Buckwheat Adventure and Egg Surprise – Winter Farm Share Week 9

Buckwheat Adventure and Egg Surprise kicks off our 9th week in Fresh Fork Market’s Vegetarian Pilot program. I think what I’ve learned the most by participating in a farm share is flexibility. The hardest part is fighting myself when I decide I want mushrooms with the pork chops I’ve taken out of the freezer. I’ve learned to be flexible with myself and Mr. Carnivore’s wants as well. Sometimes we’re just NOT going to do what we’re supposed to do! HA

Week 9 our small Vegetarian farm share included (featured photo at top of this post is full vegetarian share)…

Apples – 6
Frozen Broccoli Soup – 1 quart in one container
Frozen Curried Cauliflower Soup – 1 quart in two containers
Frozen Corn – 1 pint
Frozen Blueberries – 1 pint
Frozen Pizza Dough – 2
Mozzarella – 8 ounces
Grape Cider – 1 quart
Tomato Sauce – 1 pint
Eggs – 1 dozen
Sweet Potatoes – 3 lbs
Buckwheat
Onion (missing)
Kale (missing – damaged in weather)

My half of the Vegetarian small share Week 9 (above photo) and what’s left since Wednesday, February 10, 2016…

Apples – 3 – just 1 left – delicious!
Frozen Broccoli Soup – 1 quart in one container – delicious! It wasn’t as spicy this time and we loved it.
Frozen Curried Cauliflower Soup – 1 pint
Frozen Corn – 1/2 pint
Frozen Blueberries – 1/2 pint –  I’m not eating as many of these this week so they’re not quite gone yet.
Frozen Pizza Dough – 1
Mozzarella – 8 ounces – I stay away from fatty cheese so my parents took this
Grape Cider – 1 pint
Tomato Sauce – 1 pint
Eggs – 1/2 dozen – scramble times three got us down to 1 dozen eggs left in the fridge
Sweet Potatoes – 1.5 lbs – ours is a HUGE sweet potato that will go for 2 meals or dinner for 4
Buckwheat – 1 lb – enjoyed 1 cup dry and still have plenty left.

Added

1 dozen eggs

RESULTS…

Unpacking our bag each week is always an adventure. Even though we get a list of what to expect, there are sometimes some surprises. This week we were supposed to get Spelt Berries but somehow we ended up with Buckwheat. I look at these little mishaps as an adventure. I emailed for help because I had no idea what to do with Buckwheat, and Fresh Fork Market got back to me with some great links.

I checked out How to Cook Buckwheat Kasha at Natasha’s Kitchen and she has several other Buckwheat related links. Here’s another one for Buckwheat Porridge at Bonappetit. I ended up cooking the Buckwheat in our Rice Cooker, then I added some Kale and Red Onion using a recipe I got from my sister-in-law for Quinoa. I didn’t toast the Buckwheat, but I think I’d like it better toasted as state in the recipe at Natasha’s Kitchen. It was good and very filling but it made too much for the two of us. I should have divided the cooked Buckwheat in half to have some leftover for breakfast the next day, which is what I’ll do next time. We’re not big on repeating side dishes for several meals so I need to be able to use the grains I fix in a multitude of ways when fixing large amounts in the Rice Cooker.

The eggs were a last minute add to our share that we didn’t know about ahead of time and they made me laugh. We had a half dozen eggs in the fridge, but had ordered another dozen to have on hand. When we ended up with another dozen to split between my parents and us, it became  a “looks like we’re having eggs for dinner” moment. And we did. Also, instead of going out to eat on Sunday after church the last two weeks, we stayed home and hubby made us his delicious scramble. We both agreed his breakfast was much better than going out – he’s a pro at creating interesting scrambles. This week it was “ham off the bone” slices and cheese chunks. Yum!

I especially appreciate the soups because they’re not the type of soup I make so they’re adding variety to my meal planning without a lot of effort. It was a joy one night to have the Broccoli soup with some Chicken I had already prepared and froze. That’s another thing that participating in a farm share has done for us. I buy meat when it’s on sale, fix a large batch, then freeze it in smaller packages to take out for easy meals. This time I did this with Split Chicken Breasts with this idea at Rachel Cooks. This is a super simple and inexpensive way to add to your meal planning. I think the Split Chicken Breasts I got were a total of $10.00. I put up 4-5 quart size baggies with cooked chicken, plus we ate some for dinner. That means we’ll be able to stretch that $10.00 amount of Chicken to 5 or more meals.

I also had Sloppy Joes frozen that Mr. Carnivore took out for himself for lunch when he wanted something else besides ham. I’m eyeballing the frozen homemade chili soup for lunch sometime this week. There is an advantage to trying to cook for 2 — we always seem to have leftovers so the freezer gets a good workout.

I did end up fixing those Pork Chops with Mushroom gravy, a skillet recipe I’ll share soon. The onion was the only farm share item I used in that recipe.

An onion got missed in our share this week and the Kale was damaged. I’m sure it was damaged in the weather because we were in the middle of a white-out when I picked up our share. There’s no way things can go perfectly when the weather is fighting all of us and I neglected to check my bag before I left the truck. That’s something I usually do every pick-up day because it’s easier on the farm share and easier on us. But since I injured my knee and the weather has been bad, I’d rather just get home where I’m sure I won’t slip and fall again.

The rest of the week has been fairly busy so my cooking has been in “as quick as possible” mode. We had some frozen fish and leftovers several times so I didn’t do anything too adventurous. I need to do a freezer inventory to see if we need to shop for meat. I think I have plenty of chicken, fish and pork roasts frozen, so all we might need is some beef. Beef prices have been high so we may do without that for a while longer.

I need to use up some of the beans I’ve stockpiled so a bean cooking day for freezing needs to happen. I was waiting to get some more room in the freezer and it’s finally down enough to squeeze in some prepared items. I really need to get busy on some soups to use up the root vegetables we’ve been stockpiling and I love beans in soup to add some extra protein. Now to find the ambition to spend a couple days in the kitchen! Whew! Winter makes me lazy!

What’s your fork, knife and spatula been up to? Happy eating!

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