My Boston Organics order was waiting for me when I got home from work.  I was looking forward to it all day.  When I opened the bright green box I found the following items inside: Bananas, Green Bartlett Pears, Honey Tangerines, a Kent Mango, Pink Lady Apples, Plums, Valencia Oranges, Fingerling Potatoes, Romaine Lettuce, Snow Peas, Sweet Onions, and Zucchini.  So far I’ve used one zucchini to make a pasta dish for dinner.  What should I do with the rest of my bounty?  Suggestions are welcome.  I’m really looking forward to eating that Mango tomorrow evening. I can’t wait to see what I’ll get next week!

I just found out about the most amazing thing (thanks Anna and Kristen)! Did you know that there’s an organic produce delivery service in Boston?! Well there is! It’s called Boston Organics and I’ve just signed up to receive their weekly half fruit and half veggie $27 box of assorted awesomeness as well as some fabulous sounding freshly baked bread.

My order will be dropped off on Wednesday so I’ll have more to report then. To find out if this great service is available in your part of the city you should review their delivery schedule. There are lots of delicious add-ons that you can arrange to have in your box too including cheeses, coffee, and chocolate for a small additional fee. They also allow you to create a list of produce that you definitely don’t want to have in your box. So I promptly exiled the honey dew melons to the “do not deliver” list.

Do any of you have a program like this in your area? If so, how has your experience been?

When these rolls came out of the oven and I tasted the first one sandwiched with a little butter I almost did a cartwheel. Finally, I’d made a recipe with yeast that actually tasted good!

Time for a quiz.
Which of the following accurately illustrates how Erin feels about baking bread:
A. I famously can’t make bread.
B. I’m impatient and dislike it when recipes take several hours to make.
C. I hate to cook anything with a high mess threshold.
D. All of the above

Give up? Well if you chose “D” you’re right on top of things. However, I plan to make an exception to this raging anti-bread sentiment in the future because I really liked these rolls.

In addition, these pumpkin dinner accompaniments are “Part 2″ of the recipes I made with one can of leftover Libby’s Pumpkin. Those little cans obviously have a lot more possibilities in them than just boring old Thanksgiving pies.

Can of Pumpkin Part 2	Dissolve Yeast & Sugar
Make Dough	Knead & Form Into a Ball
Let it Rise	Shape, Bake & Cool

Pumpkin Yeast Rolls (Originally published in the December 1998 edition of Cooking Light magazine. I halved the recipe as outlined below.)
Makes 12 Rolls

1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 package dry yeast (about 1 1/8 teaspoons)
1 tablespoons brown sugar
3/8 cup warm fat-free milk (105° to 115°)
2 1/2 cups bread flour, divided
1/8 cup stick margarine or butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 large egg (Note: Just scramble one egg in a dish and pour half into your recipe)
Cooking spray

Combine the pumpkin and vanilla extract, and set aside. Dissolve yeast and sugar in milk in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Add 1 cup flour, pumpkin mixture, margarine, salt, vinegar, nutmeg, and egg to yeast mixture; beat at medium speed of a mixer until smooth. Stir in 1 cups flour to form a sticky dough. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead dough until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes); add enough of remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, to prevent dough from sticking to hands.

Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover dough, and let rise in a warm place (85°), free from drafts, 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

Coat muffin cups with cooking spray. Punch dough down. Divide into 12 equal pieces; shape each piece into a ball. Place 1 ball in each muffin cup. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled in bulk.

Preheat oven to 350°.

Uncover dough; bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on wire racks.

I just ate the craziest thing for lunch. It was a Lean Cuisine Chicken, Mushroom and Spinach Panini and via some magical means (this strange silver coating on the package) it grilled itself in the microwave. Yes those are grill marks in the photo. Thanks iPhone! Equally shocking was that the sandwich actually tasted good and I now feel full even though it only had 280 calories (or possibly 320–my box and the website differ). Obviously some strange voodoo is at work here…

So…I’ve put myself on a diet. Not a Nicole Ritchie starvation diet or anything, just a normal watch what you eat, and exercise more often diet. I’ve been feeling awful lately so it needed to be done. I hope to accomplish simple things like stop making Chocolate Chip Cookie dough just to eat Chocolate Chip Cookie dough, and lay off the second helpings of pasta.

