CSA Week 3 and My New Kitchen Gadget.

Here's my CSA loot for the week (picked up Wednesday):

No giant bugs this time!! 

This week's basket contained Swiss chard, red cabbage, green leaf lettuce (Lucas picked up the basket since I was out of town and couldn't remember if Dana mentioned that it was a special kind of lettuce), cauliflower, garlic, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and summer squash.  We also brought home two half-gallon jars of milk, of course. 

I've got greens coming out my wahoo.  Seriously.  Whether they're raw greens or cooked greens, I've got greens GALORE in my two fridges.  I'm not complaining....it's just a lot to try to get through!

So last week I said I was going to make zucchini chips, butter-roasted radishes, bacon snow peas and turnip gratin (with some ingredient exchanges to make the turnip gratin more Weight Watchersy).  Here's the DL on all of that:

**I didn't end up making zucchini chips.  Instead, I'm taking both the zucchini from last week and the squash from this week to my parent's house on Sunday night to saute as a side dish.  YUM.

**I put waaaaaaaay too much salt on my butter-roasted radishes, because the recipe said to "season generously".  HOWEVER, if you looked past all of the salt, the radishes were DELICIOUS.  So this next Wednesday I'm going to buy a couple of radish bunches and try that recipe again with waaaaaaaay less salt.  I highly recommend this one, even if you don't think you like radishes.  Because you'll like these!

**The bacon snow peas were just okay, but I'm pretty sure that was my fault.  There was nothing wrong with them flavor-wise, but they were a little on the limp and floppy side.  So I'm guessing I cooked them just a tad bit too long.

**Lucas liked the turnip gratin and ate all but the serving I gave myself.  And it WAS good, but the turnips were still a little crunchy, which messed with my head.  I wanted them to be soft and mushy like potatoes get when you cook them "au gratin".  So if I try this again, I want to figure out how to soften the turnips more.

I ended up freezing last week's spinach, last week's brussel sprouts, this week's cauliflower and half of this week's cabbage.  And I intend to freeze last week's mustard greens, too.  Why?  BECAUSE I ALREADY HAVE GREENS OUT MY WAHOO.  And because I knew I just wouldn't make it around to cooking the brussel sprouts or cauliflower this week, and I didn't want them to go bad.  I did end up sauteing the Swiss chard for dinner the other night, but I think I did something wrong.  I normally LOVE Swiss chard (Beast and Barrel had it as a side item a while back and it was SO GOOD), but mine came out kind of bitter.  So before I stored it in the fridge I added some apple juice to the "broth".  I haven't tried it again yet, but I'm hoping the apple juice cut the bitterness out!  I need to Google it......maybe the stems are bitter and I left too many of the stems in?  Maybe the splash of beer I added (since I didn't have a splash of wine) made them bitter?  I don't know.

It's so pretty and colorful!

I'm making a salad for Sunday night with this week's leaf lettuce (which looks awesome, btw - I should take a few pics of how pretty it is during my salad preparation) along with the rest of the lettuce from week 1, half an onion or so, and at least two of the tomatoes.  My cucumbers are already gone or I'd toss those in, too.  So we're rockin' on this week's ingredient usage!)

So I'm really excited to announce that I ordered my very own FoodSaver V3240 Vacuum Sealer today!!

Thar she blows!

She (she who needs a name, of course) will arrive sometime on Tuesday from Amazon.  I've never had any need or desire for a vacuum sealer until the past 3 weeks.  With all of these fresh veggies coming in weekly (with the option to buy more while I'm at the market), I've been Googling how to store each item either in the fridge or freezer.  And as far as the freezer goes, the recommendation is always the same - store in a vacuum-sealed bag if possible.  And that really goes for EVERYTHING going into the freezer, whether you buy it at the market or the grocery store.  So I decided that it was in my best interest to buy a vacuum sealer.  A "wise investment", as some might say.  Well let me just tell you, it took me FOREVER to pick one out.  They range in price from about $40-$400, and they range in size from slim to ginormous.  And their "perks" range from being a super simple manual model with one button ("SUCK IT"......ok maybe it doesn't say that, but wouldn't it be cool if it did?) to basically being a fully automatic vacuum sealer/printer/fax/dishwasher/pressure washer/babysitter/laundry-doer all-in-one.  And the reviews are meant to be helpful, but just like for anything else in the electronic world, they pretty much confuse you even more.  Because for every item with reviews, there are people who LOOOOOOOVE it and people who HAAAAAAAAATE it.  And then if you go to a different website, the percentage of good vs bad reviews may be totally flip-flopped.  Maybe 70% of people would recommend it on one website, but 70% of people would NOT recommend it on another. 

