The Vegetable Chronicles: My First Imperfect Produce Order

It's no secret that vegetables are good for you........I promise, they are. They give you so many nutritional benefits within their micro nutrients that build up nutrient stores and helps your body run efficiently. And one of THE BIGGEST things I struggled with years ago with trying to incorporate more of them was....well....eating them.

I never really had an issue with eating vegetables, I just bought a bunch of them and they'd die because I just didn't know what to do with them and didn't want to make the effort to actually prepare them. With a lot of practice, questionable spinach, moldy mushrooms, and rotted squash....I got better.

One of the cool things about convenience now a days, is that you can get pretty much everything delivered to your door. Enter Imperfect Produce...I found them through friends who've tried it! This is a customizable fruits and veggies delivery service. The fruits and veggies come from farmers just like produce at the store does, only these have imperfections that the grocery stores won't accept, (too small, slim stalks...) but they are still edible and delicious produce! This company allows you to help farmers lessen their food waste! You can choose frequency of delivery and the size of the box and you can customize what you get every shipment.

We still get our frozen veggies from the store, but by getting our box shipped every other week, we will actually save a little money. We got our first box last week and this is how we used our fruits and veggies!!!

We got: Medium box (delivered every other week). In it we got lemons, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, gala apples, pears, asparagus, carrots, avocados, tomatoes, and cucumbers!

Here's what we did with it: Sheet pan Lemon Salmon and Asparagus, Sheet pan Chicken Sausage and Veggies Galore, Salads (duhhh), Guacamole, Carrot Muffins, Sheet pan Chicken Sausage and Potato Medley.

BIG TAKE AWAY HERE: SHEET PANS ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND!!

Lemon Salmon and Asparagus. Frozen Salmon Fillets from COSTCO, seasoned with: Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute and Mrs Dash Lemon Pepper Seasoning. Asparagus tossed in Avocado Oil and seasoned with TJs 21 Seasoning Salute. Put on a pan and pop that sucker in the oven at 380 for 20ish minutes!! We added brown rice to the dish that was put in the rice cooker :)

Chicken Sausage and Veggies Galore. Chicken sausages are Aidelli's from COSTCO. Potatoes are Little Potatoes also from COSTCO, also available at most markets. Spiralized beets are Green Giants Microwavable bags and carrots are from IP! For the beets I microwaved them first and put them on the pan to roast. The carrots were skinned, sliced, and boiled before hand, then added to roast. The potatoes were just cut in half and added to roast. Sausages (pre cooked package) were cut up and added! Sprayed the pan with oil and added salt and pepper, nothing too fancy! Put in the oven for 25 minutes. Voila! >>This was SO filling and incredibly satisfying...veggies will do that to ya ;)

Leftover Salmon from above meal and added to my salads throughout the week ^^^ and added the IP cucumbers to this bad boy. Get yourself a BIG HEARTY SIZED salad bowl and get to work on all those fixins. Worth it.

And some classic guacamole recipe: avocados, tomatoes, garlic, onion powder, salt, and pepper. Boom. These avocados were smaller, but I let them sit for just enough time...and they were PERFECT.

We used those pears in a fruit salad paired with pineapple, banana, and cuties!

Carrot Muffins. This one was a fun one! It was the same ol Kodiak Cake recipe...only I added carrots. In an attempt to have my toddler actually eat vegetables..... we've all been there, don't judge. But they were tasty, a little on the bland side...but adding a nut butter or some jelly would make it perfect!!

2 Cups KC mix

1 banana

1.5 cups chopped, boiled carrots (grinded/blended before adding to mix)

1 egg

1 cup milk or almond milk

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

Mix and divide into muffin pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

18C, 2F, 7P per muffin

Lastly, here is another classic sheet pan!

Chicken Sausage and Potato Medley. Not much to this one! Chop and add to the pan. Bake at 380 for 20 minutes! We sauteed some frozen veggies to go with it!

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Some helpful tips when choosing your box: Have a plan, the website actually has a really good guide to helping you plan (and they include recipes and blog on theirs, too!!!)

I plan my box Thursday, then grocery shop on the weekend. I figure out what protein we are going to add, make sure we have enough carbs for both of us (#InTheOpen #CrossfitOpen) and go from there. I planned a taco night for us to have the guacamole! And kind of figured our schedule around what meals need more attention than others, too. Like everything else, find out what works best for YOU!

So in closing....

1) Sheetpans are your friend

2) Eat your veggies

3) Smile (but pick the spinach out of your teeth first)

Bon Appetit!!!!

-B