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A Fresh Fork Market Thanksgiving Package

Nov 232011

While I picked up my regular share yesterday, I also picked up a Thanksgiving package from my Fresh Fork CSA. There were 3 to pick from and I choose package number 1. I debated whether to get a package since we don’t usually cook Thanksgiving dinner. We go to my uncle’s house. I discussed it with my husband and we decided to try it out. Let’s just say we will be eating well for a couple of weeks.

Here’s a group shot of what we received. It was hard to get everything in one photo!

We were expecting the following:

Package 1 Contents:

Tom Turkey
Apple Pie
Sweet Potato Pie
Beets
Carrots
Candy Onions
Sweet Potatoes
Red Norland Potatoes
Shallots
Garlic
Dinner Rolls
Turnips
Cauliflower
Lettuce
Bread for Stuffing
Eggs
Winter Squash Mix
Cornmeal
Pie Pumpkin
Frozen Ohio Sweet Corn
Bacon
Braising Greens
Apple Cider
Apples
White Spelt Flour

Let’s take a closer look.

The pies look awesome. The apple pie is made with Ohio apples and came from Humble Pie Baking. It came with instructions for a little bit of additional baking time before serving. We are taking it with us to my uncle’s house. The sweet potato pie came from Lucky’s Café. We didn’t need the pie at my uncle’s house and I didn’t need a whole pie here. So, I sent it to work with my husband this morning sans a piece. The kids and I shared a piece with lunch. It is one of the best pies that I ever tasted! I’m extra glad that it went to work with my husband today.

We hardly ever by grocery store eggs. The farm fresh ones are so good. We also like knowing where they came from. We were almost out of eggs until our delivery. We’ll use some in our waffles this weekend, my sweet potatoes for tomorrow, hard boil some and use some for regular everyday cooking. The frozen corn is a new item. This corn was frozen this summer when it was in season. I just popped it in our freezer. We probably won’t try it for a week or two as we make our way through our fresh items.

The bacon is always great. I just put it in the freezer. We’ll use some with our stuffing recipe and some with our greens. If there is any left, we’ll crumble it on our salad. We were out of apples and already have eaten some on our oatmeal for breakfast. These won’t last long in our house.

We received whole wheat flour instead of spelt. Either is fine with us. We use almost all whole wheat flour in our house, so the change was welcome. We tried a couple of rolls with dinner last night. They were very tasty and buttery. We put the rest in the freezer. My kids love bread and these will be easy to give them with lunches.

Winter squash is one of my favorite foods. It’s so versatile and delicious. These should store well and are not on my immediate radar to use up. This bread looks great. It’s intended for stuffing, but I have a feeling it may become French toast or squash inspired bread pudding instead. For now, it’s in the freezer.

The lettuce is super fresh. Some went to work for my husband’s lunch. The rest will probably be served with dinner. These heads of garlic are HUGE! We are in garlic overload this year. I’m not sure why we have so much, but if I can’t get it used soon, I’ll chop and freeze it. I mostly just need to remember to put it into dishes.

I enjoy cooking with shallots. They have a milder flavor than onions and compliment other flavors well. For now, these are being stored in our basement. Turnips will probably go into soup. I don’t have a great go to recipe for them yet.

Our local, pasture raised turkey came to us fresh from Martha’s farm. This bird weighed in at 22.8 pounds. They were just processed on Monday. Since we aren’t cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I’m interested in trying a turkey sausage recipe, we are freezing our bird in several pieces. I’ll be making some of it for dinner tonight and we’ll get many meals out of this big bird. The braising greens will get sautéed as a side in the next couple of days.

The corn meal is a great pantry item. Nick loves corn muffins and we haven’t made them much lately. They’ll be a great use for some of this corn meal, eggs and whole wheat flour. The carrots look super fresh. Everyone in our house likes carrots and we’re having them for dinner tonight.

Cauliflower is so easy for us to use. Everyone likes it. I usually do it plain, with a few seasoning or in a simple au gratin recipe. With a head here and in our regular pickup, maybe we’ll have it three different ways this week. With the beets, I’ll make a small batch of Harvard beets.

We’ll be having our fill of mashed sweet potato casserole tomorrow, so these will probably get baked into fries for lunch one day next week. The kids love them with Ozark blend and cinnamon spices.

After I got home and sorted out all of our goodies,

I realized that we were missing or short on a few items. We were missing onions, potatoes, pie pumpkin and apple cider. We were short some apples and cornmeal. A quick email to the great guys at Fresh Fork and they’ll remedy it at the next pickup. I was given an option to pick it up at another site today, but I’m in no rush. We have plenty to last us for a while.

Our pick up was not the best yesterday. It was extra busy with the regular shares, holiday packages, turkeys, pies and LOTS OF RAIN. We had to wait for a while, but everyone in line was chatting and taking it in stride. Even the kids just liked running around in the rain.

