My night off

Let me start by stating the best thing about this SLO Veg delivery service is that I am not an expert at gardening and the grower's that they get their produce from are just that--experts, that is! After my trial garden stint last Spring, I am convinced that gardening is best left to the pros. Last year we tried to enhance our sandy soil enough to grow something, and the squash started off promising enough. However, once day I went out to water and the leaves were covered with "powdery mildew". Its too wet here! The fog kept the plants too wet all the time. Yuk! My little cherry tomatoes turned red, but the skins were so tough it was like eating shoe leather. My carrots were puny. I did get a few green beans and sweet peas and some lettuce, but thats about it. Plus, our water bill about doubled. I decided then and there that the Farmer's Market was the best bet. Only I would forget to go on Mondays because we were too busy going to the dentist...or we would go and that dang Olive guy would give us samples and we'd end up buying $20 worth of olives!!!

The best part about tonight's dinner is that it was Lee's night to cook. I asked him last night if he would mind making his famous shrimp in a garlic-butter sauce. No problem! He even got home a little early, so by the time I arrived, dinner was almost ready!

 This shrimp dish is his specialty. I don't know exactly how he does it, but it's got butter, garlic, wine, lemon, shrimp and fresh basil leaves on a bed of pasta.

He roasted some of that nice green broccoli from the SLO Veg box with olive oil and sea salt, and we rescued half a tomato and sliced it up with some sea salt and balsamic vinegar. The kids had use half of the juicey red tomato on a sandwich earlier today! Sacrilege! We almost lost out. That beautiful, lush tomato was ours!

Lee follows direction fairly well. He asked if he should steam the broccoli, and I suggested roasting it and finishing it with a squeeze of lemon. It turned out beautifully in about 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Since we didn't have any cheap white wine, we used our Curtis Winery Heritage Blanc. I am sure it enhanced the pasta dish, but we drank the rest, and it was awesome. They say you shouldn't cook with any wine you wouldn't drink.

 

So here was the finished product. All I had to do was slice the tomato and put some marinara into a little dish. Of course I had to do the dishes, but I did them right away and was all done by 8:15. Not too shabby. I'm happy. We put the leftovers into containers for our lunch, but then the kids came home and they were hungry. I guess it's tuna fish sandwiches for tomorrow...