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Fresh Fork Market Winter CSA–week 2

Nov 152012

Today was our second pick up. Again, we picked up in the dark. It’s definitely not my favorite time of year once the time changes. I took a couple of days off of blogging this week and it felt good to have a break. Life has been crazy busy and I love it like that.

Here’s what we received in our bag this week:

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

Winter Week 2:

1 bone in pork shoulder roast, approx. 4 lbs.
1 half lb. bag hard neck garlic
1 bunch carrots with tops
3 lbs. sweet potatoes
1 head cabbage
1 bag broccoli shoots
1 bunch collard greens
1 bunch mustard greens

I’m going to bake the sweet potatoes and add them to my stash for Thanksgiving. We’ll get 4 pounds in our package, but I need more than that for our crowd. I’m adding cabbage to our stuffing, so some of this red head will be used for that. I’m probably going to braise the rest.

This is a ton of garlic. I still have plenty of garlic frozen. I’ll need to get more creative and/or remember to use it more often. The pork roast is a bit on the small side. I am planning on making pulled pork with it. I need an easy crock pot meal tomorrow. My in-laws are coming to visit and we aren’t sure of their arrival time, so I need something that will be ready and waiting.

I’ve been using the collards in fajitas or taco filling. It’s a good gluten free item, so I’ll be making that while my brother in law is in town this weekend. Carrots don’t last long in our house. The kids will probably eat these at lunch one day this week.

We’ll cook the broccoli as a side soon as well. The mustard greens worked well in quiche the last time we received them, so I’ll be doing that with them again.

This is my first time receiving broccoli shoots. We don’t get many new items since I’ve been doing CSAs for 4 years. I’m wondering if they are suppose to have some “mini” broccoli crowns. They look a lot like collards, but the photos that I’ve been looking at on line leave me thinking these are broccoli greens. I’ll probably chop them up with the collards since the greens cook down so much.

I seriously need to spend a few hours in the kitchen tomorrow. I need room to put the turkey away on Tuesday or Wednesday. I don’t even know what day I’m picking mine up yet. I don’t hate green weeks anymore, but they are bulky.

Hmmm…. I’m going to ask the guys at Fresh Fork about the last green. I’m now thinking the broccoli might be the shoots from doing more reading. More to come!

Fresh Fork Market 2012–Summer CSA–week 22

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Nov 012012

Because of Sandy, our Trick or Treat was moved to tomorrow, so we decided to pick up our share today. I didn’t want to be in a rush to put it away, have dinner and have the kids ready. This is our last pick up for the summer season and also the coldest/wettest pick up. I planned a nice butternut squash soup for dinner from the freezer today. It’s a great day for soup.

Here’s a group shot of today’s pickup:

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

1 bunch carrots with tops
1 head jumbo white stem bok choy
1 lb. ground pork
1 lb. ground beef
1 head broccoli
1 butternut squash
2# turnips
1 bag salad mix, lettuce
2# bag of sauerkraut
1 quarter peck Empire apples
2 frozen pizza dough balls
1 package goat feta cheese
Baby Peppers (came in last week’s package)

The carrots will make a nice simple side dish. Everyone likes them in our house, so these won’t last long. The pork and beef is intended for meatloaf. Maybe Stephen will make his famous meatloaf this weekend. That would be delicious.

I’ve started looking at lamb recipes and found a Lamb and Feta Stuffed Cabbage recipe. I think the feta will go into that recipe soon.

We were almost out of apples again. Those will go into oatmeal. I can’t get enough winter squash. I’ll be roasting this along with pie pumpkins that I picked up today. Uses are endless.

For the first time, we received fresh sauerkraut. I’m excited to try it, but I am also glad that it will keep a while in the fridge, so there’s no hurry. This broccoli looks outstanding.

We’ll have it as a side along with pizza for dinner tomorrow. With Trick or Treat, we’ll need an easy to clean up meal. The lettuce will go into salads tomorrow or Saturday.

I’m not sure about the bok choy, but I am thinking a stir fry like we made with the Napa cabbage last week.

I don’t have any current plans for the turnips, but I am glad they will last a while. Maybe we’ll make soup later in the week.

