Three Food Delivery Companies You Have to Try

Every time I grocery shop, I have something of a mini-existential crisis. Eggs are a good example. Choosing a carton is no longer about choosing large versus extra large, or white versus brown. Now we have to choose between local, organic, cage-free, pasture-raised, fortified with Omega-3 and every possible combination of those labels. And that’s where the panic sets in. If I go with the organic and pasture-raised, I’m not always choosing local. But then maybe the local option isn’t organic; maybe it’s cage-free, but isn’t pasture-raised supposed to better for those little chickies? The pressure and struggle to “vote with my dollars” is real.

The pressure spans beyond eggs, and into the realm of anything harvested, fished or raised. This is why I am so excited about three food companies that are tackling food waste, over-fishing, and eating locally raised meat. Together, they are bringing ethical and environmentally-friendly right to our doorsteps, making eating easy, delicious and free of existential crises.

Still not sure what's imperfect about these artichokes, they were delicious! 

Imperfect Produce: After harvest, produce goes through what is known as the culling process, where fruit and veggies are judged on their symmetry and blemishes. The produce that doesn’t make it gets discarded, never seeing the light of the market. In the end, there are over 6 billion pounds of produce that go unharvested or unsold each year in the United States. Imperfect Produce sources this “ugly” produce, and sells it at a reduced cost to its subscribers. Not only is the produce delicious, but half the time I have a hard time figuring out what actually makes it “imperfect” in the first place. Maybe, at most, the apples lean slightly to the left, but who doesn’t love a left-leaning apple?

Sea to Table: Buying seafood has always been a struggle for me, and it’s not for a lack of wanting to eat fish, but more because it seems downright impossible to buy fish that is affordable and ethically/environmentally sourced. There’s just too much that I don’t know about buying fish properly, so I basically avoid it all together. Enter Sea to Table. Working with both large and smaller fishing outfits, all of the seafood they sell is wild caught, domestic and sustainable. What I also love about Sea to Table (other than the fact that they deliver delicious seafood) is that they also work with chefs all over the country, helping them think differently when it comes to seafood selection. Let’s let the bluefin tunas repopulate, and give Atlantic Spiny Dogfish a moment in the spotlight!

Five Marys Farms: If you love all things meaty and want to support local farmers, then Five Marys Farms is definitely for you. A small family-run operation, Five Marys offers beef, lamb and heritage pork that have been pasture-raised and spared of any hormones or antibiotics. While they don’t make the claim to being 100% organic, they do state that they are “organically minded and GMO free whenever possible”. We don’t eat enough meat in our house to warrant a monthly or every other month delivery, but I have had Five Marys products on multiple occasions and what they say is true, you really can taste the difference.

Cookbook Tip: When it comes to cooking with these CSA-style boxes, there’s a good chance you’re going to get an ingredient or food item you’ve never cooked with before. This is where my two favorite cookbooks, The Vegetable Butcher and The Flavor Bible, really shine. Not sure how to prepare that wonky-shaped rutabaga that just arrived on your doorstep? The Vegetable Butcher will walk you through the prep process. Not sure how to season your Gulf of Maine Redfish? The Flavor Bible offers a rundown of its complimentary herbs, spices, and flavors that will help take your dish to the next level. 

Eton Mess: The Perfect Spring and Summer Dessert

I don’t remember the first time I learned of Eton Mess, a simple yet refined dessert of soft whipped cream dotted with shards of crushed meringues and juicy, ripe strawberries. What I do remember is thinking, “Ooh, I bet there’s a good story behind this dessert.”

Whipped cream, meringue cookies, and strawberries - that's all you need for Eton Mess! 

It turns out I was wrong. My research has quite sadly revealed that there’s no real story behind Eton Mess. There is plenty of lore—including one story that has the dessert created when a golden retriever sat on and ruined, a strawberry pavlova. This tale has been discredited which makes sense—given that no one in their right mind would really eat something after it has been sat on by a dog.

The only real background information I was able to gather was that it dates back to 1893, was made popular at the British all-boys school, Eton College, and is the traditional dessert served at the cricket match between Eton and Harrow School. For someone who loves food history, that’s not the most exciting of tales.

Even without a cool backstory, there is much to love about Eton Mess. In addition to being creamy, crunchy and fruity all at once, it is one of the easiest desserts to pull together. And, despite its sloppy name, it presents beautifully.

