PopSugar

Grape Waldorf Salad

fuzzles — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:43:30 -0800

I found this recipe at my local Kowalski's Market and am putting it on my "must try" list! Easy and vegetarian. But I would be willing to bet that a little roasted chicken or turkey would also be a welcome savory addition. This salad will serve eight.

GRAPE WALDORF SALAD

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon honey
2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
2 cups seedless green grapes, halved
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup pecan halves, toasted
1 (5 ounce) container of baby spinach

In a small bowl, combine the yogurt and honey. Cover and refrigerate.

To serve, combine the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Gently stir in the dressing, tossing to coat. Serve immediately.

Sometimes Smaller Is Better

OnSugar Blog — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 03:47:49 -0800

Here's a healthy eating tip from the OnSugar blog Coach Lark Says.

I am continually amazed at how great I feel when I stick to eating small portions instead of stuffing myself until I'm full. Every day I can pull it off, I feel energized and light on my feet.

"Small portions" generally means eating food that is roughly the size of your own fist . . . Like a half a sandwich, a half a cup of oatmeal, or a piece of fruit.

To see what Coach Lark ate today, read more.

Today, for instance, this is how I ate:

a tangerine at 5:30am
a half a fist-sized portion of oatmeal at 8:00am
a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich (on an English muffin) at 9:30am
a romaine lettuce salad at 12:30pm with carrots, red cabbage, onions, celery, radishes and a little bit of blue cheese dressing
a half an apple and a half a banana at 3:00pm
I worked out at 5:00pm and then had a spicy crab sushi roll right afterward

Now, obviously I'm not on a diet. I allow myself to splurge on goodies like bacon and blue cheese dressing - within reason. I balance it out with a lot of fresh fruits and veggies and fibers. In addition, I drink water all day. Today I had the energy of a super hero! And I can guarantee that I burned off any calories I took in with a balance of activity and allowing my body to properly digest with this "grazing" technique.

There are a lot of gimmicky diets out there, but limiting how much food I put in my belly at any one sitting is the best and healthiest way I know how to manage my weight. I attempt to eat this way every day. It's an ongoing battle to stick to healthy eating habits, but with this tactic, I don't feel deprived and starved . . . ever.

I am not always perfect in my eating habits. Sometimes I do pig out. But I keep trying, and I do the best I can.

My advice is this: If you can pull the small-portions eating plan off for just one day, you'll have created an experiential template going forward. Try it and see how you feel. You'll be inspired, you'll see!

As a dear friend and client said to me this morning, "It seems like we are always fattening ourselves up for the famine that never arrives."

It's time to relax. There is always more food in our future!

Want to see more? Start following Coach Lark Says or start your own OnSugar blog. We'd love to post your inspiring stories and helpful advice here on FitSugar too!

Salad-Making 101

emilyplayscello — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:03:23 -0700

Making a good salad is truly an art. Salads seem to be the epitome of health food, however, there are many big mistakes made that drastically reduce or destroy the nutritional value of your salad.

Let's outline the steps to making a fabulous salad both in taste and nutrition! We'll use the salad I made for myself today as a guide.

The Base - Lettuce and Beyond: You need to start your salad with good greens. Forget about iceberg lettuce! It's mostly water and has hardly any nutrients. You want to opt for dark, leafy greens which are a nutritional powerhouse (vitamin A, vitamin C, beta-cortene, calcium, folate, fiber, iron, and phytonutrients). I also cannot stress enough the importance of buying organic. Not only are you protected from harmful pesticides and chemicals, but new studies are showing that organically grown produce may actually be nutritionally superior than conventionally grown. My personal favorite lettuce is by Earthbound Farm which makes a line of pre-washed organic greens. Once you have your greens, you can make things more flavorful by adding chopped, fresh spices like basil and cilantro. Who said lettuce had to be boring?
This salad was made with Earthbound Farm Organic "Fresh Herb" salad greens, fresh basil, and fresh cilantro.

