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

Here’s what we were expecting this week:

Winter Week 4:

• 1 smoked ham hock
• 2 lbs. black turtle beans
• 1 lb. kale
• 2 acorn squash
• 3 lbs. sweet potatoes
• Aprrox. 1 lb. onion
• 1 head broccoli (or 1 bag broccoli shoots…which are just smaller heads)
• 1 package chorizo or Italian sausage
• 1 bunch beets with tops
• 1 bag mixed salad or braising greens
• 1 stalk Brussels sprouts
• 1 quarter peck empire apples

I haven’t given much thought to how this week’s items would be used.  I’ll probabaly cut the sausage into pieces and bake it in the oven.  Although, a crock pot batch of Italian sausage with peppers and onions might be a great meal for a busy swim lesson night next week.  I’ll probably make soup with the ham hock.  I don’t feel the need to be extra creative in the kitchen since holiday time.  We haven’t even put our tree up yet.

Last time we got beans, I cooked them in the crock pot and then froze them in 1-2 cup portions.  That worked quite well and I haven’t had to buy canned black beans in ages.  We were out of apples, so these will go into oatmeal as early as tomorrow.

The sweet potatoes weren’t in the best shape, I’ll probably just make mashed potatoes with them.  Beets will go into Harvard beets.  It will be a smaller batch, but enough for one or two of us to have them for a side.

I haven’t stuffed acorn squash yet this winter.  I like to make a stuffing with squash, sausage, cheese and rice.  Yum!  The onions will get used in general cooking.

I can not get enough of the sprouts this year.  Love them!  This kale is some of the prettiest that I have seen all year.  I will probably make a quiche with it.

I never know what to do with these mixed greens.  They are bitter and tend to have lots of stems.  The broccoli on the other hand is always fabulous and will probably get cooked tomorrow.

It was nice to stock up on milk and yogurt at the truck.  Too bad I didn’t think to buy eggs.  There’s always next time!

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

• 1 pack pork loin chops
• 1 bag corn crackers
• 2 lb. black turtle beans
• 1 pint salsa
• 1 bag mixed salad greens
• 1 pint sorghum syrup
• 1 dozen eggs
• 1 lb. assorted sausage
• 1 lb. sweet corn
• 1 lb. kale, bunched

Here’s a group shot:

We’ll use the beans in a combination of a Mexican casserole and also black bean burgers.  The ground pork will also go in our casserole.

The pork chops are the best.  We’ll probably just season them and bake them in the oven.  The corn was frozen last summer and it’s been delicious.  We’ll add it to our Mexican dish or use it as a side.

The sorghum syrup was a head scratcher last year.  We ended up using it in a bbq glaze type of sauce that we put over ham loaf.  It was delicious.  I have no idea how we made the sauce, so we’ll be experimenting once again.  I’m thinking of using it as the main sweetener in some homemade sauce.  So far, tomato sauce, vinegar, spices, onion, peppers and syrup come to mind.  I’m not a huge fan of this type of greens, but we do our best to eat it in salads.

I’ll be putting the kale and salsa in our casserole as well.

Everyone in our house loves these chips.  If they don’t get eaten first, they’d be a nice addition to our Mexican meal.  Eggs are so easy for us to use.  I just saw a recipe for some muffin casserole bites that are egg based.  I think I’ll try it this week.

We picked up a few extras as well.  Krispie treat granola ($5) and 2 yogurts ($5 each).

I’m excited for this week because I can do just a little cooking and have several meals.  Sometimes I like being a lazy cook.

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.