Essentials Box | December 4, 2021

This week’s lineup is all-organic with a couple of locally sourced items:

• Cameo Apples (OPMA)
• Beets (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Carrots (Sound Sustainable Farms)
• Avocado
• Lemon
• Leeks
• Red Leaf Lettuce
• Zucchini
• Sweet Potato

The DGC is also selling a chef’s mix of mushrooms (with Shitake, Oyster, and others), which makes it the perfect time to make Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for leek, mushroom, kale and pea subji. We made it last week (after getting Meera’s book, East), and it’s a tasty, quick meal for midweek that’s also nicely low-carb on its own.

Essentials Box | June 19, 2021

Here’s this week’s all-organic Essentials Box lineup:

• Pink Lady apples
• Lemon
• Bananas
• Green cabbage
• Yellow onion
• Red potatoes
• Yellow squash
• Cilantro (from Dharma Ridge Farm)
• Red leaf lettuce (from Dharma Ridge Farm)

Recipe Starters

This week, DGC volunteer Agen Schmitz provides some starting thoughts for what to do with the contents of this week’s produce box.

One of the most game-changing recipes I’ve discovered in recent years comes from Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen (by Richa Hingle) is her Cabbage with Mustard Seeds and Coconut. I cook Indian dishes a lot at our house, and this recipe is a great way to use up a bunch of cabbage you have on hand, and we often use it as a base instead of rice to reduce our carbs.

It uses 3 cups of shredded cabbage, 1/2 cup of shredded coconut, and a 1/2 cup of finely chopped onion (either red or yellow).

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add some mustard seeds for a minute. Then add the onions and a finely chopped green chile plus curry leaves (we prefer dried fenugreek leaves, or you can use some marjoram). Cook about 6 minutes, then add the cabbage and 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric. Cover and cook for 15 minutes (stirring once halfway through).

Next, add the shredded coconut and 1 teaspoon of salt, mix well, and reduce the heat to medium low. Cover and cook until cabbage is cooked through (about 10 minutes; add a tablespoon of water to deglaze if necessary). Stir and cook uncovered for a couple minutes if too wet, and serve hot.

Essentials Box Feb 26th, 2021

As always we gracefully request you submit pictures to our instagram of the meals you make from your box especially if you try one of our recipes. 

  • Fuji Apples
  • Avocado
  • Lemon
  • Carrots
  • Celery
  • Yellow peppers
  • Romanesco
  • Spinach

*All Organic

As always we gracefully request you submit pictures to our Facebook and Instagram feeds and using #lovemydgcbox of the meals you make from your box especially if you try one of our recipes. 

Smitty here with this week’s choice selection we have curated for you. We brought you a smorgasbord of offerings (carrots, celery, yellow peppers, Romanesco) to compliment the hummus add-on and below is our tahini-free hummus recipe to create on your own with avocado and fresh lemon for those of us smited with food allergies or just don’t happen to have good tahini lying around. As well as a base for a Creamy Salad Dressing.

Some other ideas for this week:

Pita Sandwiches: To add to the excitement we added some spinach to transfer hummus into fancy pita salad sandwiches if you can get some naan or pita bread from where else you get groceries from. It is a bit off the traditional route but since we brought you Red Leaf Lettuce last week we wanted to switch it up a bit.

Pasta: If you run out of hummus then the romanesco is related to broccoli, with some of the yellow peppers (if you have any left) and spinach chopped up and added to pasta with some butter like substance of your choice and dried italian herbs namely basil and chopped garlic if you are feeling spicy. Add some nuts to make it a pesto with the spinach. Pine nuts are traditional but i also love using walnuts and hempseeds instead.

Salad: I have been on a simple salad kick and probably will eat the spinach as a salad with the avocado and yellow peppers, curls of beet and carrot, topped with a creamy dressing, i am adding my base below. I am nuts for nuts so they go on everything. Walnuts have been my favorite lately, they are also high in omega fatty acids like avocados.

Celery Boats: Since I still like to bring joy to food i will also likely create boats out of celery stalks and fill them with hummus or nut butter. Sometimes I even put ants (raisins) on top (of the nut butters). Why should kids get all the fun food. I have found that carrots and apples also make good receptacles for nut butter. For some of you this might seem like common sense but not everyone comes from that life. Learning to feed myself was something i had to figure out as a young person in the world alone. Bringing joy to food and joyful food to people has been a nourishment to my soul for many years since i started working in kitchens. During this time we need to remember to nourish our souls as well. 

One of my first cooking jobs was at a Greek Restaurant where it was completely unheard of to make hummus without tahini. Good tahini too, if it is too old or processed bad it will ruin your hummus. Finding out i was allergic to sesame was one of the saddest moments of my life. I have tried many recipes since to replicate that consistency and avocados have worked the best.

Avocados really help replace the fat of tahini that is what helps make it a good hummus. Avocados are a good source of biotin, a b vitamin that helps our skin and hair by improving the keratin infrastructure but are really just good for everything. Healthline speaks to the 20+ vitamins, lowering cholesterol, helping you lose weight, and more potassium than bananas. As an athlete and bike commuter that and good sources of fat for my body to burn off are always a win! Healthy fat helps you feel full sooner and longer. Avocados are among those healthy fats such as in salmon, trout, olive oil, nuts. These contain Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) form of omega-3s. Fwiw, i am not recommending Healthline as a goto source of information but it is easier for me to link to a piece someone already wrote than to (re)write that article. It is consistent with previous data sources on nutrition that i have researched. 

Avocado Hummus

I found a couple recipes (1,2,3) online for avocado hummus. They are all sameish to what i would estimate i use. Basically throw all this into a food processor and you are good to go. Process until creamy, chunky hummus is no good.

  • 1 cup or can of Garbanzo Beans
  • 1 avocado
  • 1-3 cloves of garlic (some like it hot, the heat is on)
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • cumin, salt and pepper to taste
  • optional coriander
  • optional fresh paprika to sprinkle on top (is this really optional though)
  • optional chop up the spinach and add it at the end

Creamy Dressing Base

  • Fat
    • Avocado
    • Cashews (soaked)
    • Olive oil
  • Sour
    • lemon juice
    • apple cider or other vinegar
    • unsweetened Kefir
  • Herbs
    • Dill makes it ranch style
    • Basil makes a pesto flavored
    • Cilantro