Add-ins - Vegetables: Once you've got your beautiful bed of greens, it's time to add some vegetables. Here, the possibilities are truly endless. Never hesitate to try something new or unexpected... it'll give your salad a unique twist! Some suggestions are: cucumber, onion, shredded carrot, zucchini, squash, tomato, avocado, asparagus, artichoke hearts, chopped green or red pepper, radish, alfalfa sprouts, celery, peas, broccoli, black beans, fava beans, chickpeas, etc. As you can see, the possibilities are ENDLESS... it's all about what you like. And, don't limit yourself to vegetables. Fresh fruit like blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries make a great addition as well. Also, don't forget to buy organic.
This salad was made with zucchini, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and chopped carrot.

Add-ins - Non-vegetable: This part can be very fun, but it's also where most salads go horribly wrong. Things like croutons and fatty cheeses destroy the purity and health of your salad. If you MUST have cheese, opt for something lighter like feta or goat cheese. I love cheese but I steer clear of it in my salad... I like to keep it all pure, raw foods. A great addition to any salad is nuts or seeds. It turns your salad into a filling meal by adding protein and good, healthy fats. Try sunflower seeds, walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, and pine nuts. If you roast your seeds, they become even more flavorful. I often just toss some pumpkin seeds on a pan and let them sit for a few minutes (no oil in the pan is needed). I also top all my salads with ground flaxseed, available at health food stores. It is one of the best sources of essential fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6).
This salad was made with toasted pumpkin seeds and ground flaxseed.

Top it off - Dressing: This is another major place where salads go horribly wrong. FORGET about creamy ranch, thousand island, french, and even raspberry vinaigrette. The creamy dressings are loaded with fat and sugar and the flavored vinaigrettes have even more sugar. Commercial salad dressings are a major danger zone, especially because people assume if they're eating a salad, they MUST be making a good choice. It's common for restaurant salads to have just as many (sometimes more!) calories than non-salad choices just from dressing. You want a dressing that will enhance the natural flavor of your delicious vegetables, spices, and nuts. Now that you've prepared such an elaborate salad, you don't need a dressing to provide all the flavor. The best classic dressing is extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. The way to make this the most delicious is to buy a high quality, organic olive oil in a dark bottle (to protect it from light) and store it in a cool, dry place. Olive oils vary immensely in taste so it is definitely worth it to invest in a high-quality one. But don't limit yourself to olive oil. Experimenting with other oils like toasted sesame, pumpkin seed, and macadamia nut can add a delicious flavor to your salad. My personal favorite is toasted sesame oil. It is INCREDIBLY delicious and flavorful but completely pure and devoid of the sugar, chemicals, and emulsifiers of commercial salad dressings.

This salad was made with toasted sesame oil and lemon juice.

And there you have it! The steps to the perfect salad. When you're done making it, you may want to put it on display just as much as you want to dig in.

Have any interesting or unique suggestions as a salad add-in? Let me know!

Eat your veggies,
Emily

Inexpensive Dinner Salad

Beachwalker — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 06:27:57 -0700

This salad is fairly inexpensive, you can add chopped peanuts if you want to. It is a salad that is a meal.

INGREDIENTS:
1 head of whatever lettuce is on sale , torn into bite size pieces
Left over chicken cut into 1/2" cubes, whatever amount you have.....
1 small can manadrin oranges
1 apple, cored, peeped, and cubed
1/2 cup celery, chopped (optional)
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1/2 cup Catalina French dressing, oil and vinigar, or mayo and lemon dressing

DIRECTIONS:
In a large salad bowl, first add the iceberg lettuce and
then the Romaine. Add the chicken to the salad bowl. Next,
add the oranges, apple, celery. Lightly toss the ingredients
and then place in refrigerator to chill. About 15 minutes
before serving, take out of refrigerator and add the almonds.
Then pour the dressing and again toss. Add the salad to
small salad bowls and serve.

Yield: 4 Servings

A new year's resolution..adopt a new food!

Shadowdamage — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:55:09 -0800

I decided that over Christmas that I would "adopt" a new fruit and vegetable that I haven't eaten much of, find one I liked and incorporate into my weekly diet.

These two little stars are low-calorie, packed with vitamins and flavour, and are (like most produce) not that expensive if you keep your eyes sharp.

Soo without further adieu:

The veggie is definitely celeriac (Inspired by the need to make a last-minute substitution to Christmas dinner...ending up in a "celeriac" gravy and dressing addition that worked out so awesomely..damn this stuff is good! Even smells good!)...

