liamsaunt

My local Whole Foods has been selling beans in tetra packs for many years. The other groceries around me only have them in cans. So, here are the other TB12 meals from this week. Wednesday we had BBQ jackfruit over green chili polenta with a collard green apple-radish slaw This was my first time cooking with jackfruit. I guess vegans use it as a sub for pulled pork. It was interesting. I would not go out of my way to seek out more, but I would eat it again. The polenta and slaw were tasty. Last night we had Thai green curry vegetables over lemongrass-ginger quinoa with a tomato-Thai basil salad and tamari almond garnish Very tasty. The curry had a whole Thai bird chili with seeds so it had a little heat. The amount of quinoa given was way too much for two people. I have a container of it in my fridge to be repurposed into some sort of salad later. Back to non TB12 food until next Tuesday.

This week's TB12 Purple Carrot box arrived today. Here is the outside, with Tom Brady's food philosophy, which, if you have seen my posts in the Dinner! thread, you know I do not follow. I'm really trying to cut down on fresh food waste while still enjoying a wide variety of vegetables, so I thought this was worth a try. Plus, my husband likes Tom Brady haha. The contents of this week's box. You can see what I mean about the packaging. I am able to recycle 100%, but I know that is not true for all locations. Since we were not having a TB12 meal tonight, I chose to cook one of the meals for my husband and I to take for lunches this week. I picked the pasta fagioli since it's supposed to rain tomorrow and soup is always good on a rainy day. Here are most of the ingredients for the soup--I forgot to put the garlic, celery, and asparagus in the picture. I was multi-tasking--making our dinner while taking these photos. And the final soup, plated for a picture. Mine looks greener than the recipe card because I stirred all of the pistou in since I am portioning it out for lunches. This meal made enough soup for two lunches each. I did not use the "brown rice english muffin" from the ingredients photo. The recipe card instructed you to make garlic bread out of it. No thanks, I will have no garlic bread at all before I eat garlic bread made from a brown rice english muffin. I tossed it in the freezer for some other person's breakfast someday.

I got way too much hake in my fish share yesterday, so tonight we had fish and chips. I fried all of the fish yesterday--it was still really crispy after a reheat in a hot oven on a wire rack this evening.

Thanks! I love the boards. I'll be using the big one this weekend. Massive antipasto planned :-) Tonight, sort of baja style fish tacos

I am a current subscriber to Purple Carrots' TB12 meal kit. I have been reporting my results on the Dinner! thread but will post here from now on. I will say that I am very pleased with the food, and it is definitely saving me money and massively cutting down on food waste. I have an unusual setup in that Mon-Thurs it is just my husband and myself, but Fri-Sun I have a minimum of six and as many as 12 people to feed dinner to. So, I have been doing Purple Carrot Tue-Thu, eating my fish share on Mondays, and then just shopping for the weekend. After factoring in the cost of the meal kit, I would estimate my weekly grocery savings to be around 25%. One big problem with meal kits is the amount of packaging. The recycling rules in my town allow me to recycle 100% of the packing materials, but if that was not the case it would probably give me pause. There are a lot of little plastic bags and containers to deal with.

Last night I grilled a beer can chicken and a ribeye steak sautéed some shredded brussel sprouts and made a baked cheesey pasta with cauliflower and capers

Thursday's Purple Carrot meal was mung bean dal with popped sorghum and (gluten free) flatbread. I was not thrilled by the idea of this meal, but the dal was actually very pleasant and the sorghum gave it a nice crunch when mixed in. The gluten free flatbread though...let's just say that I am glad I don't have celiac disease. I'll be sticking with gluten-ful naan going forward. Last night, lettuce wraps and pineapple rice

I have been very good about not buying cookbooks lately because my long awaited renovation of my cookbook shelving is about to begin, but your series of photos of recipes from this book has had me wavering, and this photo sent me over the edge. Book ordered.

