I discovered that Flip Flop Girl gets a regular delivery of organic fruits and veggies straight from an organic produce farm, so I asked her about it, she loves it, and we signed up (www.FarmFreshToYou.com). We have a Ralphs grocery store and a Sprouts healthy grocery store within walking distance of our home, but after the 5th straight batch of black, rotten avocados we’d purchased from Sprouts, we wanted a different option. And sure across the street is pretty convenient, but we sometimes have trouble even getting there since we’re always rushing everywhere to fit errands in within Allie’s awake times and in-between mealtimes, and sometimes we just discover that we’re out of something and we’re too tired to run back out again. So it doesn’t get more convenient than opening the front door once a week and, Oh look! A box of fresh organic fruits and vegetables!

We just got our first box last week. 2 lemons, 3 apples, 3 Mandarin oranges, 4 kiwis, 3 bunches of broccoli, a pound of kale leaves, many bunches of spinach, 2 bunches of carrots, and a mystery plant with a white bulb and furry leaves that Mr. W and I couldn’t identify. $25 including delivery. The stuff that we have eaten already were delicious. The mystery item turned out to be fennel, and although we eat fennel seed fairly commonly, we’d never entertained a thought about the plant it comes on. Turns out that a ton of my friends are familiar with fennel plant, and I got a bunch of recipe ideas for shaved fennel salad, roasted fennel bulb, etc.

It was really great when I realized we were low in our variety of one-pot meals for Allie, and I had all the ingredients on hand to cook immediately last night without a grocery store run. I made an all-organic brown rice porridge with chopped carrots, fennel (bulb & stalk), celery, kale and browned beef for Allie, and set a small bowl aside for Mr. W to taste at his request. Allie gobbled up a generous portion of it for dinner, for dessert she had fresh homemade applesauce with multi-grain cereal stirred in, and my little sick girl got hopefully all the right nutrition to fight this cold of hers. I had enough of the porridge to freeze 12 additional generous portions for her future meals.

After Allie went to bed last night, I asked Mr. W what he thought of Allie’s latest one-pot meal. “Delicious,” he said. “I wish WE could eat like that.” I think that’s his way of saying I’m a great mom but a derelict wife. Mr. W will be getting a one-pot meal with organic spinach tonight. =P