The Weekly Wrap: November 19, 2023

On Tuesday, we received the last delivery from our farm share. It was our first time doing this and it turned out to be a rather tasty experience. It also was an education. 

This week, I wanted to share some things we learned over the past few months:

• Be flexible with meal planning. In the past, I used to plan our entire menu on Friday. I could not do that when we didn't know what would be in our bag each Tuesday. Thus, I adopted the "pick a protein, cook a veggie on the fly" method. It worked quite well and we rarely had to compost an item from our share.
• My lunch meal prep did the heavy lifting with using veggies the other people in my family do not enjoy. I would search my recipe archive based on these ingredients to decide what to make. That led to some great finds - like marinated cauliflower salad.
• It was important to process each bag the day we received it. On Tuesday night, I would inventory the contents, bag greens with paper towels, separate root veggies from their tops, remove rubber bands, and freeze anything we knew we could use later.
• Subscribing to The Farm Share Newsletter was a great help. So many menu and how to ideas.
• It's really fun to try new foods! I've never had an Asian pear before. They are delightfully sweet and crisp.
• Roasting and pickling are your friend. Roasting works for almost every veggie and proved an easy way to make a side to our protein. Pickling items was a convenient way to use items we would not eat right away but could not freeze. We've got some pickled radishes in our fridge right now and I like to add them to sandwiches or on top of other entrees.

Have you ever had a farm share? What did you learn?

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• A call to savor. [enJOY]
• College has changed. Students and faculty are still figuring out how to adjust. [The Chronicle of Higher Education - may be paywalled]
• Narrow traffic lanes are safer. [Greater Greater Washington]
• If you need a pick me up, look at these funny animal pictures. [Colossal]
• Break these resume formatting rules. [Career Contessa]
• Ocean wave energy is intensifying. [WaPo - gift link]

• The rising cost of fish and chips. [The Indicator]
• AI is the very definition of "beg forgiveness later." [Planet Money]
• School vouchers aren't necessarily better. [The Indicator]
• Turkey tips. [Life Kit]
• A look at the history of Hamas. [Throughline]
• The science behind cutting down on salt. [Short Wave]
• My new "archival" listen podcast is The Kitchen Sisters Present. These two episodes I found particularly good.
  • Make Coffee Black Again [Kitchen Sisters]
  • Archiving the Underground — Hip Hop at Harvard & Cornell [Kitchen Sisters]

• Our kiddo is really into Fancy Nancy at the moment. She adores the books and also enjoys watching the animated show. She clearly sees herself in the main character who is a little girl with crazy, curly hair who likes wearing fancy dresses. I love that there’s a episode that teaches her about collective bargaining and the power of peaceful protest.  [Disney Junior]
• We never got around to watching the final two seasons of Jack Ryan. Since it's been so long since we watched the show, we opted to restart it from season one. I forgot just how good some of the characters are. I also love the complexity the writers gave to the adversaries. There is a lot more going on here than a straightforward action-thriller. [Amazon Prime]

• I am grateful that the last weeks of our farm share came with manageable amounts of kale. At our grocery store, it only comes in HUGE quantities. The farm share had a perfectly sized cluster of leaves that was easy to use. This week, I used it up in Tuscan chicken with white beans and kale. We sous vided our chicken breast and then let it cook off for a few minutes in the bean mix. It was quite good but, I think, would have better with skin on chicken. [Cooking Light via My Evernote]
• We also made oven roasted autumn medley. This is one of our family favorites but we haven't enjoyed it since last fall. Normally, I bake this in a ceramic casserole dish. This time, I tossed everything on a cookie sheet. Not only did it cook faster but everything got a bit more color. I think I will stick with this method in the future. [Budget Bytes]