I’ve enjoyed trying out the large package this year. I’d never go back to the small. I love the bag size for us. It worked really well. I’m not interested in the full access package. I like getting the variety in the large and then supplementing with extras as needed.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 17

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Sep 282012

We picked up our bag in Mayfield today. Tonight’s the Homecoming Football Game, so the hours are shortened and they are expecting full parking lots for the game. We got there early and quickly picked up our bag.

What a pretty bag!

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 piece Mayfield Road Creamery “Bloomfield,” a brie style cheese
1 lb. raw honey
1 bunch Swiss chard
1 bunch carrots with tops
1 bunch radishes
1 bag mixed greens, can be used for braising or salad greens
1 head speckled romaine lettuce (it will have brown spots…that is how it should be)
1/2 dz. ears sweet corn
1 quarter peck gala apples
1 butternut squash (2 if they are small…but that’s doubtful based on what I’ve seen)
1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes
2.5 lbs. Roma tomatoes
2 zucchini/squash
Approx. 1 lb. onions
1 head broccoli
A handful Croatian sweet peppers

We received everything exactly as listed. I’ll probably just use the Swiss chard in a quiche. We haven’t had it in a while and I plan to be home on Sunday, so it’s a good day to make it. I’ll probably use some other veggies in it as well. The kids are excited to see the carrots, so they’ll make an easy side dish for lunch one day this week. I usually just cook them and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on them.

I have plenty of eggs and think some zucchini muffins are in order. The corn is going to need cooked today, so I’ll be adding it to tonight’s dinner.

I haven’t decided on a specific use for the Brie, but I’m sure it will disappear. We use honey as our regular sweetener. This will mostly go into tea and muffins.

I’m going to make some sauce this week and use the onion, peppers and tomatoes. We also picked tomatoes from our garden, so we have plenty.

We’ve been eating the apples as they come. I’m going to try to source some additional ones for sauce this week. Winter squash is my favorite. I’ll probably make soup with this butternut squash.

The speckled lettuce and radishes will go into salads. The broccoli is part of tonight’s dinner.

I’m determined to tackle braising greens this winter. We’ll see these often and I never can get away from the bitterness. I am going to conquer them. I’m open to ideas.

Hopefully, our schedule will start to calm down this week and I’ll be able to cook a bit more in the kitchen soon. Lately, our meals have been thrown together based on what’s handy. It works, but I miss some of the more complex dishes.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 14

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Sep 072012

We were back to our regular pick up this week at Mayfield High School. It’s the time of the year where there’s a changing of the guard with the truck staff. Today, we were greeted by Kirsten. It was nice to see her, but it was busy and we didn’t have time to chat. We can expect to see her at Mayfield for the rest of the season. That will be very nice.

Here’s an overview of what we received (minus the watermelon):

Here’s what we were expecting:

1 large watermelon
1 head green leaf lettuce
Approx. 2 eggplant
1 bunch carrots with tops
1 pint grape tomatoes or Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
1 quart concord grapes
Approx. 1 lb. red slicing tomatoes
1-2 onions depending on size
1 bulb garlic
1 lb. beans
1 lb. roasted red pepper linguini
Red peppers
1 lb. bacon breakfast patties
1 bunch leeks
3 lb. bag potatoes

The green beans are dark and rich in color. I think I’ll pull a roast out of the freezer for Sunday and serve them as a side dish. I’m tired of tomato season. It’s nice that farmers are figuring out ways to grow them longer during the growing season using hoop houses and such, but I don’t really care for tomatoes and I’ve been spending my energy elsewhere, so I have tons of frozen tomatoes in the freezer for chili, soup and other dishes and I’m looking forward to the end of adding to it.

I froze the grapes from last week in hopes that we would get them again. I’m going to make grape sorbet or jam with them.

Onion and garlic is status quo at this point. They’ll end up in soup or fajitas this week.

I’ll probably use the carrot and leek in our tomato soup. Nick had fun making it last time, so I thought I’d let him cut up veggies for it again.

I’m going to roast the peppers and add them into a white sauce to serve over the pasta. It’s red pepper linguini, so that should mesh nicely.

I’ll be cooking the breakfast patties soon since we let them thaw when we were out this evening. I’m always at a loss for egg plant. I’ll probably roast it with onions, beets and other veggies tomorrow and see if something else inspires me.

The potatoes will go great with our roast. The lettuce will make a couple of good salads.