That means there will probably be a few more recipes like these:
Fried Rice with Scallions, Edamame, and Tofu
Sage Rubbed Pork Chops with Warm Apple Slaw
Fettuccini with Creamy Red Pepper-Feta Sauce

And a few less recipes like these:
Peanut Butter Fudge
Double Shot Chocolate Cake
Aunt Joyce’s Brownies

To assist me in this endeavor I’ve enlisted a fabulous little online tool called “My Food Diary.” My Food Diary is absolutely brilliant! For the bargain price of $9 a month (less than two Grande Non-Fat White Chocolate Mochas) you can track your food consumption online — my favorite place in the world.

After entering your height and scary weight info it tells you how many calories you can eat in a day while still losing a pound per week. The most conveniant part is that they have a huge searchable database of food items (everything from Quaker to P.F. Changs) that you can manually add to your day’s tally. You can also enter nutritional information for products that are missing from the site and save them for future use in your “fridge.” In addition, MFD allows you to add recipes ingredient by ingredient. Then you enter how many servings the recipe is and voila — those cookies are 175 calories a piece. Oh My God! Ahhh! I just had 5…

Anyway, it really takes so much of the guess work out of counting calories and fat. It definitely makes me think twice about what I eat and don’t eat. For instance a conversation in my head might go something like this:

Do I really need to eat those Thin Mints? Ugh…Yes! But then I have to log them on My Food Diary and I wont make my goal, and they’ll give me frowns at the end of the day instead of smiley faces. *sigh* I guess I don’t need the cookies…

You’d be surprised how powerful the little “smiley and frown” breakdowns are. If you exercise, you not only get to eat more food, but you also get a big green smiley! If you consume too much sodium MFD frowns at you. There are other “bells and whistles” too like forums, and inspirational quotes…if you’re into that sort of thing. Anyway, that’s the last time you’ll probably hear about this whole diet thing, because this is a food blog and I like to cook and eat, but I do think that moderation is my biggest obstacle to overcome and MFD definitely helps give me some excellent perspective on hunger and portion control.

My love of potatoes knows no bounds. I’m especially fond of breakfast potatoes. This morning when I woke up and started rummaging around in the refrigerator for something to eat on this bright Sunday morning I was instantly drawn to last nights leftover casserole of scalloped potatoes, zucchini, red peppers and ham. “Eat me Erin! Eat me Erin,” it seemed to call from under its snug Press’n-Seal cover. I somehow managed to resist the cheesy temptation momentarily before I moved on to another, slightly more morning appropriate option. I decided to make sweetly spiced sweet potato latkes and bake them. Baking was the ultimate concession as yesterday morning I shamelessly coaxed CK into picking up a box of munchkins for us to snack on all day.

These latkes are thicker than the baked russet potato version that I made previously, and much more hash-brown like in consistency. Don’t forget to top them with your favorite condiments. I prefer sour cream, light of course — sticking with the whole donut guilt theme, but apple sauce or a fruity yogurt would also be a great addition.

Peel & Prep	Grate (the Easy Way)
Combine Potatoes & Spices	Drop by 1/3-Cupfuls
Flatten	Sweet Potato Latkes on Parade

Baked Sweet Potato Latkes (based on the recipe originally published in Women’s Health Magazine)
Makes 12 Latkes

2 pounds grated sweet potatoes
1 medium onion, grated
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray or use a silpat.

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Drop by 1/3-cupfuls onto cookie sheet. Flatten with spatula.

Bake for 25 minutes; flip and bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Serve with light sour cream and a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg.