Weekly Farm Challenge 7/19/12 - 7/26/12

This week we received: green onions, romaine, zucchini, cucumber, cabbage, green pepper, beets, eggplant, summer squash, tomato, potatoes, basil, dill, carrots, and blueberries.

We had a lot of repeat dishes that didn't require photos:  Roasted veggies, haluski, salad, etc.  But some new recipes were tried:

Zucchini and Basil Lasagna - Simple, tasty and even Gramma approved!

Lemon- Blueberry muffins - good and good for you!

Breaded and baked zucchini and eggplant slices.  Not as good as "book club Patti", but not too bad.

New potatoes with dill - Yum!

Sweet Cabbage Salad with carrots and green pepper!  Office tasted and approved - even thought it was store bought!  This may make another appearance at a family reunion!

UPCOMING AUGUST DINNER CLUB

Upcoming Dinner - August


Hostess - Saucy


Whatever You Want Theme - Garden Party

Weekly Farm Challenge 7/12/12 - 7/19/12

This week we received: romaine, swiss chard, zucchini, green beans, summer squash, tomato, potatoes, rosemary, parsley, blueberries and fennel.

It was a hot week, too hot for cooking, but Couscous kicked up the AC and made a carrot and fennel soup and some garlic green beans!

Next week the heat wave should be over, so we may be able to get our creative juices flowing again!!

July - What's in a Name Theme

Grapes put us up to the ultimate challenge this month! 

We had to create our dishes using the letter of our given names (not our blog aliases) for our ingredient and the # of letters in our name for the # of ingredients in our dish!

Paprika started us off with a jalapeno hummus - which had quite a kick by the time dinner rolled around! Yum!

Even though Grapes was entree, she couldn't wait to try out these bloody mary appetizers!  Grape tomatoes, dipped in vodka and old bay seasoning.

Here's an action shot!

Couscous also broke from tradition and brought an additional beverage; a mango and peach sangria!

Tasty and looks pretty in the sunshine!!

Saucy brought a lovely Lebanese mujadara as a side dish; consisting of  lentils, rice, caramelized onions and spices.

And Saucy's wine contribution was a luscious Lieb - a Pinot Blanc.

Grapes entree was a tasty tri-color tortellini with tomatoes.

Paprika's wine selection was a Coppola - Sauvignon Blanc

Couscous' dessert was a homemade mango frozen yogurt with strawberries and toasted coconut for toppings (almost forgot to take the picture!!!)

Grape's crafty decorations sum up our club perfectly:  "Love Vino"!

She also crafted us party favors to take home!

What a fun and creative dinner theme, that once again we meet head on and surpassed all expectations.

Weekly Farm Challenge 7/5/12 - 7/12/12

This week we received:  leaf lettuce, swiss chard,  parsley, cucumber, zucchini, green onions, tomato, and cider!  Between dinner club and travel plans we didn't have time to do anything new and exciting.  See the upcoming July dinner blog entry to see how we used some of our farm foods!  We'll get back to the challenge next week (rumor has it fennel will be in our box of goodies!)

Weekly Farm Challenge 6/27/12 - 7/5/12

This week we received:  radicchio, beets, radishes, green onions, zucchini, swiss chard, garlic scapes, squash blossoms, new potatoes, kale, leaf lettuce, parsley and oregano.  So, how did we do??

Grapes stepped it up and made some awesome goat cheese stuffed squash blossom bruschetta!! Delish!!

While Couscous tried her hand at a squash blossom frittata with zucchini and green onions!  

Quite tasty!

She also challenged herself to try something else with her beets and made a shredded beet salad with carrots and parsely.  But decided she really perfers a plain boiled or roasted beet, sliced with a bit of salt!

Couscous continued her egg theme and made a swiss chard cheese bake with green onions that was just as yummy reheated for breakfast!

Grapes made another attempt at her greens - and found success!  Orzo with swiss chard, garlic scapes, bacon, onion, mushroom and red pepper!

While Couscous tried to find a way to use radicchio besides tossed in a salad.....Spaghetti with radicchio, garlic scapes & carmelized onions!  Not too shabby!

A busy week ahead with the continued holiday weekend (Couscous is taking her veggies on the road to see what magic her hostess can do with them!) and dinner club is next week, but we will surely amaze and surprise ourselves with new farm fresh dishes!!