I’m glad to see that melon season isn’t quite over. This will be great to have around this weekend. It’s on the larger size, but I suspect it will be gone by Monday.

I’m hoping to cook at home a lot this weekend. We have lots of great looking stuff to use this week.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 12

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Aug 242012

We stopped by Mayfield to pick up our bag today. It worked well in our schedule this week. I love the flexibility of the different pick up locations.

It’s still tough to get a large in one photo. This one is missing the cherry tomatoes, but they wouldn’t have fit anyway.

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

1 bag of oats, 1.5 lbs.
1 bunch red Russian kale
Either 1 bag (approx. 1 lb.) mixed sweet and hot baby peppers or 2 ct. zucchini/squash
1 lb. beans
1 bunch French Breakfast radishes
1 pint blackberries or 1 cantaloupe
1-2 Candy onions, depending on size
2 green peppers
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1 package (1.25 lbs.) green onion bratwursts, made from Berkshire pork
1 piece grass-fed Swiss cheese from Heritage Grass Farms (12 oz.)
2.5 lbs. San Marzano Roma tomatoes
1 bunch carrots with tops
1-2 cucumbers depending on size

I’m probably going to make some sort of kale sausage ragout from the newsletter with the leek, brats, zucchini, garlic, kale and tomatoes. Some of these ingredients we just picked up and others I have left in my fridge. I have some beans ready to go in the freezer and will pull them out tonight.

Carrots and beans will make good side dishes to go with our brats. I’ll probably pickle the radishes.

I’m going to chop and freeze some peppers and dehydrate some of the others. The plums were a nice surprise, I’m sure they’ll disappear quickly.

The cherry tomatoes will be weekend snacking for Stephen and Nick.

I will probably use the cheese with a quiche. I have some eggs to use soon. We eat oats everyday for breakfast, so these will disappear quickly.

I’ll probably make a few more pickles with the cucumbers since we are short on lettuce.

The photo doesn’t do the cantaloupe justice. It’s the size of a watermelon!

All in all, it’s another great week with Fresh Fork. We love not going to the grocery store much. Our list for our last trip to Heinen’s was yellow bananas, buns for brats and a cookie treat for the kids. I can’t wait to see what’s in the bag next week!

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 7

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Jul 202012

We picked up our bag in Beachwood yesterday. Some weeks, it’s just more convenient for us. I love the colors in this week’s bag.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive:

1 dozen pasture raised chicken eggs
1 piece Havarti from Mayfield Road Creamery (8 oz.)
2 ct. zucchini or squash
1 bunch carrots or 1 bunch beets (switching from last week)
1 lb. whole wheat linguini
6 ears sweet corn
1 lb green beans
1-2 bulb onions depending on size
1 lb. apricots
2 lbs. peaches
Approx. 1.5 lbs. tomatoes
1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes
1 pint blueberries

We were missing our blueberries. I’m hoping to stop by Mayfield today and pick them up. We are a bit overstocked on eggs at the moment. My niece and nephew are coming next week and they love eggs, so I think it will all even out. I packed some of the tomatoes in Stephen’s lunch this morning. I doubt any will be left by tomorrow.

I’m actually keeping up with onions. These are the only two that we have in our fridge. I’m guessing they will just be used in regular cooking this week. I’m hoping to grill zucchini for dinner tomorrow.

These tomatoes will probably be made into tomato béchamel sauce for our pasta. It’s convenient that we received carrots this week too.

Peaches and apricots disappear around here quickly. Nick likes to do a magic trick where the apricot turns into a pit. If there are any left tomorrow, we’ll grill some with our zucchini.

Everyone in our house loves cheese, so there’s never a need to figure out a plan. The pasta will be an easy meal for lunch on Sunday with the sauce.

The beans will make a good side dish for dinner tonight, along with the corn.

I’ve also been buying yogurt and milk from the truck. Between the CSA and the extras, our fridge is packed today. It sure beats shopping at the grocery store.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–weeks 4&5

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Jul 062012

Last week, I was still on vacation for week 4, so I didn’t do a pick up. My friend Kelly was nice enough to send me a few photos. I was jealous when I received them on my phone, even though I was at the beach. I love her photos!

