A Kitchen Experiment

I love to cook but sometimes find it easy to get into a food rut. This week rather than meticulously planning my menu and organizing my list by grocery store section I instead bought a bunch of ingredients. I thumbed through the cookbook, Local Flavors, and browsed www.smittenkitchen.com for some ideas for common ingredients. My goal for the week is to embrace local ingredients from the bounty of the end of summer harvest. The following is what I ended up with and each day this week I will post what we had for dinner. One meal that was a non-negotiable is pizza on Friday--the rest is a surprise! Altogether our grocery bill was less than it normally is and I'm hopeful that I won't have to run back to the store. My goal is to use all the ingredients.

From the farmer's market:

2 lbs. breakfast sausage

2 dozen eggs

1 large eggplant

1 stalk Brussel sprouts

4 large colorful peppers

peaches

apple cider

From the local farm stand:

2 quarts green beans

onions

red potatoes

pears

apples

sweet corn

carrots

cabbage

sweet potatoes

From Tuscany (where we buy meat)

Italian sausage

4 Chicken Breasts

From Tops

Milk

sour cream

almonds

dill

parsley

chicken broth

coffee

1 lb. pasta

tomato paste

tomato sauce

mozzarella cheese

parmesean cheese

cheddar cheese

tomato soup

From Aunt Amy's garden

3 HUGE zucchinis

tomatoes

Today Andrew made a delicious frittata for brunch with sausage, tomatoes, parmesean, eggs, zucchini, and onions. For dinner we had grilled cheese and tomato soup--not very creative but it was cooler today and it has been a long time since we've had grilled cheese!