Eat your veggies
Dec 6, 2003
We get an Urban Organic delivery each week. Neither of us buy into the organic food cult but this particular service pushes a number of buttons:
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variety - We were stuck in a rut, buying the same foods and making the same meals. Maria wanted us to eat more vegetables. Now we open the box and figure out what to make. They include a newsletter with recipes in the box but we usually find our own.
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automatic - We know that every Tuesday there will be a box of fresh vegetables and fruits waiting for us.
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home delivery - Until Fresh Direct realizes that Manhattan doesn’t stop at 125th street, this is the best option.
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quality - We’ve yet to receive produce that wasn’t in very good condition which makes you wonder why so often the produce at the other groceries (excepting Fairway) looks like it was trampled.
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value - You get a lot of produce for $33 and it’s a healthy challenge to eat all the veggies.
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So we got this squash in the last box. It was big. Maria doesn’t like the traditional preparations of squash all that much. Over the past few weeks I roasted and ate a couple of small ones when she was out and we made a mash from one and used one in a pilaf but this one was too big for that. What to do with it? Maria came up with an answer: Ravioli. Okay, I’m game.
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We split, seeded and quartered it and roasted it covered with a little water in the pan. Once it cooled we scooped the flesh into a bowl and stirred in 8 oz. of Ricotta, (a lot) of salt, some fresh ground nutmeg and a little black pepper. Despite the cheery example of Mario Batali on the Food Network, making pasta, especially without a machine, is the private domain of Italian grandmothers. Neither of us have had someone transgress the omerta of turning semolina into pasta not paste, so we substituted gyoza wrappers. We put a scant tablespoon of filling in the center and then a dab of water on the edge and fold and crimp the dumpling. After making forty we put the remaining filling into a freezer bag for later use in a lasagna.