eveglass | Lufa Farms basket

Week three of my Lufa Farms basket! And this week it's all random, all the time!

Here's what I got this week:

Blue plums (free sample) -- The same blue plums we got last week. They were on the verge of over-ripe last week and not doing too much better this week. We ate them both tonight because they were really on their last legs.

Green onions ($2.00) -- Very nice quality and a big bunch. Good value. No clue what I'm gonna do with most of it, though.

Not pretty but quite tasty ($4.50) -- This week's package included an English cucumber (worth $2.90, a little scarring but fine for crudités), two bundles of small rainbow carrots (worth $3.50, about 300 g, generally fine), a red pepper (worth $2.75, good quality, would have been fine for crudités but I used it in a soup), and two tomatoes (the first, worth around $1.00, had a little ripping on the skin but was fine; the other was huge but mouldy and had to be thrown out). Note that they increased the price of the package this week, up from $3.00, and the value of the food was a little lower. So, while still a good deal at over half-off, it's not the uber-awesome deal it's been for the past two weeks.

Bundle against food waste ($16.50) -- This was an experiment for me. The concept is simliar to "not pretty but quite tasty", but includes things other than just produce. This week I got 2 litres of 3.25% milk (worth $4.50), about a half-pound of sriracha ham cold-cuts (worth $6.50), a package of mixed mushrooms, a container of garlic sauce (worth $4.75), and a pint of cherry tomatoes (worth $3.50, okay but not as good as the ones from the last two weeks). While most of them looked fine, they are also mostly the sort of thing I don't eat, so I gifted everything but the tomatoes to a friend. The total retail value in the Lufa store would have been $19.25. Whether a $2.75 savings on things that I mostly gave away counts as a "good deal" will remain to be seen.

I spent a long time in the kitchen tonight. Like, three hours in the kitchen. It had already been a long day at work, and then I had to do groceries after bringing home the Lufa order. (I have weak, tiny arms, okay?!) And then I was hungry and had supper. So by the time I finally started cooking it was 7:45, and by the time I was done and had put everything away, done the dishes, swept the kitchen, and taken down the trash, it was almost 11:00 pm. Ouch.

Here's what I did with my time:

Strained some crock-pot bone broth I'd started up last night. I had about 7 cups worth but used half of it in a soup. (See next item.)

Made up a vegetable soup consisting of a package of mirepoix I'd pre-made and frozen a while ago, two of the green onions, some ginger I had in the fridge, about three cups of roast carrots from last week's Lufa package, the little carrots from this week's package, the good tomato, the red pepper, the rest of last week's sage, about half the bone broth, a half-cup of leftover cooked rice, and a bunch of vaguely Indian-ish spices. It yielded about 10 cups of puréed soup.

Made about 3/4 cup of extremely tasty if-I-do-say-so-myself pesto, consisting of all the remaining basil on last week's potted plant, about 3/4 cup pine nuts, some parmesean cheese, olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Cut up the cucumber for crudités.

Cut up 4 onions, 10 carrots, and 10 stalks of celery to make mirepoix that I can package and freeze for later use. I'm down to my last two packages from my last batch cooking, and I had the carrots and celery from the bone broth. I was getting seriously fatigued towards the end, so the actual cooking of the mirepoix will need to wait until Thursday.

Here's what it looks like:

I feel like I should have more to show for three hours of work, but oh well. It is what it is. Still remaining to do: cut up the green onions and cook the mirepoix. That'll happen on Thursday, probably.

I won't be getting Lufa orders for the next two weeks, due to the Jewish holidays, but I should be back after that. I'll have to decide if I actually want to do the "bundle against food waste" again. I feel like I should give it a few tries just to see if this week's experience of "it looks good but I don't eat any of it" was a fluke.

And now it's definitely my bedtime. G'night all.

Lufa Farms basket - Sept. 27, 2016