I had some leftover vegetable paella from dinner the other night--the last leftovers in my fridge. For sad desk lunch today I heated it up, drained the oil off a small tin of Ortiz tuna in olive oil and added that in along with the juice of half a lemon and salt and pepper. Leftovers gone just in time for the weekend.

This meal was another Purple Carrot TB12 recipe, and they called it a vinaigrette. It was roasted peppers, walnuts, olive oil, lemon juice, pomegranate molasses, cumin, Aleppo pepper, scallions, and salt and pepper all blended together. Basically on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays I am doing Purple Carrot TB12 until I get bored with it. I've been substituting things when I want--like Tuesday's salmon dish was supposed to be made with tofu, but I like salmon better.

Roasted Japanese sweet potato with ras al hanout coated crispy chickpeas, sautéed kale, muhamurra vinaigrette, and cucumber-parsley salad.

Teriyaki salmon with coconut cauliflower "rice" and spicy cucumbers

It was very easy to make. I sauteed two onions, two bell peppers, and four cloves of garlic in olive oil until tender, then added two cups of rice, a good pinch of saffron, and about 1 tsp. each of smoked paprika and cumin, and cooked for a few minutes. Then I added about three cups of stock, salt and pepper, and brought to a boil, and topped with a pint of cherry tomatoes and a package of thawed artichoke hearts, I then baked it at 400 for about 25 minutes. When it came out of the oven, I squeezed over a lemon and topped it with fava beans and parsely, plus a "walnut chorizo" which was just walnuts ground up in a food processor with some olive oil, salt and chorizo seasoning. This made six servings. I got the idea from one of the recipes that came in my Purple Carrot box last week, but I needed more than two servings so bumped up all of the vegetables and used paella rice instead of the brown basmati rice that came in the Purple Carrot box.

Today is a holiday in MA so we ate an early dinner. Vegetable paella and baked cod with capers and olives

I had planned to make roasted rack of lamb and asparagus risotto for Easter dinner, but the forecast was unexpectedly warm--87 degrees--so the racks of lamb went into the freezer and I made schwarma instead. Lamb from the cookbook Jerusalem: chicken from the current edition of Food and Wine pita (an old recipe from Fine Cooking magazine) salad there was also rice pilaf and baba ganoush--also from Jerusalem, plus a couple of sauces for the meats.

Thanks! Come back soon, but maybe not this weekend. :-) The city is jammed with people for the marathon. I left work early yesterday and it took me an extra 20 minutes to walk to the train because of all the people checking in for the race and milling around in general. Early dinner tonight. My niece turned her nose up at our menu and so made some sushi on her own from the leftover tuna I bought for her poke bowl last night. Adults had Vietnamese flavored chicken salad

Last night, a tuna poke bowl for my niece (onions omitted) Warm lobster rolls for the adults

@shain, lovely photos, especially the beets! I could eat that whole plate. Tonight, beluga lentil tacos.

After last night's decadent scallop sandwich, it was time to delve into this week's TB12 Purple Carrot box. Pasta "alfredo." The pasta was made from chickpeas and the sauce is vegan: made with cauliflower, shallots, garlic, lemon, macadamia nuts, cashews, almond milk, and nutritional yeast. This was my first experience cooking with any kind of gluten free pasta. It was not bad, but I would certainly not choose it if I was given the option to have regular pasta. Served with an arugula-raddichio salad.

Scallop sandwich with rosemary fries

Today's salad: arugula, red onion, feta, tomatoes, artichokes, chickpeas, and Israeli couscous with a red wine vinaigrette. I should have added some roasted peppers and olives

antipasto plate

Thanks! I am hoping that it might cut down on food waste in my kitchen, and introduce some different plant based ideas to our diet. I'll still have Monday and the weekends to cook whatever I like. Last night, pasta norma

Purple Carrot #3: crispy turnip cakes with za'atar yogurt and kumquat quinoa tabouli. That's for for box #1, so it's back to my own ideas for dinner for the next few days.