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Geauga Family Farms–Winter CSA week 4

Dec 032011

Today was the 4th pick up for the winter Geauga Family Farms CSA. Stephen took the kids for the pick up while I made a quick Kohl’s trip. We met up back at home where I quickly photographed before we headed to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Ironically, I had a class about sustainable eating and supporting the local food movement!

Here’s a group shot of what we received:

Let’s take a closer look:

Leaf lettuce, apples

Loaf of pumpkin bread, potatoes

Butternut squash, red leaf lettuce

Bok choy, collard greens

Beets

Aside for some mandarin oranges from yesterday’s Whole Food sale, a few potatoes and a couple of onions, we were out of everything fresh. So, today’s pick up was welcome in our fridge.

Both of the lettuces will go into salad. I’m thinking of using some leftover chorizo and beans and making some type of Mexican inspired salad. The apples will go into oatmeal. When we have apples available, we use them in our oatmeal. The rest of the time we use frozen or home-canned fruit.

Half of the pumpkin bread is already gone. It’s extremely good. We’ll have the potatoes as part of dinner one night this week. Since butternut squash is one that can be peeled, I’ll probably roast it in chunks with cinnamon, pepper and olive oil.

I’ve been making Asian bok choy for Stephen with garlic and sesame oil. He seems to like it and it gives him an Asian dish. Sesame is not really my thing.

I haven’t decided on a collards dish yet. We’ve tried several. It’s still hit or miss on whether we like the end product. Clearly, I need a consistent go to recipe for them.

We haven’t made Harvard beets lately, so I’ll be making them this week.

Originally, we were supposed to get eggs each week. They have new chickens and the production has not been as anticipated. I was surprised that we didn’t get them this week since we didn’t have a pick up last week. But, I have more than a dozen left from our other CSA, so we aren’t out yet.

We also placed an add on order for a half gallon of local maple syrup ($25). I’ve been reading up on making maple coated pecans and some eggnog type of beverages that used maple instead of sugar, so I thought we should stock up. It’s hard to believe that new maple syrup will be available in less than 4 months.

It’s nice to be stocked back up on fresh items. It’s hard to believe that there is only 2 weeks left of this short winter CSA.

Geauga Family Farms–Winter CSA week 3

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Nov 192011

Today was our pick up for week 3 of the winter Geauga Family Farms CSA. The truck was 45 minutes late! We had a full morning packed and had to rearrange our schedule due to the delay. The truck is supposed to get there at 8:30AM and pick up time is from 8:45AM until 10:15AM. The truck arrived at 9:15AM. I had gotten there at 8:45AM. I had a nice chat with the St. Noel volunteer Kathy. It’s a great pick up site, but I really miss my Tuesday pick up. We are just so busy on the weekends that we don’t have much flexibility.

Here’s a group shot of what we received:

Let’s take a closer look:

Small pumpkin roll, daikon radish

Pie pumpkin, parsley

Sweet potatoes, oak leaf lettuce

Leaf lettuce, broccoli

We enjoyed part of the pumpkin roll today. That will disappear quickly. I’m not sure what we are going to do with the daikon radish. I think I’ll make some pumpkin puree for smoothies and pancakes with the pie pumpkin. I’m going to try to make parsley potatoes with the parsley.

We were out of lettuce, so a few salads are in order. The broccoli will get used as a side with leftover chicken tomorrow. We still have a few sweet potatoes left, but we’ll be making sweet potato fries this week.

With the exception of the daikon radish, everything is common and will be very easy for us to use up. It’s a good thing since we get a regular and a Thanksgiving package pick up on Tuesday with our other CSA. I miss the eggs. The winter CSA was supposed to have eggs each week, but there’s been a shortage. Hopefully, we’ll get some eggs in the last couple of weeks. The Geauga Family Farms CSA runs for 6 weeks and we are half way done already. It goes so fast.