Its a winter vegetable, but lower in starch than potatoes or parsnips. Its ugly as sin, and as yummy as..uh..sin.

The texture is more like a potato when cooked, and a bit like jicama when raw...they are high in some vitamins, (Vitamin C, calcium and potassium most of all), extremely low in calories and have a mild flavour which I found to be part potato, part celery, part herb. They are not really sweet like parsnips, the flavour is more "herby" I would say. You can taste the edge of celery in it, and that's why I thought it would be okay to substitute it. (It was.)

MUCH tastier than cauliflower, (which I don't really like...I hate the texture of it and the wierd metallic taste).....and this a nice smooth - and more versatile - texture too. What I did is run to the internet and try to get some info on it. What I learned is that:

1)Even if you eat them raw you might want to blanch them briefly in boiling (already boiling, not cold) water..I spiked mine with lemon juice because I read that it also helps kill any bitterness and preserves the creamy colour. (both succeeded in working).
2)You can fry them like potato chips, oven bake them like french fries, eat them raw or boiled/chilled in a salad. You can puree them like mashed potatoes or further blend them to use in soups.

When I threw some chunks into the lemony boiling water, I ended up deciding to use that for my "stock" base, and added an onion and the (better quality) chicken base/bullion - as it got soft I tasted a piece and was totally impressed! It was so good. I decided to use the few pieces I needed for the dressing (which I used by cooling them then chopping them finely in the food processor just as I would celery)...then the rest of it, rather than NOT eating the pieces, I used the handheld part of the processor to just puree them right in the stock along with the onion. Since the smoked turkey breast was lean and precooked (no juices to speak of) I chopped off a few small pieces of that and threw them into the mix.

So now as a gravy "base" I had this soup, basically, of celeriac, onion, broth and turkey. Then I made the roux of butter and flour and added this in by quarter cupfuls, and it just..man..what a gravy. It was beyond gravy. Its what gravy wishes it was!

I bought another one with the plan of using it as a lower-carb healthy replacement for starchy side dishes. Its quite good roasted with parmagiana cheese evidently, and I really liked it boiled up in the broth, even just like that sliced it was really good.

Seriously, I am kicking myself for not trying these sooner...!

And, if you want a really fast, yummy soup, you can just make the base of the gravy I "invented"....get some chicken broth off to a good rolling boil, throw in one small squeeze of lemon juice, fresh chopped celeriac, and a chopped onion, boil until veggies are soft, blend with a hand blender, season to taste, eat. That easy and its....gaaaaa....its so yummy. (Use good broth or a high quality bullion).

To get you inspired, here's an NPR article on celeriac...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6551175

And a BBC one:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/knowhow/glossary/celeriac/

As for the fruit.........

I decided on kiwifruit. Its not something I think about much, kiwifruit...it looks funny. It looks like one of Jack Nicholson's testicles (I just made that up! Yeah! hehe)...

I know I'd had it, but I couldn't remember how it tasted. But I did know from reading it was damn good for you. Here's some info from Wikipedia:

***********************************

Kiwifruit is a rich source of vitamin C
-1.5 times the DRI scale in the US.
- Its potassium content by weight is slightly less than that of a banana
- It also contains vitamins A and E
- The skin is a good source of flavonoid antioxidants
- The kiwifruit seed oil contains on average 62% alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid
- Usually a medium size kiwifruit contains about 46 calories, 0.3 g fats, 1 g proteins, 11 g carbohydrates, 75 mg vitamins and 2.6 g dietary fiber.

Kiwifruit also serves as a natural blood thinner....a recent study performed at the University of Oslo in Norway reveals that--similar to popular mainstream aspirin therapy-consuming two to three kiwifruit daily for 28 days significantly thins the blood, reducing the risk of clots, and lowers fat in the blood that can cause blockages.

That's a lot of health in something so small...but they taste nice, easy to slice up and eat and the vitamin C blows oranges out of the water alone, not even counting the potassium, the healthy fatty acids and its blood-thinning benefits. Damn....

***********************************

So, there you go, I challenge you guys to pick a NEW FOOD for the new year, and give it a chance. I did and I am now going to make these two things a part of our weekly shop.