The food always tastes amazing and the people who work the truck are super nice. I already can’t wait to see what they offer for Christmas. Berkshire ham anyone?

Geauga Family Farms–week 15

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Sep 202011

Hi, there! My role here at Life Lyn Style is usually limited to the background, but with Lyn enjoying herself in a tropical paradise, it is up to me (her loving husband) to share what we found in our Geauga Family Farms CSA today. The harvest season is upon us, with the bountiful crop we found in the box today.

First off, here is the group shot. I’ll bet we could measure how big the week’s harvest is by how high we have to hold the camera to take this picture. The camera was pretty close to the ceiling today.

“I’m ready for my closeup,” cried the kale, and I was happy to oblige.

Red Russian kale, bok choy

Garlic, sweet potatoes

Apples (mixed varieties), carrots

Parsley (mix of flat leaf and curly), green beans

Red leaf lettuce, onions

Bell peppers, little peppers (I don’t know yet if they are hot)

Eggplant, yellow squash

Tomatoes

Using this up with Lyn away is going to be a challenge. My cooking skills have rusted a bit in recent years, with the grill more my specialty than the stove is. The parsley says “tabouli”, which could use some tomato and onion as well. The kale and bok choy I will saute, with some balsamic vinegar for the kale and some sesame oil for the bok choy. We will surely have some delicious salads as well.

Thanks for visiting! Lyn will be back tomorrow.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 16

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Sep 152011

Today, we once again headed to Beachwood High School to pick up our Fresh Fork CSA share.

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

Small CSA:

1 pint mixed color cherry tomatoes
1 package chicken sausage (4 links, 1.25 lbs.)
1 dz. pastured chicken eggs
1 bunch carrots with tops
1 bunch turnip greens
2 ct. green bell peppers
2 ct. poblano chili peppers
1.5 lbs. Stanley plums
Either 1 hd. broccoli or 1 stalk of celery

Here’s a group shot of share:

We were down to 1 egg in our fridge, so we were glad to see these. We went plum picking this week and the plum-apple sauce turned out great, so I am making another batch.

We were gifted a bunch of peppers this week, so I am chopping and freezing away.

The chicken sausage went straight to the freezer. Trevor included several ideas for the turnip greens in the newsletter. Basically, I’ll make them like my Swiss chard and they should be tasty. I’ll probably have them for lunch tomorrow since they are taking up room in the fridge.

The broccoli looks delicious. Nick and Sally and I will enjoy it with dinner tomorrow. We got Heirloom tomatoes instead of cherry tomatoes. I got a couple of extra since mine were bad last week. I’m going to clean/chop and freeze them with some other tomatoes for a later sauce.

My kids couldn’t get enough carrots last week, so they eat these at lunch for a couple of days. I’m not sure they will even last through 2 meals.

Since I am on vacation next week and the week after, I spent a few of my credit dollars today. I put them on my account and it will be a wash over time. I picked up yogurt ($5), corn chips (2 @ $3.50) and a Camembert cheese ($8). So, I “spent” $20.

I bought yogurt at the grocery store earlier this week since we were out. I screwed up and bought vanilla. Yuck, it’s full of sugar and I can’t use it for cooking. I really like my newly found whole wheat dough recipe and it calls for yogurt. I like to keep the ingredients on hand. I was super excited to see the corn chips back. The truck hasn’t had them for sale lately. They are the best corn chips I’ve ever had. One bag was opened in the car. I bought 2 bags so there would still be some with Stephen gets back from his trip.

Today and tomorrow I am preserving food and packing for my trip. I’m trying to avoid too much last minute craziness on Sunday.

Geauga Family Farms–week 13

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Sep 062011

Today, we picked up our Geauga Family Farms CSA. I was glad that we remembered it was Tuesday. It feels like a Monday since yesterday was the Labor Day Holiday. It’s week 13 already. I think we have 20 weeks total.

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

Cabbage, sweet corn

Potatoes, yummy SWEET oranges peppers

Swiss chard, watermelon!

2 varieties of leaf lettuce

Tomatoes, yellow squash

Carrots, green peppers

This week looks superb! Everything was vibrant, fresh, and we had a rainbow of colors in our box.

I’m hoping that we get apples from our other CSA this week and I can make my coleslaw recipe with the cabbage. I have all of the other ingredients on hand. I’ll be cooking the sweet corn tomorrow or Thursday.

After juicing 100 pounds of Roma tomatoes for sauce over the weekend, this amount of tomatoes doesn’t seem like very many to me. I’ll probably just use a couple in salad and juice the rest for some ketchup or BBQ sauce.

I don’t really have specific plans for the other items, but we’ll be eating well this week!

PS – Yes, we got another watermelon. Yes, I am HAPPY about it!

