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Fresh Fork Winter CSA–week 13

Apr 122012

It’s April already and we’re nearing the end of our winter CSA. In just a few short weeks, we’ll be talking about week 1 for the summer CSA season. It will be interesting to see how the early warm weather impacts the crops. Last year, we heard so much about the wet spring and how it negatively impacted the start of the CSA season. But, let’s enjoy the rest of the winter CSA first. This was definitely the week of meat!

Here’s what we were expecting today:

1 meat choice (see above)

option 1: whole chicken, approximately 5 lbs.
option 2: Meatloaf pack, 1 lb. each of ground veal, ground pork, and ground lamb
option 3: 2 packs bone-in beef short ribs and one grass-fed beef round steak
option 4: 1 pack (4 patties, 1 lb.) turkey burgers (new) and 1 pack (1.25 lbs.) chicken bratwurst

1 lb. breakfast patties
1 dozen eggs
1 piece (8 oz.) Havarti cheese
1 pint maple syrup
1 quarter peck apples
1/4 lb. ramps

(earlier in the week, there was a possibility of greens, but I’ll take apples over greens most days)

Here’s a group shot:

We decided to go with the meatloaf pack. I haven’t made meatloaf in a while and there’s a recipe for meatloaf that uses the ramps in this week’s newsletter. It’s more of a guide to meatloaf than a recipe, but I’m not a big recipe follower anyway, so I am happy to use the ideas and make my own meatloaf. I’m going to make muffin shaped loaves. I like using muffing tins for individual meatloaves.

We had the breakfast patties before. They are flavorful, but a little on the salty side. We’ll probably pair them with some homemade sauce and pasta for a meal. We don’t usually cook meat to go with breakfast.

We bought a gallon of maple syrup this year. Having another pint is always welcome. We made several recipes on a regular basis that use maple syrup instead of sugar. Lucky for me, whole grain pancake mix was on sale this week so I stocked up. My kids love to have pancakes with blueberries and real maple syrup. We don’t even use the fake stuff in our house anymore.

We haven’t had apples in a while, so they will be a nice addition for our morning oatmeal. We are nearing the end of our canned peaches and frozen blueberries. Everyone in our house loves cheese. I’m sure the Havarti will be popular. Stephen and I are signed up for the cheese class on Saturday, so I suspect we will be stocking up on local cheeses this weekend.

Eggs are never hard to get used up. We just naturally use them often in baked oatmeal, pancakes, French toast, muffins and other recipes. This week a few will go into meatloaf for sure.

Finally, I picked up 4 yogurts this week. We seem to use at least 2 a week at our house. It’s $20 well spent.

I’m having a Fresh Fork CSA week for sure. Yesterday was the monthly happy hour. Today was our pick up. Saturday is the cheese class. I love local!

Geauga Family Farms–Winter CSA week 4

CSA 1 Response »

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.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 8

CSA 2 Responses »

Jul 212011

Today was the 8th pick up for the Fresh Fork CSA. There was a line at the truck today. Usually, it just takes a couple of minutes to pick up our goods. It was so hot, but the kids were troopers. We missed Robert at the truck today. Usually, we check in with him. Apparently, he got hurt as they were getting ready to come to the stop. We sure hope he’s ok and hopefully, we’ll see him next week. It’s always much smoother with the regular crew in their spots.

Usually, we get a list of what to expect at our pick up on Tuesday. This week it came on Wednesday. This was due to changes that had to occur due to the storms. I live in Mayfield Heights and we didn’t really have much in the way of rain Monday, but south of here was hit really hard. It is devastating to farmers to have too much or too little rain.

Here’s what we were expecting today.

Small CSA:

1 bunch multi-color Swiss chard
1 pint maple syrup
1 package boneless pork chops, approximately 1 lb. each package
1 quarter peck Lodi apples (5-6 apples)
Approx. 1.5 lbs. cling peaches
1 candy onion
1 bunch mustard greens
1 pound beans, either green, purple, dragon tongue, or yellow
2 slicing cucumbers

Here’s what we received:

The Lodi apples look great. They are the first apples of the season in our area. The maple syrup leaked and created a sticky mess.

These are the mustard greens. I don’t think I ever had them before.

Dragon beans – another new item for us!

So, our list was dead on this week and our only surprise was that we didn’t get to see Mr. Robert (that’s what Nick calls the guy at the truck). We also didn’t pay for the cream cheese yet, but I’ll get a price this week. This is our first week without squash or tomatoes. It’s fine by us as we enjoy the variety.

Most of these items will be easy for us to use. I’ll probably start with the Swiss chard since we got it in both of our CSAs this week, so it’s taking up room in our fridge! Friday and Saturday are about using up the perishables and bulk so we can be more organized the rest of the week.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 5

CSA No Responses »

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!

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