Back to the kitchen!

Food - What's In A Name

Beachwalker — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:37:33 -0800

Beef Wellington - A national hero for defeating Napoleon
at Waterloo in 1815, Arthur Wellesley was made the first
Duke of Wellington. He loved a dish of beef, mushrooms,
truffles, Madeira wine, and pate cooked in pastry, which
has been named in his honor.

***

Peach Melba - Chef Auguste Escoffier created a dessert of
poached peach halves, vanilla ice cream, and raspberry
sauce in honor of Australian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba.
A Frenchman, Escoffier worked at the Ritz Hotel in London
in the early 1900s, the period when Melba performed
regularly at the Covent Garden opera house. Escoffier also
created Melba toast in her honor.

***

Waldorf Salad - In 1896, Oscar Tschirky, the maitre d'hotel
of the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, created
a salad of apples, celery, and mayonnaise. Immediately
popular, the new dish was called Waldorf Salad. Chopped
walnuts later became an ingredient.

Portobello Mushroom Salad

Bettyesque — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:55:46 -0800

4 portobello mushroom caps, wiped clean and very thinly sliced
4 ribs celery and their green tops, thinly sliced on an angle
Handful flat-leaf parsley, picked of stems but left whole
1 lemon (Heads up: you'll need lemon zest for the pesto later, so zest and reserve before you cut this lemon to juice it for this salad.)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
Coarse salt and black pepper
A couple of handfuls shaved Parmiginao-Reggiano

Arrange the mushrooms and celery on a platter and scatter the parsley leaves around. Squeeze the lemon juice evenly over the platter then liberally drizzle the salad with extra-virgin olive oil, about 3 tablespoons. Season the salad with salt and lots of black pepper and toss with your finger tips to combine. Using a vegetable peeler, shave cheese and scatter a couple of handfuls Parmigiano-Reggiano over the salad.

Useless Facts - Part One

NurseBossyBum — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:43:19 -0700

Shouldn't you be doing something else? There are so many useless facts I am going to have to break them into several posts so one does not get bored!!

* The Paomnnehal Pweor Of The Hmuan Mnid.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch as Cmabrigde Uinervtisy,
it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,
the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
* The original game of "Monopoly" was circular.
* It costs more to buy a new car today in the United States than it cost Christopher Columbus to equip and undertake three voyages to and from the New World.
* One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than $200 a year.
* Ninety million people survive on less than $75 a year.
* The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter in the English language.
* The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.
* TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard.
* Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of long words.
* A snail can sleep for 3 years.
* Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
* The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night.
* More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
* Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
* The continents names all end with the same letter with which they start.
* Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump."
* According to tests made at the Institute for the Study of Animal Problems in Washington, D.C., dogs and cats, like people, are either right-handed or left-handed --- that is, they favor either their right or left paws.
* A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.
* Blue whales weigh as much as 30 elephants and are as long as 3 Greyhound buses.
* Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
* Birds do not sleep in their nests. They may occasionally nap in them, but they actually sleep in other places.
* Most elephants weigh less than the tongue of the blue whale.
* Butterflies taste with their hind feet.
* Only female mosquitoes bite.
* Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
* If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
* Every night, wasps bite into the stem of a plant, lock their mandibles (jaws) into position, stretch out at right angles to the stem, and, with legs dangling, fall asleep.
* Ants stretch when they wake up. They also appear to yawn in a very human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.
* Bees have 5 eyes. There are 3 small eyes on the top of a bee's head and 2 larger ones in front.
* The outdoor temperature can be estimated to within several degrees by timing the chirps of a cricket. It is done this way: count the number of chirps in a 15-second period, and add 37 to the total. The result will be very close to the actual Fahrenheit temperature. This formula, however, only works in warm weather. (Try it!)
* In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.
* Caesar salad has nothing to do with any of the Caesar. It was first concocted in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico, in the 1920's.
* A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.
* Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
* You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
* The two longest one-syllable words in the English language is "screeched. & strengths."
* Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
* Barbie's full first name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.