I've just decided.......my new V3240 is named Lewinsky.  I like it.

This is my most favorite picture of Monica Lewinsky.  We all know what she looks like and what she's famous for, but I think she just looks absolutely beautiful here.

So here's how I made my decision:

First off, this particular model had a high positive Amazon review rating.  As in, 69% of reviewers gave it 5 stars, and only 9% gave it 1 star.  And even though some people were all like THIS PIECE OF SHIT IS A TOTAL PILE OF JUNK AND I WOULDN'T EVEN GIVE IT TO MY TAXIDERMIED RACCOON AS A GIFT, 69% is a pretty decent positive feedback number for an electronic item.

Second, one of the biggest decisions was between buying a "manual" sealer or an "automatic" sealer.  With a manual sealer, you line up the edge of the bag where you want it, clamp it down, and push the button to tell it to go.  With an automatic sealer, you slide your bag in to a certain point where the sealer will detect it so that it will start up and seal it all on its own.  Negatives for the automatic version included people saying they couldn't get their bags lined up just right so their sealers would never click on.....or that the automatics waste a lot of bag space because of how far you have to push it into the machine before it will detect it and seal it (so there's a lot of excess bag edge beyond the seal, if that makes sense).  Of course, these people might be total dumbasses who can't figure out how to use their machines.  But all the same, I decided that I liked the idea of being able to manually put the bag exactly where I wanted to seal it and never fight with a machine that might not "detect" my bag.

Third, another huge decision factor was counter space.  We have a decent amount of counter space here at home, but not tons of space just empty and lying around waiting on gadgets to fill it up.  Our countertops are pretty full as it is.  So I really had to consider counter space, since I have ZERO cabinet space left to store any more kitchen ANYTHINGS.  The cheaper sealers look like automatic paper hole-punchers - slim and flat, super basic and to the point.

I considered getting one of these due to their compact size.  But then I realized that their compact size means that they don't hold the roll of FoodSaver plastic within their being, which means I would have to store my roll (or rolls, plural) somewhere else.  And guess what I don't have?  Anywhere to store MORE SHIT.  So I eliminated all of these due to convenience and lack of immediate storage space.

I then eliminated any of them that looked like this, no matter how awesome reviewers said they were:

I mean, seriously, that's a BEAST!  Ain't nobody got time for that!

That particular model (v4865) has really high reviews, but I just don't have anywhere to put it or store it.  Nor do I necessarily need all of the bells and whistles that it comes with.

So after hours of looking at sealers and reading reviews for useful input, I narrowed it down to the one I bought (the white one a few pics above) or a slightly newer, slimmer model:

v3835

This one is slim (only 5" or so wide from front to back), sleek, holds the roll of FoodSaver plastic, has a few extra bells and whistles I don't remember......but is automatic.  The one I bought is 4" wider at the base but is still relatively slim compared to some others, lacks a few of the extra bells and whistles (though I forget what exactly) and is manual.  But it's what I chose and I can't wait for it to be here!

GUYS.  I JUST DISCOVERED THEY HAVE A SEALER IN CAMO.  For when you're out in the woods with your vacuum sealer and don't want the deer to catch on to what you're doing.

I really, really hope I love my vacuum sealer.  I don't want to be one of those negative people complaining that it wouldn't seal right or that it broke after a few uses.  I want to be one of those 69% who thinks it's total awesome sauce.  It does come with a one-year guarantee, so if I hate it, I can trade it for another one.  But I still hope I don't have to worry about that!

P.S. I'm 5 weeks into Weight Watchers now and down 10 lbs!  Only 11 more to go!