Dark overview photo:

I think the only thing the photo really shows is how big a large share is.  I’m continually impressed with a what we receive for our value each week.

Here’s what we received:

• 1 bunch Cylindra beets
• 1 quart whole milk yogurt
• 1 acorn squash
• 1 pint blackberries
• 1 bag mixed peppers
• 1 lb. red fortune plums
• 2 lbs. Roma tomatoes
• 1 kohlrabi
• 1 bunch collards
• 6 ears sweet corn
• 1 ball fresh mozzarella cheese
• 2 frozen pizza dough balls
• 1 pint heirloom tomato sauce
• A handful hot Hungarian peppers
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• concord grapes

Originally, we were going to get a spaghetti squash and not have grapes.  You can’t argue with mother nature.  We’ll see squash soon.

This is a crazy week for us as we are leaving town for a few days tomorrow.  So, all of our food needs to be cooked, eaten, froze, or packed so that we don’t lose any of our items.

I have some beets already in the fridge.  I’m going to make Harvard beets and freeze them.  I’ve never frozen that recipe before, but a quick Google search tells me that it’s possible.

We love the yogurt and are fully stocked.  I’m glad it has good dates.  I’ll be taking one container with us in our cooler.

I love winter squash season as much as melon season.  I’ll roast this acorn squash, make puree and freeze it.  It would probably last if I just waited until we got home from our trip, but I’d rather just take care of it now.

The plums and blackberries will come with us on our trip if they last that long.  I’m going to freeze the peppers, tomatoes, collards and corn.  I’ll blanch and chop as needed.  I’m hoping to make the grapes into a usable concentrate for sorbet.  Then, I’ll freeze it.

I’ll use the pizza dough, sauce and cheese to make some pizza for lunch tomorrow and maybe dinner on the road.  The dough was already thawing before I got to it, so I need to use it up.

Whew!  I need to get busy.  We’re leaving at 12:30pm tomorrow and I still need to pack too.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

• 1 whole cantaloupe
• Either 1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes or approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• 2 ct. zucchini/squash
• 2 ct. eggplant
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 large candy onion
• 2 oz. basil
• 1 bunch curly kale
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. slicing tomatoes
• 1 lb. bulk Italian sausage (ground)
• 1 pint blackberries or approx. 1.5 lbs. peaches
• 1 small yellow watermelon
• 1 lb. yellow wax beans or green filet beans
• 1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
• 1 head lettuce
• 1 bunch radishes
• 1-2 cucumbers depending on size

These melons are really small.  I think I’ll call them personal size.  We’ll eat them quickly.

The guys of the house will snack on the cherry tomatoes.  The rest are going into some salsa (hopefully tonight).

We’ll eat the lettuce in salad and use the basil for some dressing.   I need to pick up some more balsamic vinegar, but we’ll make due until then.

I haven’t decided on a dish for the kale yet.  It may just get sautéed.  The cucumbers will be great for salads and snacking.

I have lots of garlic frozen from last year.  I’ll have to remember to use it more often.  We had the onion with our dinner tonight.

I’m not a huge fan of ratatouille, so we’ll probably make a veggie lasagna this week and use the eggplant.  I’m hoping to try a bread and butter zucchini pickle recipe with the zucchini (and a few others we have).

We’ll have the blackberries for breakfast tomorrow.  Our fridge is too full to keep them around.  We’ll either roast or pickle the radishes.

The beans will be a side dish for Sunday.  I put the Italian sausage and ground beef in the freezer.

I really need to get some preserving done, my fridge is over flowing.  A little canning and freezing and we’ll be all set.  It’s easy for us to use our items when we eat at home, but we’ve had a strange schedule lately and we’re a bit behind on consumption.

The attendant walked over to show us what we were looking for.  She wanted to make sure we knew there were good berries there if you look under the leaves and in the bushes.  Sally ate a red one and the attendant snapped at her because she didn’t want her to get sick.  Sally started crying.  She was mostly just very, very tired.

Nick found some black berries and Sally took a nap.  Don’t worry, we could see the car the whole time we were picking.  She was in the shade and the door was open.

We only picked a pound and a half.  It was $4.50 total.  It wasn’t really good picking.  When the field looks red upon arrival, that’s not a good sign.  I’m sure many people had picked on Saturday and probably earlier in the day on Sunday.

Even though we didn’t get many berries, it was fun to check out the crop.  I’m hoping to get some more closer to home next week since blackberries are great in jam and smoothies.

Here’s a shot of what we picked up today:

onions, lettuce

bell peppers (one in our share and one gifted from another member)

slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes

peaches, blackberries

watermelon

Since we picked 60 pounds of peaches on Sunday, I’m in clean the kitchen and canning mode.  So, this needs to be an easy CSA week.  The peppers, onions and slicing tomatoes are going to be frozen.  The blackberries will be great with breakfast tomorrow.  The lettuce will go into a salad with a cucumber from last weekend.  We’ll eat the peaches in oatmeal as they ripen.  The watermelon can get in melon line.  We have a cantaloupe cut up in the fridge, plus two other melons that we picked up over the weekend.  Since everyone in our house loves melon season, we’ll have no problem consuming it.  We made two quiches today and have some local pasta in the freezer.  We’ll be having easy to throw together meals the next few days.