Waldorf Salad with Sweet & Spicy Candied Pecans

jennifer76 — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 12:08:56 -0700

Ok, I was going to wait until we got closer to the holidays to put this up. But, a friend asked me to email it to her. So, while I was at it, here ya go. This is one of my favorite recipes and I'm generally not allowed to show up at a holiday dinner without this in hand. Where's the ♥ ? LOL

I got this from Epicurious years ago, and they got it from Bon Appetit.

[For those of you who have never had a Waldorf Salad, it sounds like a WEIRD combination of stuff. But this is awesome. Even my hubby - who can't stand fruit flavors on anything but fruit - loves it.]

Waldorf Salad...

2/3 cup cherry flavored craisins
1/2 cup mayo
3 Tbs sour cream
2 Tbs fresh lemon juice (I use bottled)
1 tsp sugar
4 Granny Smith apples, cored, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup very thinly sliced celery
1 1/3 cups red seedless grapes, halved

Whisk mayo and next three ingredients in large bowl. Add apples, celery, grapes and cherries, toss. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

For a nice presentation, arrange romaine lettuce leaves on platter and spoon salad over. Yah, I just throw it in a big bowl. LOL Top salad with candied pecans.

Sweet and Spicy Candied Pecans

Nonstick spray
3 Tbs light corn syrup
1 1/2 Tbs sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 325 F. Spray baking sheet with nonstick spray. Combine corn syrup and next 4 ingredients in large bowl. Stir to blend. Add pecans, stir gently to coat. Transfer to baking sheet.

Place large piece of foil on work surface. Bake pecans 5 minutes. Using fork, stir pecans to coat with melted spice mixture. Continue baking until pecans are golden and coating bubbles - about 10 min. Transfer to foil. Working quickly, separate nuts with fork. Cool. Can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature. (I only make these the night before. That gives them plenty of time to cool and harden. And if I make them too far in advance, Mike eats them ALL. Ok, I do too.)

Salad Days for the Internet: Use the Internet to order locally grown produce

tdsollog — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:57:56 -0700

Great article in the NY Times:

Salad Days for the Internet
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/fashion/05cyber.html?ref=fashion

By MICHELLE SLATALLA
Published: June 5, 2008
THE other afternoon, my husband and I were drinking beer on the front porch and already feeling a little dirty about what we planned to do later - grill a big fat steak brushed with butter. Then a terrible thing happened.

We saw a registered dietitian power-walking down the block. Toward us.

“Nancy Bloom alert,” I hissed, slouching behind the porch rail. “Don’t make eye contact.”

Too late. “Hi, guys,” said Nancy, pink-cheeked from eating whole grains. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” my husband said, warily.

“What’s for dinner?” she asked. Toying with us.

I couldn’t tell a lie: “We’re getting ready to eat enough red meat to send our cholesterol levels through the roo...”

“What she means,” my husband said, cutting me off, “is that we were just discussing how to add more local, organically grown vegetables to our lives.”

Nancy beamed at him, as if he was just another faithful follower of the Michael Pollan School of Sensible Eating, adhering to the author’s mantra: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Mr. Pollan’s philosophy, which he laid out in his book “In Defense of Food,” has turned into a lifestyle in my health-conscious Northern California town. Everywhere I turn, people are eschewing processed groceries in favor of the locally produced foods their grandparents ate.

“I get a box of vegetables online every week,” Nancy said, calling over her shoulder as she headed off at a brisk pace, “from Spud.com.”

Buy food online to eat locally? It sounded unnatural, or at least counterintuitive.

But the phenomenon is growing nationwide. Now a number of sites - including Greenling.com in Texas, Naturaldirect.com in Illinois, Organicstoyou.org in Oregon and Mypersonalfarmers.com in New York State - deliver seasonal products from nearby farms to the doorsteps of customers.

These Web sites differ from the earlier generation of produce-delivery ones for two reasons: they all deliver products from local farms to nearby customers (whereas in the past it was rare to find an online organic produce delivery service that didn’t rely solely on a wholesaler). Second, these new sites all allow users to easily customize their standing-order box weekly.

The peer pressure got to me. After Nancy walked away in a haze of good health, I rushed inside to sign up for Spud.com (whose name stands for Small Potatoes Urban Delivery).