The first step to Eton Mess is to crush meringue cookies. While I made the meringue cookies from scratch, this is definitely not a requirement, as even I will admit that the Trader Joe’s variety is lovely. Whether they’re store bought or handmade, grab ‘em and crush ‘em with your hands, leaving the crumbles and shards haphazard and varied in size—this will guarantee a nice texture. Next, whip your whipped cream. This is the only step that I insist you make from scratch. Making whipped cream by hand is essential here (and really, always) because 1) whipped cream from a can is gross and 2) you want the cream to be lighter and softer than the ready-made stuff. Last but not least, chop up the ripe strawberries and mix them with a little sugar and lemon juice. Blend all three components together and voilà, you’ve got Eton Mess.

Now it’s time for the presentation. Take your whipped cream with crunchy bits of meringue and juicy bites of strawberries both hidden and peaking out from its silky peaks, and gently spoon into serving cups. Adorn with a mint leaf, and voila: a perfectly elegant, and but totally not fussy dessert is ready to be served and wow your guests.

Other versions of Eton Mess suggest that you can mix up the fruit, making this an even more versatile dessert. Simply put, backstory or no backstory, this dessert is the perfect way to celebrate the fruits of the season. Bon Appetit!

Note: This is one of those the desserts that you can wing it with the measurements - it just depends on how many you intend to serve, how big your serving dishes are, and how crunchy or fruity you want the end result to be. For those who find that idea more daunting than freeing, start off with Nigela Lawson’s recipe.

The Great British Baking Show: Millionaire's Banoffee Traybake Recipe

Thanks to Netflix I have been watching a lot of the The Great British Baking Show. There is so much I love about this show, but what mainly keeps me coming back for more is its wholesome, backstabbing-free goodness; that, and it’s like watching a baking show in a foreign yet un-foreign language. Cakes are “sponges”, “biscuits” are cookies, and "puddings" are cakes. It's a topsy-turvy world over there across the pond. 

In Season Two I learned that a “traybake” is British speak for what we would call a bar cookie. What I love about this genre of baked good is they are the fastest and easiest way to get tasty ingredients from the cupboard and into the oven. One recipe that especially grabbed my attention was quirky contestant Frances’ Millionaire’s Shortbread Banoffee Traybake.*

In the baking world, anything with “Millionaire” in its name is sure to be rich and decadent. Frances’ dessert does not stray from this tradition. In this concoction she is combing two desserts - a traditional Millionaire’s Traybake - shortbread, caramel and chocolate (so basically a Twix Bar?) and “Banoffee”, an English dessert of bananas, toffee and cream. The end result is a buttery shortbread foundation that supports layers of a banana-infused caramel dotted with crunchy dried bananas, topped with a lid of dark chocolate. While this dessert requires a few more steps than the traybake hallmark of “mix, pour, bake”, it is definitely worth the extra extra few steps.

Millionaire's Banoffee Traybake

*A few notes about this recipe...

1. If you hate bananas this recipe is obviously not for you. If you like bananas, but hate fake banana flavoring, this recipe is TOTALLY for you.
2. The recipe calls for an 8x13" pan, but I didn't have this size - I had one that was an inch larger, and one that was inch smaller. I opted for the smaller, and in hindsight, I should have gone with the larger. You'll see in the photo the "banoffee" layer is very thick. This, along with the thicker layer of chocolate, made the end result slightly harder to cut (there was a lot of banoffee squishing). Though the end result was still delicious, the final presentation was a bit disappointing. I definitely would not have won Star Baker with these bad boys. 

Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

Of all the pastel-hued, brightly foiled Easter Candy out there—the malted eggs, the big chocolate bunnies—nothing quite grabs my childhood heart like a Cadbury Creme Egg.

Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

I have very vivid memories of eating them as a child, but part of the memory includes not loving all of the goopy “yolk” inside. There was always just a little too much, and it made such a sticky mess. One spring afternoon I took matters into my own hands, poured out half of the sugary filling and fed it to my aunt’s cat. Problem solved - until the ants came marching in.

As an adult I want to partake in the joys of Cadbury’s seasonal offering, but I still don’t want the commitment to the whole, messy egg. Enter the Cadbury Creme Egg-inspired brownie, from the blog Love and Olive Oil. I like to think of this as a less messy and slightly less guilty version of the candy from which it was inspired. Obviously it’s still a total sugar bomb, but I will always make the argument that using high quality cocoa (let us not forget my love of Droste cocoa powder) adds some antioxidants. Plus, going the homemade route cuts out whatever weird preservatives you just know are lurking inside that hollow chocolate egg. And of course, with a brownie, you have total portion control—but that part is completely up to you.

Happy Easter!