Misfit Market is an organic produce subscription that is delivered to your door for half the price of supermarkets. I’m sure you’re thinking it’s probably expired or undesirable produce. It’s actually farm fresh and locally sourced fruits and veggies that are less than perfect in appearance or shape and cannot be sold in the grocery stores. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t bother me that things aren’t perfect, I’m going to chop them up most of the time anyway! Misfit Market saves a lot of food waste and helps organic produce to be more available on a budget.
We’ve been getting our Misfit boxes every week for a few months now and love it! We started with the Madness Box which is perfect for families of 4 and then we decided for health reasons to eat a plant based diet and now order 2 Madness Boxes per week. If you have only 1-3 people in your home, I would suggest the Mischief Box which has a smaller amount of produce. I do a weekly posting of what was in my box, and what meals I made with it on my Health & Harmony Facebook page so go join my page to get some inspiration!
Seasonal Produce
If you’ve grown a garden, you know that sometimes you end up with a bunch of the same kind of produce. That can happen when you get Misfit Market boxes on a regular basis too since they are sourcing from local farms. Eggplant, summer squash, zucchini, and onions have been a staple in our boxes for the last few months. I started to accumulate eggplant since it’s not a favorite veggie and summer squash because I was limited in knowing how to prepare it other than in a pan with onions and that gets boring! So I hit the internet to find some new ways to use these and adapt them to our plant based eating. To our surprise and delight, everything was so delicious and we used up EVERYTHING in our fridge and pantry!
My eyes and palate have been opened to some new meals through this introduction of a plant based diet and Misfit Market deliveries have really helped us stick to it. Once you have this much produce in your house, there’s no turning back! So if you’re the type of person that needs accountability, this is for you!
Meal Planning
The key to sticking with a plant based diet is definitely being prepared. I find it most helpful to have a planned menu for the week including lunches. Both for me and mom at home and for the guys out of the house all day. Otherwise, we don’t make the best choices and end up feeling terrible too boot.
When I get my Madness Box, I wash everything thoroughly in Thieves Fruit & Veggie Wash and vinegar. I make a list of all the items received and then think about what I can make with them. If I’m not sure, Pinterest and the Forks Over Knives Facebook Page is always helpful in finding new recipes. Once I have my menu planned out then I order anything else I need to begin preparing meals for grocery pickup at my local grocery store. I spend one day- usually Saturday doing meal prep for lunches, putting a crockpot meal together for the busiest night of the week, and cutting/prepping any veggies to save time during the week so all of my meals stay at about 45 minutes or less to get to the table. It has helped tremendously and we’ve all been healthier for it!
When You’re Tired Of The Same Old Thing
My mom did her best, but she wasn’t interested in cooking when I grew up. So we ate the same thing every week over and over. I guess that’s why It used to be rare for me to make the same meals more than once or twice. Now that our eating habits have changed, we tend to eat some of the same meals, but in different ways which keeps things interesting and just different enough for me. I’ve also come to learn and enjoy eating foods raw. They taste different and it brings new prospective to foods I thought I didn’t like much.
One of those foods that tastes better raw is eggplant! Who knew! Eggplant is a common item in your Misfit Box. What comes to mind is eggplant parmigiana right? We did that a couple of times, but I still had a lot of it left. I came across this Raw Eggplant Manicotti recipe and adapted it using a vegan cream cheese with chives and nutritional yeast as the “cheese” of the manicotti then followed the rest of the recipe x4 and made a huge batch of these. They were absolutely delicious and even the meat eating men in my house thought they were delicious!
Another common ingredient in the Misfit Box is red onion. Granted, these can be used in more ways than eggplant, but can you use 6 or 7 a week? Likely no! That’s when Caramelized Onion Marmalade was born! It smells like Thanksgiving Dinner while cooking and pretty much cooks itself with a little monitoring. It is out of this world delicious on all kinds of things! Our favorite was on a portobello mushroom black bean burger topped with guac, sprouts, and some roasted radish chips! It’s also a great lunch or party snack when placed on top of a baguette smeared in goat cheese. MMMMM…I’m getting hungry!
The third item we commonly get is yellow summer squash. I’ve used it all of the traditional ways and even used it in a bread, but still had lots left over and each week got more since it’s prime season. Italian Sausage Stuffed Summer Squash was a great way to use up all the summer squash I had and I heard “It’s a keeper” from around my dining table. I adapted the recipe using vegan cheese, Ultimate Beefless Ground, and gluten free bread. They were yummy and would be even better with just a splash of marinara to be more like a sausage pizza!
Have You Tried Misfit Market?
With Misfit Market expanding into new states recently, I’m curious if you’ve tried it? What have you made with what you got in your box? I’d love to see it in the comments! If you haven’t tried it and would like to, here’s a discount code to get you going!
Health & Harmony 