heirloom, any kind. Slice the tomatoes thin.  I use a tomato knife.   Slice the cheese just as thin.  Layer in a pretty platter with sides (or the balsamic will run all over the place!) Pour balsamic vinegar over the entire salad.  Use a lot so the cheese soaks it in.  I have also used white balsamic as it's amazing as well. Then cut up fresh basil - I usually roll up the large basil leaves and chop finely into ribbons.  All the fresh basil I have left right now is small tiny basil so I used a herb scissors a...

Planning for next week's box order?   We've got some great ideas for the FARM BOX and HARVEST BOX online at www.theproducebox.com/realfoodchallenge Let me tempt you with these photos... And don't forget we've got this week's box ideas (recipes and grocery lists) below. We'll post a few more great tips from some of you guys on Sunday or Monday too!

If you've already joined our REAL FOOD CHALLENGE for this month, WELCOME!  If you have no idea what I'm talking about... read the REAL FOOD post below! Here's our grocery list and a few of the many recipes you will get this week in the newsletter to help you along...  shop now and when your box is delivered, you'll be ready for a little prep and a lot of good eating! REAL FOOD CHALLENGE Harvest Box WEEK ONE Meal Plan:   Day 1 dinner:   Green Beans, Peppers, and Sausage with Quinoa (recipe will be in your newsletter!)   Day 2 dinner : Acorn Squash & Chicken (recipe in newsletter), Sweet Corn (see below for an easy way to prepare it!) and a Salad   Special dessert : Apple/Pumpkin/Yogurt Parfait (recipe in newsletter)   Shopping List from TPB: Harvest Box Country Sausage Chardonnay wine Onions Granola Roma Tomatoes   Pantry Staples  (just check to be sure you have these!) olive o...

Yes, here I go again..  Real food, people.  It's the best.  It tastes the best, looks the best and is the best thing to put in your body! I love hard boiled eggs. I despise boiling them.  I saw a recipe recently for baking them in the oven. I kid you not.  So today I thought "hey let's give it a try".  I had the oven on anyway for a cheesecake I was baking.. I took 6 eggs and placed them in a muffin tin. I then baked them at 325 for 30 minutes. I plunged them into an ice bath for 20 minutes, then into the fridge. No nasty smelling rotten egg smell in the fridge, and they peeled easy as can be!  YIPPP!!! :-) Enjoy!

Think REAL food!  I love to cook with REAL food!  I make my menus based on REAL food.  When The Produce Box arrives, I immediately start thinking, "hmmm, what will I use that for?" So, the lettuce arrived in my box this week and I thought, BORING, another salad.. BUT then I remembered the fresh pears I had around the house, and I caramelized some pecans, and walaa, there was our evening dinner salad.  It was DELICIOUS. In fact, so delicious that I didn't even use salad dressing!!!  :-) All I did was wash the lettuce well, dry it on a kitchen towel, and rip it up. I sliced up some fresh pears - you could use apples as well  (I just wanted to save my TPB apples for a dessert this weekend!) I sprinkled on some of the Caramelized Pecans, and there was our salad for the evening! You can see how much I enjoyed it!