Geauga Family Farms CSA–week 17

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Oct 042011

We picked up week 17 of our Geauga Family Farms CSA today. Andrew was on vacation, so we were greeted by Sarah. The set up was a little different, but the pick up was smooth. We have a nice routine. We go into the store, get a cart, stop by for a sample of pineapple, buy anything we need (usually yogurt, cheese, bananas or the like), use a reusable bag, get two wooden nickels, let the kids color, get our veggies, and then leave. It works for us and both Nick and Sally look forward to our CSA pickup at “The Little Whole Foods”.

Today’s box was lighter than the last few. We didn’t have any melon or squash. Here’s a group shot:

You might be wondering about the dark wooden background. We didn’t get a new table. But, our kitchen table where I usually take the photos looks like this.

I picked up 2 bushels of pears from Eddy’s on Monday. They aren’t quite ripe enough to can. So, our table was out of commission. Nick and Sally had a picnic breakfast today. Nick wants to have one everyday. I don’t think that will happen. They ate raisins, graham crackers and pears. By lunch time, I had put away enough stuff from our vacations that they used the dining room table. Since that space was clean, I used it to take the CSA photos today also.

Let’s take a closer look at the veggies.

Collards, leaf lettuce

Romaine, bell peppers

Tomatoes, garlic

Poblano peppers, onions

Apples, green beans

Sweet potatoes

I was in Hawaii two weeks ago and I was also out of town most of this past week. I’m feeling a bit out of the loop on the CSA. I am glad that this is an easier week. I’m going to make some stuffed collard wraps with the collards. The lettuce, bell peppers and probably tomatoes will go in salads. If we don’t use the tomatoes up, I’ll freeze them. I have some others frozen and will make sauce or chili with them soon. I have Stayman (tart) apples from Delaware to use up and will mix these apples with them for sauce. The green beans will be an easy side dish. I’ll probably freeze the onions, other peppers and garlic. For the sweet potatoes, I’ll probably slice them for sweet potato fries. Everyone in my house likes them and with the cooler temperatures, the oven sounds more appealing these days.

It’s hard to believe that it’s October already! I’m excited for the upcoming winter CSA season.

Geauga Family Farms–week 14

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Sep 132011

Today, we went to the “little” Whole Foods and picked up our Geauga Family Farms CSA. The kids totally know our routine. We usually need to buy something. Today, we bought yogurt. At the checkout, Nick and Sally each get a wooden nickel to donate to a charity since we bring a bag. They love putting a nickel in the slot to pick their charity. Then, they go straight to the CSA area which also is the children’s coloring area. They are also very interested in whatever we get in our box.

Here’s what we received today:

Let’s take a closer look. I couldn’t really fit everything in the photo.

Green beans, sweet corn

Potatoes, apples (Honeygold variety)

Bell peppers, dill

Poblano peppers, zucchini

Onions, hot peppers

Leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce

Eggplant, basil

Tomatoes

I’m leaving for Hawaii on Monday, so this week is all about food preservation. I’m cooking some meals for my family to enjoy while I am gone, but most of that work is done or planned. In addition to my trip, my husband is out of town tomorrow through Friday.

I’m going to blanch and freeze the green beans. I have others to freeze as well, so it’s worth the effort.

I plan to have some corn with the kids tomorrow and freeze the rest. There’s only 6 ears so that should be simple.

Unless I get ambitious, I’m going to store the potatoes. A few of the apples are already mixed in with the sauce that I was making tonight. The rest will be going into apple-plum sauce tomorrow. We picked plums yesterday, so I need to make something with them.

I’ll going to make fajitas and use some peppers and onions this week. I’ll freeze the rest.

I’m going to make some basil/olive oil cubes for the freezer with the basil. It will be handy for winter soup and tomato sauce dishes.

I already froze the tomatoes. I just washed them, cored, and quartered them. I’ll make a saucy dish with them in a couple of week.

The lettuce will get eaten in salads. I’ll either blanch and freezer the eggplant or make mini eggplant pizzas. It all depends on the rest of the items are going.

I’ll need to research the dill. Usually, I use it in pickles, but I don’t have any cucumbers.

