the boxes are always yummy

I'm soooo far behind on blogging. This was a good box. The yellow/lite green zuchini are pretty new to me - I like them as well as any other and they are pretty. More onions - I love these they are sweet and good. Not as offensive as the biggies you get at the store. Was so happy to get another bunch of spinach - I wanted more since getting the first bunch. Cucumbers are good - I like the seeded better than the long burpless. Broccoli has been tasty and thankfully wormless. I believe there is basil in this picture too. Expect lots of posts in a short time - I have to catch up!!

more stir fry

Thank God for stir fry and salad because those are the best way to use produce before it goes bad. I also juice anything that is close to going over.









This was a tasty one. I made sauce out of soy, rice vinegar, hot sauce, broth, and corn starch. There are mangoes in the stir fry that tasted so good with the salty and hot of the sauce. I'm thinking I will try to puree mangos as a component of stir fry sauce, I think it will be really good.

This was not veggie heavy, it was peas, pea pods, onion, and carrot.

boxes get better and better!

This is box 4. Every week it gets bigger and better, though I loved it right from the start.

There is 1 golden beet. They taste so much better to me. I can eat golden beets. They are much less strong tasting and don't have the earthy dirt taste that comes with the red beets. No chocolate needed for the golds. More snap peas, which I can always use. Looks like some of them will be good in pod. More red potatoes - can't ever get enough of them. More onions and they are really good onions. Good romaine lettuce for my almost daily salad and young zuchini. Anohter bunch of basil, which should make a good batch of pesto together with last week's bunch.

I'll have chocolate with my beets please

I have had beet cake before and there are plenty of beet cake recipes on the net. I picked one I figured had to be good, it had lots of butter and high quality chocolate. There are healthier recipes out there. They were fantastic the first couple days.

I'm not quite sure why this picture is so tiny, but that is the way it is.

Here is the recipe.

Chocolate beet cake

1 c butter; softened and divided

1 1/2 c packed brown sugar

3 eggs at room temp

2-3 oz dark chocolate

2 c medium beets pureed (about 5)

1 t vanilla

2 c all purpose flour

2 t baking soda

1/4 t salt

1/2 t cinamon

1/4 t nutmeg

To make beet puree: Trim, stem, and quarter the beets. Bring water to a boil and simmer beets for about 50 minutes until soft. Plunge beets into cool water and slip skins off. Puree in blender until smooth. Cool before use in cake.

In a mixing bowl cream 3/4 c butter and the sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Melt remaining butter and chocolate in microwave at about 20 sec intervals, stirring inbetween until smooth. Cool slightly. Add chocoate mixture, beets, and vanilla to creamed mixture .

In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinamon, and nutmeg. Add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Pour into a greased and floured springform pan. Bake at 375 for 60 - 70 min or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Remove when cooled. Dust with powdered sugar. ENJOY!!

I changed a few things. I used a 10x13 pan. I sprayed with bakers joy - if I didn't have that I would never dust a chocolate cake pan with flour - I would use cocoa or even carob. I baked it for 50 ish minutes because of the different pan. I didn't dust with sugar - I usually eat my cake unfrosted. I did have chocolate ganache leftover, so did put than on one of them. I had cream cheese frosting also and put that on a couple for hubby - that junk is way too sweet for me though. My cake was rather crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. I loved it. Can't really taste the beets but could sorta tell on one of the middle pieces - may not have quite been done.

last of the carrots

I used up the last of my carrots and boy will I miss having those around every week. I made mini carrot cakes. I didn't take my own pics but its a p chef recipe so plenty of pics on the internet. Here is kinda what mine looked like.

Mine did have some bright orange fresh grated carrots and walnuts on top of the yummy frosting. Here is the recipe. Good use of the last carrots.

Mini carrot cups

cakes

1 pkg 90z yellow cake (Jiffy)

1/2 t allspice

1 egg

2 T oil

2 med carrots grated

Filling/garnish

6oz cream cheese, softened

3/4 c powdered sugar

1/2 cup cool whip thawed

chopped walnuts optional

Preheat oven to 350. Spray wells of mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

For cakes:

combine cake mix, allspice, egg, and oil in large bowl. Stir until moistened. Stir 3/4 c carrots into mixture. Divide batter evenly into 24 cups. Bake 11-13 minutes until firm to touch. Cool on wire rack.

For topping:

Whisk together cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in whipped topping. Spoon mixture into a plastic bag and seal, set aside.

Make indentions in tops of warm cakes. Allow to cool. Remove from pan. Cut corner of bag and pipe filling/frosting onto tops of cakes. Garnish with grated carrot and walnuts.