I may not have been taking tons of pictures of my own food this summer — sometimes, it’s just too complicated to switch back and forth from food-hands to camera-hands during a spate of high-level culinary creation — but I have definitely been cooking! One major facilitator of the photography situation, however, is pre-made food that lends itself nicely to a semi-homemade approach. (Just call me Sandra Lee, haaaaaaaa.) Thanks to the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program, I wound up with some tasty and free meal enhancers.

The first treat that arrived seemed slightly discouraging from the outset:

Things started looking up after I needlessly used tongs to dissemble the packaging safely:

Woohoo! Something I would absolutely never buy, as I can easily make it tastier and healthier from scratch, but a delicious treat all the same:

The strawberry pizza made an excellent quick dinner after a late night at work:

I was especially impressed by the chunks of real fruit, even though the pizza itself splintered into a number of little pieces before I even opened the box:

The mixed berry pizza survived the postal service intact and was delicious as a decadent weekend breakfast:

In conclusion, the fruit pizzas were wonderful, and I recommend them if you are craving one but do not want to make it from scratch.

The next free sample involved like a million different kinds of hamburger and hotdog buns from Nature’s Pride. I rarely eat hotdogs and hamburgers and never cook them myself, so the bread found its way into other uses.

French toast made with CSA eggs and blackberries:

Cheese, CSA egg, and CSA pesto “panini” (thanks to the good ol’ George):

Bread is bread. It was good.

Side note: While I’m talking about CSA eggs, check out the variety that came in one of our half dozen batches:

That white one was HUGE! I let Erik have the giant one 🙂

Finally, this chicken and four-cheese ravioli also made an excellent last-minute dinner:

Actually, the dinner ended up not being so last-minute, as I again channeled my inner Sandra Lee and went semi-homemade with pasta sauce made completely from CSA tomatoes and garlic and balcony basil:

Obviously I covered the whole thing in cheese shreds. Sarah portion; Erik portion.

Conclusion: free food = yay! I will never turn down a free thing, though my preference is always homemade. Sometimes I wish I had a professional photographer, because I still cook tons but often don’t have the energy or time to be photographing everything along the way. I will have to work on Erik to get on top of this job!