Thursday, October 9, 2008

Pizza Night

I've never been a huge fan of scheduling meals for every day of the week. I like a little more sponteneity than that! Now, however, with two children, school, evening meals for the kids, the family and or just the adults I realize that a little routine isn't half bad. In fact, the reason I started having a bit more routine is that on Thursdays we pick up our farm share from Lindentree farms in Lincoln and I'd have to pack a picnic for the kids since we got back late, and my husband and I would be home with the kids dozing in their beds with maybe a bit of dirt still under their fingernails and an entire counter full of fresh farm vegetables.

One week when I was home alone with the kids our CSA farm-share partners said "Do you want me to prepare a protein for you when you get back from the farm." That is when a new plan took action. Of course, if I think ahead a bit I can have a protein ready to go (shrimp, fish, chicken, tofu -whatever you fancy) and then I can cook up any veggies I please to go with it! Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that?

So now, I have slowly developed a dinner repertoire for the family. There is the protein for farm days, we've added taco night into our list because who doesn't love tacos?, we have pizza night, fish/seafood night, Friday store bought roasted chicken and challah and some other menu I choose.

Today, we had no farm pick-up so after getting Isabelle from school she and I headed over to the Belmont Farmer's Market to check it out. It's not the biggest market, but they had a couple of fruit/vegetable stands, some bread, some honey, all the standards. Isabelle and I got some great eggplant from the Farm School and some purple peppers across the way (I couldn't see a farm name). Isabelle loves purple peppers in her lunch. She picks them out herself and they're a novelty since they're purple.

I took out one of our frozen pizza doughs last night and as I fed the kids, I grilled the eggplant, we had some spinach that I bought earlier in the week at Russo's. I always have grated cheese in the drawer (nachos, kids' snack, pizza, grilled cheese). In the fridge are leftovers from the kids' dinner last night meatballs in tomato sauce. So our pizza is a a meatball, eggplant, and spinach pizza. Everything is prepped, I take the kids to bed. Then my husband and I create a pizza to our liking and dinner is served.

It's fresh, it's cheap, it's quick and it's delicious. You can be so creative too. Sterling farm was at the Belmont market too. I bet they would have had some great goat cheese for the pizza.

Bon Appetit.