Geauga Family Farms–week 10

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Aug 162011

Today was the 10th pick up for the Geauga Family Farms CSA. This week’s share was similar to last week’s share.

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

Cherry tomatoes, carrots

Lettuce and more lettuce

Watermelon, cantaloupe

Green bell peppers, broccli

Yellow squash, eggplant

Cucumber, zucchini (yes it looks funny, but it is a variety of zucchini)

HOT peppers, slicing tomatoes

Peaches, green beans

We got 3 different types of fruit. That is pretty odd for our CSA, but we love fruit. Most of the items this week will be easy to use. The fruit will disappear in a couple of days.

One pepper and the cucumber will go into salad along with the lettuce. We ate the broccoli for dinner tonight. The beans will make a great side dish to our meal tomorrow. Carrots, eggplant and squash feel like staples in our house, so we’ll be making a quiche or lasagna to use them up soon.

Then, there are the hot peppers. If there is one item that I wish we didn’t get, it would be the hot peppers. I just haven’t found a good use for them yet. But, I am determined. I’ll keep you all posted!

Food Log for Friday

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Jul 082011

Breakfast

overnight oats w/peanut butter, cherries, cinnamon, milk

Lunch

pasta w/ laughing cow cheese

cole slaw

Dinner

pork roast w/ bbq sauce and onions

quinoa

roasted veggies (kolhrabi, beets, carrots, radishes)

Late Snack

now the ice cream (didn't happen yesterday)

homemade cherry ice cream - yummy

Fresh Fork CSA–week 5

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Jun 302011

Today was the 5th pick up for the Fresh Fork CSA. We were expecting the following items.

Small CSA:

1 bunch beets with tops
1 bunch carrots with tops
1 head cabbage
2 ct zucchini
2 ct squash
1-2 cucumbers depending on size
1 quart yogurt
1 head bibb lettuce
Approx 1.5 lbs tomatoes
Approx 2 lbs sweet black cherries
1 lb grassfed ground beef

Here is what we received:

So, it looks like the black raspberries were an unexpected bonus this week. Everything looks fabulous. We’ll be feasting well for the holiday weekend.

In addition to the above, I had placed an order for extras via the Fresh Fork website. It worked well. I ordered maple syrup, oats, 2 wheat flour, chorizo sausage, whole wheat linguini and 2 bunches of spinach. It was just under $30. I probably wouldn’t order the flour again since I didn’t realize they were one pound packages. The oats are just to try in a granola recipe. The spinach was the most delicious spinach that I ever had last week and I have the perfect recipe for it (along with the pasta), and we weren’t expecting any this week. We also really enjoyed the chorizo two weeks ago and I was glad that it was in stock this week.

Between two CSA pick ups and the field night this week, our fridge is well stocked with veggies. I’ve put together a simple lists of dishes to prepare this weekend in hopes to use many of the items up.

Menu Planning for CSA items this week:

Camembert / brie herbed cheese over spinach and linguini
Kolhrabi/radish au gratin
Salad with quinoa, beans, chorizo, etc.
Harvard beets
Summer squash fritters or baked squash fries
Carrots
Cole slaw (with apples, onion, cabbage, etc.)
Salads (with cucumber, radishes, red pepper)
Stuffed cousa squash (with quinoa or rice and ground beef, onion, etc.)
Beet greens
Foil pack glazed carrots

It will be a weekend full of cooking and eating local!

Geauga Family Farms CSA–week 3

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Jun 282011

Today was the third pick up for Geauga Family Farms CSA. Since it was also the first farm field night, my husband picked up our share for us and I took the kids to the farm. I’ll have more on the farm visit tomorrow!

We had received our newsletter and knew we would be getting items like lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, green onions, zucchini, yellow squash, kohlrabi, carrots, radishes, peas, kale and pickling cucumbers. Our actual items received vary depending on mother nature, which size share and which pick up day – so we always have an element of surprise.

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

3 tomatoes, 1 container of strawberries

2 small bunches of green onions (pictured together), container of cherry tomatoes

2 heads of romaine lettuce, 1 head of red leaf lettuce

2 yellow squash, 2 zucchini

2 kohlrabi, small bunch of carrots

bunch of radishes

Here’s our plan of attack:

We’ll have more salads with the lettuce. I’ll probably make squash fritters again with the onions and squash, since everyone liked them this week. I just pickled some radishes, so I think these will go in salads and in our kohlrabi au gratin dish. The carrots and cherry tomatoes will get eaten (with our without salads). The strawberries will either get eaten at breakfast in the morning, or may make their way into a strawberry rhubarb dish. I’m almost hesitant to say this is a pretty easy week.

Update on last week:

I ended up making kale pesto with the kale. Most of the other items were used as planned. I did freeze a few tomatoes, some garlic scapes and some onions for future use.

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