Dinner planning started with a CSA box and the vague notion of making one of the two salad dressings I’d pinned from Saveur’s article on favorite American salad dressings. I knew that both involved sour cream and mayonnaise, and made a point to have those on hand.

Upon arriving home from CSA pickup at 7pm, I realized I was missing several ingredients for both the Green Goddess and the Ranch dressings, I’d bookmarked. I did however, have a head of Boston lettuce and some lovely carrots, and so I came up with the dressing below, loosely based on Green Goddess.

Rose and I both found the dressing delicious. Shane’s taste buds are all weird due, presumably, to copious quantities of pain medication. We chose to disregard his neutral review.

The pasta was supposed to be Penne alla Vodka, but I didn’t have all the ingredients for that either. Instead we had a creamy, cheesy, tomatoey dish that I will never be able to recreate.

• Decadent Pale Green Dressing •
adapted from Saveur’s Green Goddess dressing

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
2-4 anchovy fillets (depending on how you feel about anchovies – we liked it with 4)
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 cup fresh, flat leaf parsley leaves

Combine all ingredients in a medium sized, deep bowl or a food processor. Blend (with hand blender if not using food processor) until smooth. Serve over Boston lettuce with shredded carrots and cannellini beans.

Shane received another meat-based recovery food gift today. A selection of salamis from Olympic Provisions, sent by dear friends in San Francisco. It’s good to have friends in meaty places.

With our salami selection, we had prosciutto, ciabatta, and two salads. I made the yummy Beets & Beet Greens with Gorgonzola (below), that I’d been looking forward to since we received beets in our CSA box last Thursday. It’s a great way to use up the whole beet bushel.

We also had an on-the-fly white bean salad. Cannellini beans, the leftover olive and tomato salsa that my sister made, a lot of slivered lemon peel, lemon juice, olive oil and parsley. It was darn good.

On the medical front, Shane reduced his pain meds today, which means he’s feeling ever so slightly less pained. He’s still quite disabled, but I think things are starting look up for him.

• Beet & Beet Green Salad with Gorgonzola •
1 bunch beets & their greens
1 red or sweet onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola (or however much you like)

Heat oven to 350. Wash and trim the beet roots, wrap each beet in tin foil with a dribble of olive oil and salt, roast until soft when poked with a knife (time will depend on size of beets). When the beets are cooked, remove them from the oven to cool. Once cool, peel the beets and chop them into cubes, approximately 1″ square, set aside. Chop the onion and saute in 2 tablespoons olive oil, over low to medium heat until soft and translucent. Wash & remove the stems from the beet greens and chop into 1 or 2″ strips. Add greens to the onions and cook until greens are nicely wilted. Add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and remove from heat. Add beet root to beet greens and onions. Stir to combine and serve topped with gorgonzola cheese.

Shortly before my parents left today a friend came over to collect Rose. She returned her a couple of hours later with not one, but two meatloaves. One beef and one chicken. They were all prepped and ready to be cooked at our convenience. How totally rad is that?

We had the beef tonight. Rose exclaimed “I love meatloaf! Raise your hand if you love meatloaf!” and Shane was about as enthusiastic as someone on a whole bunch of pain meds can be.

With it we had mashed potatoes, which seemed like the quintessential potato side for meatloaf. And kohlrabi slaw with lime, cilantro and corn (CSA, baby).