Tuesday, June 23, 2009

early breakfast: cereal bar - blueberry

breakfast: eggs and canned organic peas... plus Javana organic coffee (Fair Trade, too--Breakfast Blend)

snack: organic apple

lunch: rice pasta with sauce

snack: organic nectarine for Matthew, 2 organic peaches for mommy

snack: organic pear for Matthew

dinner: some taco-ish concoction Mike made with ground turkey, potatoes and other stuff we had in the house (mostly seasonings). Served over rice. This was day 2 of this for dinner.

dessert: organic Valencia oranges for all



Seriously going to start Feingold. It's like Matthew's been drinking Red Bull lately--I swear.

Co-op delivery, Sat. June 20, 2009

Veggie share had:

8 carrots
12 medium red potatoes
1 eggplant (relatively big)
English peas--a brown paper lunch bag about half full
1 medium sized Napa cabbage
2 bunches of ENORMOUS collards (1 was instead of a second escarole)
1 head of escarole
1 bunch of parsley
1 bunch of dill
3 heads of lettuce (2 small, 1 large)
1 pint grape tomatoes

1 pineapple
5 Valencia oranges
4 Jonagold apples
1 bunch bananas (about 6-7 pieces)



Fruit share had:

3 med. peaches
4 med. nectarines
1 mango
3 lb. bag of Granny Smith apples (blech... but Mike will be in his glory)
1 pint of blueberries


The only real problem I have is that our green side dish will be collards and salad for a while--but that's what's in season here and our co-op actually tries to stick with what's available local whenever they can. And really, it's better eatin' than what's coming from the CSA alone. ;)

CSA pickup--Friday, 6/19

We got...

handful of pea shoots
enough mesclun mix for 2 side salads for Mike and I
TINY bunch of very small beets. Not sure what to do with these
Bunch of salad turnips... what are those?
bunch of kale
more lemon balm (which is good 'cause the tea was awesome)
3 sprigs of oregano
bunch of scallions


Tomorrow is coop delivery. Wheeeeee....

Friday, June 19, 2009

early breakfast: cereal bar (blueberry)

breakfast: french toast made with GF bread, eggs and pumpkin pie spice

snack: organic red bartlett pear

lunch: PB&J on GF bread

snack: banana

dinner... to be determined. Likely skirt steak grilled with mesclun greens in balsamic vinegar and canned non-organic beets.

Monday, June 15, 2009

early breakfast: organic pineapple chunks (Mike and I ate the rest of them last night for late munchies)

breakfast: plain eggs scrambled with some spices

snack: organic red bartlett pear

lunch: skirt steak fried with corn on the cob. Apparently, whole corn isn't an issue. Still testing this. Mike and I also had salad (greens, EVOO, white vinegar & salt). Matthew had the last of the organic tomatoes (in wedges)

snack: ummmm... good one. Pretzel rod.

dinner: chicken breasts, canned sliced beets (non-organic), salad. Remarkably, Matthew tried and ate all of it!

Friday, June 12, 2009

breakfast: scrambled eggs with canned organic peas (and just water)

snack: organic banana... then a Koala Kids Chocolate crispy rice bar (which contains corn starch--as I found only after he started opening it)

lunch: fried (in EVOO) chicken breasts, canned organic peas and fresh pea shoots with balsamic vinegar. Matthew ditched the shoots.

snack: potato chips

dinner: bottom round roast cooked on the stove in herbs (thyme, marjoram, garlic, pepper, onions), kale (wilted in EVOO with garlic and sliced scallions) and rice (with pot drippings)

dessert: watermelon (conventional/non-organic)

We joined a CSA

So, the coop is now down to one group that gets food every other Saturday. I'm stunned that when 3 families (with children) split a share it was too much food where for just us (2 adults and a 5yo) it's not nearly enough. I mean, it's worth the $49--it's just not enough. When I had two groups getting food almost a week apart, we could just take a share on each delivery. That's no longer the case.

So we joined a CSA farm. This is where you pay a fee to "join" the farm and each week you get a share of the farm's harvest. In this area, a lot of the farm shares are sold out by March. But we re-joined our former CSA--the Cook (Rutgers) Student Organic Farm. You have to drive out to the farm to pick up your food on Thursday afternoon/evening or Friday morning. Many of the other CSAs here in NJ offer a local pickup point much like my coop members have for the coop.

So we got ourselves in just under the gun to pickup for the first time today. YAY!!! So that will be every week to supplement what we get through the coop. I'm hoping it won't be overkill. We'll see. I'm heavily armed with Green Bags. I love that it's local produce but I live in NJ--so growing season isn't year-round. And you don't get the same amount or variety of fruit that you can get with the coop.

Today's CSA pickup included:

2 large handfuls of mesclun mix
2 handfuls of lettuce
1 nice bunch of kale (so, a little more than needed to feed Mike and I for 1 meal, or to feed us for 2 meals if we don't have HUGE portions. Matthew is a non-kale eater due to texture)
1 bunch of scallions (no clue what I'm doing with these yet)
1 bunch of turnips that looked like radishes
1 handful of pea shoots (pretty flowers that you can eat!)

There was a sign to take as much lemon balm and sage as we could use. I skipped the sage, but saw that lemon balm was good for headaches and tension... Mike and I looked at each other and proced to take about 6-7 whole stems of it and are brewing some tea as we speak. Wish we'd taken more!

I love this CSA. I especially loved the newsletters--which were written in true college kid style, as if for the eyes of their own. By the end of the summer, we knew who was involved in a romance, who had no chance of EVER being involved in a romance, who slacked off (lovingly) on the farm, who drank too much, etc. Having never met any of them, we grew to love them week by week through stories, recipes and occasional veggie haiku.

I'm glad we got in this year. :)

Thursday, June 11, 2009

breakfast: scramble eggs with Taylor ham

snack: apple (non-organic, compliments of the school psychologist that tested Matthew for 2-1/2 hours and still didn't finish :( )

lunch: rice pasta with sauce (and water)

snack: skipped... we were horribly on the run from 3pm until 7pm

dinner: Wendy's again... :(

"bed snack": two rice crackers

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

breakfast: eggs with Taylor ham

snack: rice crackers

lunch: tuna on GF bread for mom & dad; hot dogs and canned organic green beans for Matthew (and water for all)

snack: organic banana (mom had an organic white peach)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

early breakfast: organic blueberries (the 2nd half)

breakfast: eggs with taylor ham plus coffee for mom and dad followed by a FruitaBu fruit roll for Matthew

snack: organic apple

lunch: Burger King: hamburger with tomato and pickle for Matthew with safe apple juice and apple fries (we always take the packet of caramel away). Mike and I had fish sandwiches and split a fry. We had water

snack: rice crackers

dinner: chicken breast with canned organic green beans again. I'm pretty sure that was "it".

Monday, June 8, 2009

early breakfast: half of the organic blueberries we rec'd on Saturday

breakfast: scrambled eggs with Taylor ham and coffee for mom & dad

snack: organic banana

lunch: hamburger patty with tomato wedges and a pickle

snack: organic apple and a few rice crackers

dinner: chicken breast (non-organic) grilled with some spices plus canned organic green beans, "salad" (lettuce with salt, EVOO and white vinegar) plus more tomato wedges (since Matthew doesn't do lettuce)

Matthew and I went to the movies and had some plain popcorn and another Jello pudding that we smuggled in... plus water.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

early breakfast: cereal bar

breakfast: eggs scrambled with canned organic peas plus coffee for mom & dad

snack: rice crackers

lunch: at Wendy's--and they'll serve a burger without a bun, btw. So Matthew had a hamburger (with bun) with pickle and tomato but no ketchup. Side of mandarin oranges and bottled water to drink. Mike and I had grilled chicken sandwiches with fries and bottled water. Matthew ate 4-5 of our fries.

snack: fruit cup from Quik Chek (we were on the road). It had melon, red grapes and pineapple pieces. Non-organic. Mike and I had apple wedges (they give you caramel to dip it in--BLECH! Tasted horrible) and I also had some diced peaches that were surprisingly packed in pear concentrate syrup--not corn syrup! Go, Quik Chek!!!

dinner: well, you'll see from my food shopping post that we bought a ribeye steak (just under 1 lb.) and split it among the 3 of us. We also used some of the organic lettuce from the coop delivery for salad. I should note that salad in Mike's family equals: lettuce, olive oil, salt and white vineghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifar. I never manage to get the combination correct--but I'm getting there. Matthew and I also had organic tomato wedges. We all snacked on some cooked shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce (impossible to find without corn or soy). It's just ketchup and horseradish (which I DID find "safe" in the ethnic section of my regular grocery).