Here’s the list of items for the week:

1 quart of yogurt
1 pt of black raspberries
Assorted tree fruit
1 package Italian Sausage links, 1.25 lbs.
2 ct zucchini
1 bunch radishes
1 head green leaf lettuce
1 bunch kale
1 head kohlrabi
1 red bulb onion
1.5 lbs hoop house tomatoes
2 ct cucumbers
1 head broccoli or cauliflower, whichever comes in
1 jar strawberry balsamic sauce made from leftover week 1 strawberries

The highlights were the fruit. She received apricots, plums as an add on, raspberries, and Clark Pope Catering’s Roasted Strawberry Balsamic Sauce. Kelly mentioned that the plum were like heaven in a paper bag. Even though I wasn’t here last week, I was able to get a bottle of the sauce. I’m excited to try it out.

Now onto this week’s bag!

It was 95 degrees when we picked up our bag. This has been one hot day! I was glad to quickly get everything home and unloaded.

Here’s what we were expecting to receive:

1 whole chicken or pork roast
1 bunch beets
2 bulb onions
1 bunch carrots or 1 head kohlrabi
Approx. 2# tomatoes
1 baby bok choy
2 lbs. peaches
1 bunch spinach
1 lb. garlic scape and black pepper linguini
2 lbs. apricots
2 ct. cucumbers
2 ct. zucchini

We love the spinach. It’s quite versatile. We already used some in our white sauce tonight. I’m not a big tomato person. I think they are “guishy”. I’m such a texture eater. I’m not sure if I’ll ever like them. Some other Fresh Fork CSA folks were talking about having a tomato tasting party. I might be swayed to participate if that were to occur. For now, these will be eaten by Stephen and Nick or I’ll use them in sauce.

I have a total of 4 zucchini and I am making fritters for lunch tomorrow. I’m not sure why we got extra cucumbers, but they are great for snacking and salads. Since we don’t have any lettuce at the moment, I suspect these will become snacks for the weekend. I may try my hand at a quick relish.

Some of the onion will go into our pulled pork and coleslaw recipes. The rest will be chopped and frozen for future use. We ate almost all of the carrots at dinner. The leftover ones will be gone at lunch tomorrow.

Our apricots aren’t going to last long. They are very ripe. I’m thinking of making smoothies with them tomorrow since it’s going to be another scorcher. I contemplated an apricot dessert, but I’m not sure I want to turn on the oven. Maybe, I’ll get creative. We’ve been enjoying peaches in our oatmeal each morning. With 4 of us, these won’t last long.

Bok choy always stumps me. I just don’t have a great go to recipe for it. It usually just ends up in a stir fry for Stephen. I’m going to make pulled pork with the roast tomorrow. I am going to put the crock pot in the basement so our whole house doesn’t heat up while it cooks.

We’re going to grill the beets this week. We have a kohlrabi to use as well. We didn’t get our pasta when we picked up our bag. Since I was out anyway, I stopped back to get it on our way home from the spray ground. It went straight to boiling water for dinner and had already missed it’s photo opportunity.

I’m not going to say that every CSA week is easy, but I like feeling like I finally have the hang of it. I’m looking forward to eating fresh and local this weekend.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA – week 3

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Jun 232012

Normally, I would have picked up our large CSA yesterday in Mayfield. But, I’m on vacation. After a few days in Baltimore and Dover, we are all checked in at our beach house. My friend Kelly was kind enough to send me a photo of the large share. It looks amazing and I’m sad to miss it. But, I’m super happy that Fresh Fork has an awesome vacation policy.

Here’s the artistic photo from Kelly:

Here’s the list of contents that Fresh Fork sent us earlier in the week. Squash was subbed for the napa cabbage.

Small CSA Share

1 package boneless loin chops, 2 per pack
2 lbs spelt berries
1 bunch spinach
1 head white stem bok choy
1 dozen eggs
1 bunch swiss chard or 1 head baby bok choy (depending on route)
1 bunch beets with tops
1 lb snow peas
1 head chinese napa cabbage

Large CSA Share Small contents above plus:

1 bunch carrots
1 lb shelled peas
1 head leaf lettuce
1 extra bunch spinach
2 bunches red bulb green onions

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some pork chops when I return. It’s one of the best Fresh Fork items that we’ll get all summer. If I was in town, I’d be trying out the dry container on my new Vitamix. I like spelt berries, but I’m really anxious to try out making flour. For now, I’m going to try my best to eat some good local food while I’m on vacation. I visited a local market yesterday and have 2 Farmers’ markets on the schedule for the week.

Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 6

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Jan 052012

Today, there was no rain for our Fresh Fork CSA pick up. There was also no line at the time we arrived. This week’s package was also easier to pack than some and I think that helped. We’d rather have snow on the ground that rain coming down for our pick ups.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

1 whole pasture raised chicken
1 lb. carrots
1 lb. Brussels sprouts (removed from stalk)
2 lb.s beets
1/2 lb. mixed organic greens
1 dozen pasture raised eggs
2 lbs. organic black turtle beans
1 smoked pork hock
1 lb. roasted butternut squash and cracked black pepper linguini

We were also expecting 1 pound of ground beef that was missed for everyone at Beachwood last time.

Here’s a group shot:

We didn’t have many eggs left and use quite a bit in everyday cooking. So, I was glad to have these in the bag this week. I also have some frozen egg beaters that I need to work into some recipes soon. Surprise, surprise, we’ll be making Harvard Beets with the beets this week.

I was originally going to make this pasta for dinner, but we had other pasta in the fridge and opted for a quicker dinner tonight. The Ohio City pasta cooks fast, but I usually make a white sauce to go with it and the leftovers were easy tonight. We’ll save that for another day this week. Everyone in our house loves cooked carrots. Now that Stephen can eat raw ones again (since getting his braces removed), we may have to discuss how to prepare them.

We’ll have the Brussels sprouts tomorrow. Last time, we let them go too long and I think they lost some of their flavor. The greens will hopefully go into salad. I’m not the biggest fan of this variety, but I need to get better of just eating them.

With pork hock and black beans in the same week, black bean soup is in order. I’ve been looking at recipes for a couple of days and haven’t quite decided on a version for us yet.

Our chicken is 7.8 pounds! That is definitely the biggest Fresh Fork chicken we have have gotten thus far. For now it’s parked in the freezer along with our ground beef.

Lastly, the warehouse did a “blow out” sale on the ham loaf. We remembered it fondly so I stocked up. It was $2 a pound. I like to describe it to people as ham based meatloaf mix. I will be making meatballs and muffin size meatloaves with some yet to be invented rhubarb honey BBQ sauce and then freezing them for meals. I’ll serve them with potatoes, different grains, pasta, etc. I like to bake them and freeze in big batches so we can get several meals out of them.

Lastly, this is the first time that I got to take photos of my CSA pick up with my new lights. I think that I have tons to learn, but it’s a huge improvement over the dark photos of recent weeks. I’m mostly intrigued by how different the wood table looks in the photos when I think I had the same lighting and camera settings for all of my photos. I think that the angle of the camera has a big impact. I think I’ll be learning how to use a tripod next. Hopefully, I’ll have a some time to experiment over the next couple of weeks.

Geauga Family Farms–Winter CSA week 5

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Dec 102011

The kids and Stephen went up to St. Noel’s today to pick up week 5 of our Geauga Family Farms CSA. Next week is the last pickup for the winter share. Today’s pickup was particularly great.

Here’s a group shot of what we received:

Let’s take a closer look:

Butternut squash, sweet potatoes

Eggs (Yeah!), garlic

Broccoli, carrots

Red cabbage, beets

Two kinds of lettuce

Wheat bread

We have quite a few squash right now. I will be baking most of them tomorrow and making squash puree for the freezer. We also have quite a few sweet potatoes. The kids really like the baked sweet potato slices, so we’ll be making them again soon.

Eggs we use in everyday cooking and they are always welcome. We have quite a bit of garlic frozen, but this is our only fresh piece. I’ll be putting it in chili this week.

The broccoli and carrots both went into Shepherd’s pie tonight. It was delicious. I used local butter, potatoes, ground beef, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.

I don’t have any immediate plans for the cabbage, but something will come to me soon. The beets will be combined with some others in the fridge for Harvard beets.

We had some of the lettuce in salad today and will probably use the rest in a day or two. The wheat bread is almost 1/2 gone. It made nice peanut butter and apple butter toast for snacks today.

I’ll be sad to see this CSA end next week.

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