After I registered, Spud.com recommended I buy a $50 basket, based on the number and age of the eaters in my household, and allowed me to choose to limit purchases to items - including green onions, grapefruit and strawberries - grown within 500 miles of my house. (The price included delivery.)

Shopping online to eat locally is not just about the food. With oil prices so high, making an effort to reduce the energy costs associated with transporting food from farm to table can be a political stance.

“When one of our vehicles sets out filled with 80 orders, that’s like emptying a whole parking lot of cars that didn’t drive to the store,” said David Van Seters, the founder of Spud.com, which operates delivery facilities in 12 West Coast regions, including Canada. “A grocery-store chain might need 12 stores to service a whole area and present items in open coolers under warm lights for several days. Over 90 percent of our items leave the warehouse within 24 hours, and everything is kept in coolers in the dark right up until the time it’s packed.”

Some online delivery sites go even further to save energy. In Sarasota, Fla., for instance, the owner of a tiny new company called Harvestcycle.com relies on bicycles alone (pedaled by himself and his sister) to deliver DeSoto Lakes organic produce from a nearby farm to eight customers in a nine-mile radius.

“We’re not business people, we don’t have any money, we don’t have a $30,000 car to take care of or to gas up at a cost of 50 cents a mile,” said Andrew Noune, the founder of Harvestcycle.com, which started in February. “I work in the fields, and one day my friend had this idea I should deliver produce on my way home. My friend said, ‘Dude, you should totally set up a Web site and have people shop online.’ ”

Like many services, Harvestcycle.com also sells a broader selection of products distributed through an organic wholesaler, but allows customers to micro-manage orders to a degree unheard of even a few years ago. Customers can order only what’s local (loosely defined as having been grown or raised within a day’s drive) or only what’s in season or only organic - or a mix adjusted each week.

Linda Abbey, who receives a weekly delivery in the Austin-San Antonio area, is one of 625 customers of Greenling.com, whose customer base has increased 20 percent in the last 3 months. “This week we got a really beautiful goat cheese brie, and half a dozen heritage chicken eggs, blue and brown speckled,” said Ms. Abbey, a marketing manager for the University of Texas Libraries.

“What did you do with it all?” I asked.

“You learn to cook with what you get,” she said. “That night I made a chard frittata.”

A few days after I placed my Spud.com order, I found a blue plastic bin on my doorstep containing 18 kinds of produce - ranging from apples to tomatoes - grown in California.

Whereas Ms. Abbey might have looked into the bin and seen, say, a wonderful pesto sauce, I saw only a lot of plants.

My husband broke off a celery stalk. “Tastes good, though,” he said, as we stood there munching and tried to get used to the idea of eating it all before it spoiled.

I spent the next 30 minutes washing greens, rinsing apples and trying to find room in the refrigerator for bunches of chard, cilantro and basil.

“Goll-ly,” said my husband in a Gomer Pyle voice. “We sure have a lot of sprouts.”

I felt panicky. So I phoned Mr. Pollan, figuring that he got me into this mess, so he owed me a pep talk. And sure enough, he made me feel better about buying too much produce online.

“Ideally, you want to look the person who is growing the food in the eye, and then you really know where the food came from and how did the chicken that laid the eggs live,” Mr. Pollan said. “But not everybody wants to meet the chickens. So we need some surrogates to meet the chickens for us, particularly in parts of the country where you might live far away from farmland. We’re inventing different possibilities for that, and the Internet is one of them.”

For sticklers who want to buy directly from a single farmer, Localharvest.org enables users to search by ZIP code for Community Supported Agriculture farms that sell subscriptions, entitling buyers to receive regular delivery of a portion of an entire season’s crops.

This sounded like such a good idea that after I hung up, I also signed up for a Community Supported Agriculture share from Farmfreshtoyou.com.

Then in the interests of self-preservation, I went online to pare back my next Spud order. The last thing I wanted was to end up wasting produce. To avoid that, I intended to make batches of pesto, tomato sauce and steamed broccoli and freeze them.

“Now what?” I asked my husband.

“Salad for dinner,” he said. “And salad for breakfast. And lunch.”

Note to Nancy Bloom: We’ll be leaving a little salad on your doorstep. Just to say thanks.
E-mail: slatalla@nytimes.com