And we had corn on the cob. :O I caught wind of a post on a message board about allergenic foods noting that many people could have "whole" corn, but had SERIOUS problems with corn derivatives. We're wondering if this is Matthew's issue because he HAS ingested some popcorn (plain) with no problem, but CLEARLY has a problem with corn that is in something else--especially corn syrup.

I'm going to look at a website I've actually never seen before: Kids With Food Allergies

For dessert, we had some Jello Pudding in cups. It contains dairy (and soy lecithin--which is presumably safe for people with soy protein allergy). Mistake on our part: we allowed multiple questionable items in a single day and therefore any reactions can't be tied to ONE of them. Shame on us.

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Post script on Monday, June 8, 2009 @ 10:47am

No obvious intestinal backlash from the milk. Matthew had a "sad" episode this morning, but they've become SO common that I seriously can't tie them to food anymore (although they may be). I'm finally ready to see a therapist about this. That being said, it was absolutely not the worst morning we've ever had with him.

He had almost an hour of school testing (for special ed services) and really did well--he was even pretty focused. Vewwwwwy intewesting. ;)

Coop delivery

We got a delivery yesterday. From now on, we only have a Saturday group--which means food every 2 weeks. It's not enough for us so I'm investigating the CSA we used to belong to. It was cheaper than most because you had to go get your food every week and they weren't certified organic. It was a student-run organic farm for a local agriculture program. It's a little cheaper than the others, but more family-like. :)

So today we got a veggie and a fruit share:



This picture is entirely the veggie share minus some of the fruit. We got:

2 large eggplants (one was in the "take some--extra" box and I live here so I get first dibs :) )
about 8 large carrots
1 head of celery (nice sized!)
4 ears of corn
5 medium yellow squash
1 head of green leaf lettuce (all the way to the left-top of the photo)
1 bunch of VERY large, beautiful radishes (that I generally don't eat)
2 bunches of spinach
1 pint of blueberries
1 large bunch of cilantro (this with the carrots might make a nice summer soup)
2 heads of baby lettuce (you can see one to the right of the celery and eggplants)
2 relatively large tomatoes


Also in the veggie share but in the photo below were:

8 pink lady apples
1 large bunch of bananas
4 white peaches




The rest of the photo above is from the fruit share:

4 lb. bag of Valencia oranges (so about 7 really big ones)
1 pineapple
bag of red Bartlett pears (about 8 of them--medium/large sized)
1 honeydew melon (small/medium sized)


The veggie share costs my members $49 and the fruit shares cost them $17.

To be honest, cost aside--you can't generally find this broad a range and variety of organic produce where I live. And currently, the cost is as good or better than non-organic produce. :)


Right now, we also have on board some potato chips, hummus, lots of eggs from the ladies, some rice crackers and some rice pasta. I think we also have maybe 2 boxes of bread mix for the bread machine. There's about 2 cans of tuna left, plenty of homemade grape jelly and maybe 1-2 jars of peanut butter (not positive).

We're seriously out of meat. There are some leftover potatoes, carrots (in green bags), a few apples and oranges, 4 kiwis--in addition to what we just got. And onions. Plenty of onions.

I think that's the bulk of what we have on hand.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

early breakfast: crispy rice bar--chocolate. huge mistake. Not nearly enough protein.

breakfast: plain scrambled eggs (well, there's some spices in there, but nothing else) and coffee for mom & dad

snack: skipped due to swim class

lunch: PB&J on GF bread that came out AWESOME. 365 brand from Whole Foods made in the bread maker with nobody home--so it rose really well. Honest-to-God, the best GF bread I have ever tasted.



snack: will be peeled baby carrots

dinner: will be meatballs with rice pasta

Monday, June 1, 2009

early breakfast: rice bar (Koala Kids--chocolate I think)

breakfast: eggs--scrambled, plus coffee for mom and dad

snack: banana

lunch: Burger King... no ketchup--tomato and pickle with apple fries and apple juice (for Matthew). We were wicked on the run.

snack: rice crackers

dinner: hamburgers (no buns) with canned string beans and sliced tomatoes