A long time ago, way before the kids were born, the hubby and I tried out a local farm box delivery for our little family of two and made a few date nights searching for recipes and making dinner together. Those meals were some of our favorites and it was nice spending time in the kitchen together.
Nowadays it’s a little harder to find time to just hang out in the kitchen. Sometimes, we have weeks that blur between travel, sports, lessons, work and school and we rotate through all our favorite quick-dinner restaurants, alternating with our favorite take-out places so we feel like we’ve actually eaten at home.
Yes, I have shelves of lovely cookbooks and I love making new things in the kitchen.
But grocery shopping to GET the food to make the recipes is sometimes the hardest part.
I’ve really been liking my Acme Farm box orders lately to prevent my family from dying of eating only restaurant food. I first heard about the box from someone who took a cooking class with me at the Pantry (It was the candy class by Ashley from Not Without Salt and if you read this and it was you-thank you very much! That class is also the same reason I bought Ashley’s cookbook called Date Night In that reminded me of the farm box dinners the hubby and I used to make pre-kids. Hopefully we’ll get back to cooking together again one day.)
I order the small Vegetarian Locavore box and I order it as a one time box on Friday or Saturday so I don’t have to deal with thinking about cancelling subscriptions when we’re away and it arrives on a Thursday. It comes with all the things I need to make 3 or 4 lovely recipes that are included in the box and that is the perfect amount of recipes for me.
The vegetables and fruit I’ve received have always been good quality and all the products are locally sourced and intriguing. We’ve even learned some about some new vegetables and foods because of the box; we received some peppers I had never heard of and we had to make a Shakshouka.
My favorite ingredient is always the fresh eggs. They look so much more beautiful in this box than they do in stores.
And the meals have been so fun to make. My guys like to pick which meal we’ll make and call them out by number.
I love that my kids love to cook with me.
So we’ve made a bunch of their meals, and added on their popsicles and a fruit share one week too. And Acme Farm Box even sent me a Beyond Box to try too! I loved the bread from Breadfarm and a dessert mix from the Bitter Baker. I appreciate how much I’ve learned about local producers through the farm box and it’s been easy because it comes straight to my house and I didn’t have to go to any stores.
I noticed that Acme Farm Box has a fundraising program for schools and I like the idea of fundraising that helps schools but also helps our community. I hope our school joins in!
So I’m really glad we have this delivery box in Seattle and we’ve been enjoying it for a little while now. I’m excited to see how it helps our family as we go back to school this fall and I’m looking forward to seeing the seasons change in the local produce and goods we see in the box too!
(PS. I did receive a Beyond Box to try, but I’ve been ordering the Locavore box for a while and I was not required to post and these ideas are my own.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)