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!

Here’s what we received today:

apples, butternut squash

huge kohlrabi, garlic

bell peppers, broccoli

lettuce

Stephen and the kids picked 49 pounds of apples on Saturday.  I’m in the process of making applesauce.  I’ll probably add some of the apples from the share to it for variety.  I’m going to make some puree out of the butternut squash.  I’m also going to try a recipe I saw for butternut squash bean burritos.  I’ll use this recipe as a base, but I won’t be making them vegan.  I’ll use the garlic and peppers in them too.  The broccoli was a side for dinner.  All that’s left is a little bit that someone can have with lunch tomorrow.  The lettuce will make a nice salad.  It’s so fresh and crisp.  I’m going to roast the kohlrabi with some beets and radishes that I have left in the fridge.  I have a chicken thawed, so I will be turning on the over in the morning to cook a couple of meals ahead.  I’m picking up 1/2 lamb this week and need to make some freezer space.  There will be more to come on that purchase soon.

Here’s what we received:

Red Russian kale, romaine lettuce

Garlic, bell peppers

Apples, butternut squash

I feel like the share is a bit light this week.  The lettuce will go into salads.  We’ll use some peppers for snacking.  I’ll chop the garlic and use it with the kale.  The apples will be for snacking and oatmeal.  I’m going to use some squash for soup and roast the rest as cubes.  (I have two of them in our kitchen right now).

I’ve been extra busy the last couple of weeks.  I’m anxious to get back to cooking more.

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.

Since I was in Utah earlier in the week, I opted to take a vacation week this week.  Occasionally, I take a vacation week when we are having busy week or if I feel behind on veggies even if I am actually in town on pick up day..  Then, I usually hold my breath and hope that Trevor doesn’t send out the “best bag of the season” list two days later since vacation requests are due on Saturday and the list usually comes out on Monday.

Here’s what folks received in their bags this week:

• 3# bag red Norland potatoes
• 1/2 dozen sweet corn
• 1 bunch leeks (may be 1 leek depending on size)
• 1 bulb fennel
• Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
• 2 oz basil
• Approx. 2 lbs. slicing tomatoes
• 1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
• Approx. 2 lbs. peaches
• 1-2 eggplant, depending on size
• 2 zucchini or squash
• 1-2 onions
• 2-3 “Italian frier” peppers (red sweet stuffing peppers)
• 1 melon – choice of cantaloupe or watermelon
• 1/2 lb. Swiss chard
• 1 bulb garlic
• 1 piece Havarti cheese

I’ve been hearing from other people who do CSAs that they have too much food or are too busy to get it all used.  I can’t say that we are perfect in our house, but we are pretty good at blanching, chopping and freezing items to make sure we don’t waste food when we are particular busy or have an over abundance.

Almost all of the above items could be froze with little effort.  I love pulling items out of the freezer in the middle of winter and getting a taste of fresh local food.

I think every bag is outstanding, but this is a bag that has lots of items that we get on a fairly regular basis.  I am happy with my decision to be on vacation.  With a little luck, I’ll get a photo of a large share tomorrow and add a photo to my post.

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.

Parsley… what to do with it? Several times a summer, our CSAs present us with big bunches of parsley. It is far more than one might want for garnish or flavoring. We could dry it, but dried parsley doesn’t keep its flavor as well as other herbs do. As a lover of world foods, though, one thing comes to my mind when I see a big bunch of parsley: Tabouli!

Tabouli is a middle eastern salad of parsley, mint leaves, and bulgur. The versions I made in our kitchen this summer were always from items at hand, so mine may not be particularly authentic. In any event, it is a light and refreshing dish, perfect for a summer evening meal.

Here is how I make Tabouli. It is a forgiving dish. I recommend measurement-free cooking for it.

1 large bunch of parsley. Flat parsley is best. A mix of flat and curly will work. Curly alone makes an odd texture and inferior flavor.

1 handful of fresh peppermint leaves. I usually aim for anything from 2-to-1 to 4-to-1 of parsley to mint, by volume. It depends on how much parsley we have and how much mint there is to harvest in our garden. I tried spearmint and can’t recommend it. Garden mint would probably be good.

2-3 small tomatoes or 1-2 larger ones, chopped. It is possible to put in too much tomato. A green-to-red ratio like Christmas holly is about right.

1/2 to 2 cups of a grain, cooked. Traditionally, this should be bulgur wheat. I’ve used couscous (not a success), quinoa (pretty tasty), and wheat berries (good flavor, but a bit chewy).

1 clove garlic, finely minced, and/or some onion, chopped

olive oil — extra virgin is nice, but any variety will work.

Combine the parsley and mint leaves, then chop them up finely. I like the texture best with pieces about 1/16″ in size. A food processor is the best way to do this. I’ve tried doing it by hand and don’t have the patience to get the pieces small enough.

Add the tomatoes and grain, as well as the onions or garlic.

Drizzle with olive oil and toss. Add olive oil if needed in order to get the leaves lightly coated, but not drenched.

Refrigerate until serving, and enjoy.

Lyn, Nick and Sally do not care for tabouli, which means I get to keep it to myself. It keeps fairly well for a few days  in the fridge, so I can enjoy a batch in a few days of packed lunches.

It’s easy to make this a local-foods dish. Olive oil isn’t produced locally, but all of the other ingredients are available from growers near us. In fact, the herbs and tomatoes may be in your garden already!

As you can see, you need not fear a big bunch of parsley in your CSA box. Instead, whip up a batch of tabouli and enjoy a delicious summer treat.

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.

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?

We are still picking up at Beachwood High School on Thursdays.  The pick up times are a tighter with our pick up scheduled between 4PM and 6PM.  We still have the option of picking up in Cleveland Heights later if we ever get in a jam.

Thursday is our extra busy day since Nick has a swim lesson at 4:30PM.  It’s conveniently just down the street from Beachwood High School, so we just picked up our CSA on our way home.

For the winter CSA, there is not an option for small, large, vegetarian or vegan.  Everyone gets the same package.

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

• 1 Boston Butt Roast, 5-6 lbs.
• 1 bunch cylindra beets with tops
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 head cauliflower
• 2-3 green peppers
• 8 oz. mixed salad greens
• 2 bulbs hardneck garlic
• 2 ct. seasoned pizza dough balls
• 8 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese

Here’s a group shot:

We had our choice between a boneless or bone-in roast.  We chose the bone-in.  It came frozen and will become pulled pork in a couple of weeks.  I saw an appetizer that used shredded pork in a wonton wrapper that I would like to try.  I just need to find whole wheat wrappers or make my own.

We haven’t had Harvard beets for a few weeks.  So, these will go into that dish.

I’m thinking we might be having delicious pizza this week.  We got green peppers, spinach, fresh mozzarella, garlic (1 large bulb), and bread dough.  The spinach was a “veggie choice” selection.  Instead of the tomatoes, we got to pick between spinach, onions, potatoes or tomatoes.  I love the spinach!

The mixed greens aren’t my favorite, but I know they are good for us.  They’ll go well with the pizza.  We haven’t had cauliflower lately and it’s a family favorite, so it will make a nice side dish over the next couple of days.

Extra are still available at the back of the truck.  We picked up another yogurt ($5).  I haven’t decided how much we really use in a week, but it’s more than one.  Also, my banana bread recipe uses it and I feel like baking soon.  This winter, I want to try making my own yogurt, but I’m not sure we’ll ever get away from buying it.

The winter CSA is a bit more low key than in the summer and we didn’t have any line when we arrived just before 5:30PM.  I hope that trend continues as it starts to snow soon!