It’s going to be a busy week here. I have a to do list that’s a mile long before my trip.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 15

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Sep 082011

Today, we picked up week 15 of our Fresh Fork CSA.

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

Small CSA:

1 lb. pumpkin sage linguini
2 lb. log of butter made from grass-grazed, organic milk
2 ct. eggplant
2 red peppers
2 ct. winter squash (varieties include butternut, acorn, spaghetti, honey bear, heart of gold, and a few more)
Approx. 1.5 lbs. heirloom tomatoes
1 lb. yellow wax beans
Quarter peck Gala apples
1 head leaf lettuce

We received notice via our weekly newsletter that the heirloom tomatoes were not in and we could expect slicing tomatoes as a substitute.

Here’s a group shot:

The lettuce will be easily eaten in salads. We got two heads on Tuesday too. I’ll miss lettuce season when it ends. I’m not a big fan of yellow wax beans. I think they might go in our vegetable soup. I used to make vegetable soup often during the summer, but now that I know what items are and how to cook them, I hardly ever make it. Since I’m going on vacation soon, I thought a batch of veggie soup would be good to leave in the freezer for my husband and father in law.

I’m super excited that it’s winter squash season. These acorn squash are beautiful! I never got sick of winter squash. I haven’t decided for sure about the eggplant. I’m either going to make eggplant pizzas (sliced eggplant baked and then topped with spice, tomato sauce and cheese and baked until the eggplant is cooked and the cheese is melted) or another veggie lasagna. The lasagna might be nice to have in the freezer for Stephen’s lunches while I’m away.

We ate the pasta for dinner. I made a basic white sauce (butter, whole wheat flour, pepper, milk, cheese), country sausage crumbles and red peppers to go with it. It was delicious. We’ve had this butter before. It’s good and will last us awhile.

I was glad to see apples. We got cabbage from our other CSA and I like a coleslaw recipe that uses apples. I already had the dressing ingredients, raisins and almonds that I needed for the recipe. The rest of the apples will be eaten as snacks or my oatmeal. The red peppers were used in tonight’s pasta dish.

The tomatoes look terrible. Two of them are moldy and I’ll ask for replacements next week. I’m not sure if these are heirloom, slicing or what. Either way, two of them are bad tomatoes.

The object of the game this week is to stay ahead. I’m leaving for vacation on the 19th and need to focus more on packing and prepping the household and less on veggies and the CSAs. But, I still want to do my best not to waste anything.

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!

Fresh Fork CSA–week 9

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Jul 282011

Today was week number 9 for our Fresh Fork CSA. Robert who works at the truck was back today. He seems to be going better. It was nice and smooth to have him in his usual position. There was only one person ahead of us and everything was smooth at pick up.

As usual, we received our list of contents on Tuesday. It’s nice to know what we have to work with between our CSAs by Tuesday night.

Here’s what we were expecting:

Small CSA:

1 package Mild Italian Sausage links, 4 to a pack
1.5 lbs apricots
1.5 lbs Red Haven peaches
1 dozen pasture raised chicken eggs
6 ears Mira 301 Super Sweet corn
1 candy onion
1 head leaf lettuce
1 lb green beans
1 bunch kale, either Curly or Black Tuscan

Here’s a group shot:

Apparently, the Italian sausage is really good. I don’t think we’ve had it yet. Always happy to see peaches.

We still have onions to chop and freeze and the corn is already gone.

We were almost out of lettuce, so I see a couple of salads in our future. I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh apricots and certainly not local ones. I’m looking forward to having one at breakfast.

Curly kale might make for another batch of kale chips, The last batch was ok, but I’ve read a few other variations lately and may have to experiment again this weekend. I’m in love with local eggs and just used our last two yesterday, so these were especially nice to get.

Everyone in our house likes green beans.

In addition to our small, we purchased 2 packages of chicken brats. These were $7 each. They were amazing when we had them in our box a few weeks back. We’re having company next weekend and I stuck these in the freezer for grilling. We also paid for our cream cheese ($5) that we picked up 2 weeks ago.