Originally, we were going to be “on vacation” from week 12 of our Fresh Fork CSA.  But, our plans changed and we were able to cancel our vacation and pick up our share.  Next, I’ll need to place an extra order to use the funds from our week 10 vacation.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive this week:

Small CSA:

• 1 pint blackberries
• 1 quart yogurt
• 1 lb. nitrate free bacon from Berkshire hogs
• Approx. 1.5 lbs.slicing tomatoes
• 1 head leaf lettuce
• 3 lbs. new potatoes, red norland or yukon gold variety
• 1 bunch swiss chard or 1 bunch chiogga beets (candy cane striped beets)
• 1 pint heirloom cherry tomatoes
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. peaches

Here’s a group shot:

We picked 1 bushel of tomatoes today, so these will get added to that bounty for canning.  This is a “fluffy” variety of lettuce and looks extra fresh.  I can’t wait to have it on a salad tomorrow.

When I left for Mom’s Night Out, Nick was asking for more blackberries.  I haven’t checked the fridge to see if they made it past dinner.  This yogurt is turning into a family favorite.  And, we had been having cottage cheese this week, so it’s nice to have more yogurt in the house.  We’ve been sweetening it up with a bit of homemade jam.  I also use it in my overnight oats.

I just finished processing my peaches from the peck that we picked on Saturday.  I still have to make the jam with the peaches that I skinned this morning.  These peaches will soften up in a day or two and be great as a snack or in my oatmeal.  We are stocked with cherry tomatoes at the moment.  We got a pint at our pick up on Tuesday and it’s one of the items that has survived in our garden.  I’m not a fan of the texture of raw tomatoes, but Nick and my husband both like them.  I just need to remember to serve them!

We haven’t really had potatoes much lately.  I can’t decide between mashed potatoes to go with some Fresh Fork pork that is  thawing in the fridge or German Potato Salad.  We have some other beets in the fridge, so I will combine them and probably make our standard Harvard Beets.  I think there was a choice between beets and Swiss Chard and I asked for beets so we could make a decent amount for a dinner side one night.

Lastly, we got bacon.  So, this week was themed BLTs, but I’m not sure if they will appear on our menu or not.  I did recently read about cooking bacon in the over on a rack and I just might have to try that with this bacon.

I think this is an easy week for us and that the items are easy to use and store.  It’s a good thing because we have a few other items from Tuesday to use up and have a busy weekend coming up.

It rained off and on during our 45 minute trip to Madison, but we were greeted with blue skies when we arrived.  We were told that they were pretty picked over from Monday, but Tina let us go out and see what we could find.  We had met our friends there.  It’s always nice to have an extra adult around and it’s also nice when we are the only ones picking.  We don’t have to worry so much about the kids getting in the way of other pickers.

This photo of Sally says it all!

We ended up picking 5 pounds of blackberries.  I thought that was pretty good considering that they were pretty picked out when we started.  They are $3.25 a pound and I ended up paying $14.90.  The math is slightly off due to my container credit.  If you bring your own containers, they weigh them and don’t charge you for that part.  If you use their containers, you end up paying $3.25 a pound for them.  We picked up another dozen corn while we were there ($5).

I was intrigued by the melons.  We bought one passport melon for $2.50 and 2 personal size orange melons ($3 for the two).  The passport one is a cross between a honeydew and a cantaloupe.  We haven’t tried the orange melon yet.  So, I ended up spending $25.40 total.

We’re looking forward to returning next week for peppers and tomatoes.

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

Zucchini, cucumber

Eggplant, cabbage

Onion, yellow squash

Tomatoes, cauliflower

Blackberries, cherry tomatoes

Hot peppers, Roma tomatoes

Basil, lettuce

Lettuce

I’m thinking that a gluten free chili mac dish might be in order when my in laws visit this weekend.  I saw all of the tomatoes and immediately thought chili or sauce.  With the chili route, I could use the onion, peppers and tomatoes in one shot.  The basil will be dried or frozen for use in sauce in the upcoming weeks.  We were almost out of lettuce, so it’s nice to be stocked up for salads.  The cabbage will go into cole slaw along with the head I have from our other CSA.  The cauliflower will get eaten for lunch tomorrow.  I’m not sure about the other ingredients.  We will make an effort to use or preserve everything by Friday night as we have company for the weekend and we don’t want anything to go bad!

I ended up buying a dozen sweet corn for $5.00 that was just picked that morning.  We’ve already had it for 2 meals and it’s outstanding.  I also picked up 2 of these squash for .75 each.  I think they are called pear squash.  They are a summer squash similar to zucchini and yellow squash.

Currants were $2.25 a pound and I ended up with .71 pounds paying $1.60 for them.  This is a rather small bowl.  Since I didn’t have any concrete planned uses and the thought of taking the kids for slushes seems better than the hot field, I was fine with a small amount.  I am planning to cook them in a roast recipe in place of cranberries.

We liked Rainbow Farms and will go back in a couple of week for thorn less blackberries.

Rainbow Farms is located at 2464 Townline Rd., Madison, OH 44057  440-259-4924