FoodShare GFB Diaries - Meal Planning and Cranberry Scones
Let’s get cooking with the FoodShare GFB! A purpose-driven produce delivery subscription that supports community food justice, and that offers a surprise veggie and fruit selection every time. Check the GFB Diaries Part 1 for more info.
The GFB Diaries series shares my recipe ideas and tips, coming from a pretty decent home cook (ask my foodie friends!), who does like to take shortcuts to save time (there will be microwave usage), and follows a primarily lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (but does occasionally consume pasture-raised, humanely-treated meat & poultry and sustainable seafood).
Note: The recipe ideas are just rough guidelines, or links to other tested recipes. Since this is just my hobby, I’m not in a position to provide recipes with specific measurements, techniques and calorie info - because that’s a full time job in itself!
I get the small organic box, weekly, for a household of 2 lacto-ovo vegetarian adults. We also get the Mabel’s sourdough bread loaf add-on - it’s so good! This is what we got this week.
Unboxing - Week of Dec 10
Tuscan kale
Bananas
Apples
White onion
Swiss chard
Sweet potatoes
Mushrooms
Celery
Leek
Lettuce
Cranberries
Curly parsley
So before I get into actual recipe ideas, I’ll share how I approach the box. I usually plan meals based on categories of dishes so it doesn’t become too overwhelming. For instance, in one week I’ll usually make one of each of the following categories:
Rice bowl or donburi or stir-fry (basically veggies, tofu/protein, and some sort of sauce on top of rice)
Pasta (especially when there are bitter greens because my partner doesn’t do bitter but he loves pasta)
Salad (leafy, grain-based or pulse-based)
Soup (because I have an immersion blender that I love to use)
Sandwich (so easy, and we do frequently get lettuce)
Curry (good vehicle for leafy greens like collard greens, spinach, callaloo)
Roasted veggies (or in the summer time, grilled veggies)
It makes pantry stocking easier as well. I know that I will always need white and brown rice, quinoa or faro, pasta, broth, chickpeas or lentils, canned tomatoes, cooking oil and finishing oil, condiments and spices that typically go into these dishes. So I usually have what I need on hand.
Because my approach is to keep it simple, flexible, so I’m not tied to a specific recipe and set of ingredients. I use what I have on hand, so I’m not shopping multiple times for different ingredients. Nothing feels more culinarily rewarding than creating something yummy that clears out your fridge or freezer before the contents go to waste.
For instance, I’ve received beautiful fresh cranberries for a few weeks, and I’ve collected them in my freezer because there’s only so much cranberry sauce one can cook, eat or freeze (this one is my fave cranberry sauce recipe). This week I decided to also get rid of the bread flour sitting in my freezer (a remnant of failed pandemic bread making) so I decided to make a low sugar cranberry quick bread by adapting a banana bread recipe from memory (albeit a foggy memory). The dough turned into more of a scone consistency, so I grabbed a cookie scoop and made mini scones. Which turned out to be delicious.
I know I just said I wouldn’t provide specific measurements, but this is a baked good and baking does require some precision.
Cranberry mini scones
2 cups bread flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
optional 1 tsp almond extract (I used Disaronno liqueur because I didn’t have any extract)
1/2 tsp orange zest
1 bag of fresh or frozen cranberries
Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together dry ingredients. Whisk wet ingredients together in separate bowl. Slowly fold in dry ingredients to wet ingredients until sticky dough forms. Add cranberries. Using cookie scoop, scoop onto parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until bottoms look light brown. Cool on wire rack.
This is the second in the GFB Diaries series of posts.