I’m happy that we had a week off of squash and tomatoes. I still have some to use up from our Tuesday CSA pickup. Next week we are “on vacation” from Fresh Fork and I hope that gives us a little extra time to regroup and make sure we are caught up in the fridge.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 7

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Jul 142011

Today was the 7th pick up for the Fresh Fork CSA. It’s hard to believe we’re 1/3 through the season already. As far as CSAs go, we’ve been receiving many familiar and easy to use items this year. Here’s the list of what we were expecting today.

Small CSA:

1 lb green beans
1 bunch cilantro (last week we substituted green onions, this week it will be cilantro)
2 ct zucchini
2 ct squash
1 whole pasture raised chicken
1 head leaf lettuce
1 pint blueberries
Approx 1.5 lbs cling peaches
Approx 1.5 lbs slicing tomatoes

Here’s what we received:

There was a problem with the chicken order this week. Apparently, they don’t fair well with thunderstorms. One of the farms lost a bunch of them this week. So, we had the option of a whole chicken or a roast. We had a chicken thawing in the fridge already, so we opted for the roast. Also, last week, we were shorted our zucchini, so we have 4 this week to make up for it.

The pint of blueberries seems really small to us. Lately, we’ve been picking them by the quart or even gallon. Everyone in our house loves blueberries, so these will probably make it until breakfast tomorrow before they are gone.

I read a recipe for zucchini pizza dough the other day. I’m going to try it out this weekend. I’ll write it up if it turns out well.

We picked up a container of local cream cheese while we were at the truck. I don’t know how much it is, but I’ll let you know when I pay for it next week. It was offered as part of the large package this week and will be for sale regularly when we pick up. Robert wasn’t sure of the price, so we’ll settle up next week.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 3

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Jun 162011

Today was our third pick up for the Fresh Fork CSA. We were expecting the following items.

Small CSA:

1 lb grassfed ground beef
1 qt organic strawberries
Approx 1.5 lbs slicing tomatoes
1 head leaf lettuce
1 bag (16 oz) corn chips
1 bunch green onions
1 bunch cilantro
1-2 zucchini
1 bunch field grown spinach (braising greens)
1 half gallon milk

Here is what we received.

Update on last week: We didn’t blanch any radishes, so we need to use them up. We haven’t used our eggs or spelt berries yet. The sausage ended up in a quinoa salad dish. I’ll be posting that recipe this weekend. I think everything else was enjoyed.

Here’s our plan of attack for this week:

The strawberries were made into jam this evening. The milk we’ll enjoy with our cereals. The spinach is going into a Camembert cheese pasta dish. Most of the other items will be part of a Mexican themed dinner and I’ll freeze the left over cilantro if needed. A few of my cubes from last week were used as part of the liquid for quinoa and it was delicious. I haven’t decided about the zucchini yet.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 2

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Jun 092011

Today was our second pick up for the Fresh Fork CSA. We were expecting the following items.

Small CSA:

1 lb Berkshire chorizo sausage
2 lbs spelt berries
1 lb whole wheat linguini
1 bunch garlic scapes
1 head assorted leaf lettuce
1 quart strawberries
2 lbs hoop house tomatoes
1 dz brown eggs

Here is what we received.

The radishes were owed to us from last week since ours were missed. The yogurt was an add on. Most weeks, there are additional items for sale at the back of the truck. It was $5 and although it’s expensive, we really like it.

Update on last week: I ended up serving the tomatoes to my husband and son on their salads.

Here’s our plan of attack for this week:

We like the yogurt with jam mixed in and as the liquid for overnight oats. I’m going to make whole wheat honey strawberry shortcake with the strawberries I have radish top soup on the stove now. Some of the radishes will be used in salad and the rest will be blanched and frozen. The lettuce and tomatoes will get eaten in salad. The sausage and pasta will be eaten as a main course. We will sauté most of the garlic scape with other veggies during the week. We may make some garlic pesto pizza as well. Eggs and spelt berries are staple items and have a long shelf life, so we don’t have specific plans for them yet.

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