Week 1: Simple Salad With Brie & Bread

Thursday afternoons are pretty relaxed at our casa, which is a relief after the wrench that Wednesdays throw at us. When I say relaxed, I mean that after the work/preschool day, we only have one appointment (speech), at 6pm and it's five minutes from our house. Score! Perhaps it's becoming clear why being a member of a community supported agriculture program posed such a challenge for us. Because in order to cook all of the veggies you receive each week, you have to be HOME! Vegetables aren't like potato chips, nuts, or even fruit - vegetables require thought, effort, labor. So on this particular Thursday, I refused to harbor rushed, negative feelings against the unsuspecting produce in my refrigerator and decided to feed the kids chicken nuggets and edamame, do the speech run with the entire family (we call that quality time), and make something beautiful for the hubby and I after the rugrats were in bed. As all parents of young children will tell you, eating a meal sans kids, even if it's in the car at a traffic light, instantly qualifies as a date night.

Since I was getting hives at the thought of our lovely lettuce going black and slimy in the fridge, I decided that our spontaneous date night was going to involve mass quantities of crunchy green. Upon inspection, the lettuce was holding up pretty well (thanks to the entire roll of paper towels required to lovingly pat it all dry after a thorough washing), so I set to chopping the four heads of romaine in this week's supply. I sauteed raw pecans with brown sugar and butter, threw some CSA green onions, blue cheese and dried cranberries into the romaine, mixed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil and voila - in 20 minutes we had a stunning salad. As the daughter of a highly resourceful southern woman, I didn't bat an eye at substituting leftover whole wheat hot dog buns for dinner rolls, spreading on some Tuscan butter and brie cheese and calling this a seriously gourmet meal. Knowing we may not get another date night for a while, we went ahead and topped it all off with chilled white wine and chocolate. If I could treat each day of the week as a person, I'd have to say I pretty much have a crush on Thursdays.