Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you had a nice Easter or Passover, despite having to stay indoors and social distance. It was sad not getting together with my big family but we did make an Easter dinner, we had a zoom meet up with the family and, since it was a special occasion, we even made a point of putting on real clothes. 🙂

The last two weeks have been hard with meal prepping. In an attempt to stay in doors and out of the markets, I have been doing on-line ordering with the Willimantic Co-Op. They have shut their doors to customers and are doing all the shopping for you, then calling you and bringing it to your car when it’s ready. It sounds like this is really working out for them as it’s taking them about 72 hours to complete an order. Excellent for them and their small business! Bad if you want a quick turn around on groceries. This 72 hour window just started last week so I put my order in on Friday night and didn’t receive it until Tuesday afternoon! Not good for my meal prepping schedule.

This week, my Imperfect Produce subscription finally arrived. I signed up for this about 3 weeks ago and was just able to order my first box last week. My first box was supposed to arrive on Thursday, so I didn’t go grocery shopping, but it was delayed until Monday afternoon. Coronavirus is really messing with my meal prep schedule! Thankfully, I have Mondays off right now so it gives me more time to get organized for the week.

Delayed groceries aside, I was able to whip up a few things to get me through this week.

The above picture is what came in my Imperfect Produce box. I received:

Celery, grapefruit, clementines, apples, avocados, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, 1 onion, red potatoes, green beans and carrots. I also added a pound of coffee to my order.

Some of the produce came in plastic. I’m trying not to worry about it too much. Some of my items also came in plastic when I ordered from Willimantic Co-Op, also. For instance, I ordered 3 carrots and my shopper just added a plastic bag of carrots to my order. Or, I ordered 1 romaine heart and got 3 romaine hearts in the sealed plastic bag. I know both of those are available without packaging at the store but it could be that is all that was left. The fact is, when you aren’t shopping for yourself, it’s hard to guarantee what you are getting. This is temporary until I can shop for myself so I’m just grateful I’m still getting fresh produce regularly.

For breakfast, I’m going to have the grapefruit. I’ve been eating later so I just need something small to hold me over until lunch. I’ll cut the grapefuit in half, cut out the grapefruit segments, and then add a small drizzle of maple syrup or honey to it. I also still have some granola that I made two weeks ago so I may sprinkle that on top if I’m feeling crazy.

For lunch, I’m having breakfast burritos. Yes, breakfast burritos. You can’t go wrong with eggs and tortillas, no matter what time of day it is. I actually made mine dairy-free and gluten-free (accidentally) by using Miyoko’s vegan cheese in Double Cream Chive (I was going to try and make my own “cheese” but Willimantic Co-op was out of cashews that week) and Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Wraps (I would not recommend these if you are planning to freeze them as the recipe calls for).

The cheese is divine. I ate way too much with crackers before I even set aside any for these breakfast burritos. The cheese is wrapped in plastic inside the box, though, so beware. I used 1/2 TBSP for each wrap.

The Ezekiel Sprouted Grain Wraps were what my shopper got for me when I asked for whole wheat wraps. These aren’t great if you are planning on wrapping them and freezing them for later. They aren’t very pliable. The wraps tend to break easily and if microwaved for too long (which you do have to do if the wrap is frozen), they get stale. If you are gluten-free, I would recommend making the filling ahead of time and then building your wrap in the morning.

With that said, the wraps taste amazing! The Miyoko cheese warmed up with the filling is so good. I’m a big fan of this recipe.

I’ll be having some roasted green beans and sweet potatoes on the side. The green beans that came with my Imperfect Produce were looking a bit rough so I roasted them immediately. I also had leftover sweet potato I wanted to use up so I just roasted it all together.

For dinner, I made Hungarian Red Lentil Soup. This soup has a short list of ingredients but big flavor. Chances are you have most of the ingredients already, which is a big plus right about now. It did come out REALLY thick though, like a stew or a chili. I think I will add a bit of vegetable broth to thin it out a bit when I heat it up.

And for dessert (because you have to have dessert!), I made carrot cake cupcakes. As I mentioned above, I received a whole bag of carrots last week from the Willimantic Co-Op and I knew I was getting more in my Imperfect produce box this week so I wanted to use up what I had. I made the cupcakes with the last bit of King Arthur’s 1 to 1 gluten-free flour that I had left. The recipe works with gluten-free flour but the cupcakes do come out a bit dense. If you are working with gluten-free flour, I would be sure to make these with the suggested apple sauce and oil. The recipe says you can sub out the oil for more apple sauce but I wouldn’t recommend that. Sometimes, using all apple sauce in a baking recipe can create a gummier texture. Pair that with the denser texture of gf flour and it may be weird.

I had some extra coconut milk that I needed to use up so I made a coconut glaze for these- just confectioner’s sugar, light coconut milk and a little coconut extract- but the muffins are good on their own as well.

I hope everyone is staying healthy and sane!

-Erin