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Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 14

Sep 072012

We were back to our regular pick up this week at Mayfield High School. It’s the time of the year where there’s a changing of the guard with the truck staff. Today, we were greeted by Kirsten. It was nice to see her, but it was busy and we didn’t have time to chat. We can expect to see her at Mayfield for the rest of the season. That will be very nice.

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.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 11

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Aug 172012

This marks week 11 of our Fresh Fork Market CSA. It’s hard to believe that we are 1/2 way through the season.

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.

Geauga Family Farms CSA-summer week 11

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Aug 142012

Hi, everyone! Husband Stephen here with a guest post. Tomato season is upon us, we’re still in melon and corn season (yum!), and there’s pretty much produce everywhere this time of year. It’s great!

Here is what we received in this week’s Geauga Family Farms CSA small share.

First up are the tomatoes, in regular size and cherry. In fact, some of these cherry tomatoes are so small that they may count as the “grape” variety.

Next, some onions and a bell pepper. The onions are strong. I could smell them as soon as I opened the bag.

Corn and cabbage…

And finally, a head of lettuce and a medium watermelon.

The forecast is for a break from this unusually cool August now that these peppers have arrived to heat things up…

I love this time of year!

Geauga Family Farms CSA–summer week 10

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Aug 072012

My day started by leaving at 6AM to take the kids to Niagara Falls. My mom came with us and we met up with friends. It was a great day. My pick up for the CSA was smooth, but 2 1/2 hours later than normal. My photos are a bit dark and I’m glad that I found a bit of time for this post tonight.

Here’s what we picked up today:

cantaloupe, watermelon

bell pepper, corn

onions, banana peppers

tomatoes, cherry tomatoes

lettuce

We love local melon season. We will be cutting these melons up as soon as possible so we can enjoy them. I also have a recipe from Jane Snow for cantaloupe gelatin that I am excited to try. If it works out, I’ll share more about it soon.

Our green pepper, lettuce and tomatoes will go into salad. The rest of the tomatoes will be snacks or frozen. I found a recipe for tomato jelly that I’m going to try soon. The onion and banana peppers will be chopped and frozen. We’ll have the sweet corn with dinner tomorrow.

This is a pretty easy week. It’s a good thing for us, since it’s a super busy week in our household.

Fresh Fork Market 2012 Summer CSA–week 9

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Aug 032012

We picked up our bag in Mayfield this week without issue. I was glad to make it a quick trip and didn’t even get the kids out of the car. I’ve decided that the large is really hard to take a photo of since it’s so large. This is all of the items except the meat. I had already popped them into the freezer.

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.

Geauga Family Farms–summer week 9

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Jul 312012

The kids and I had a crazy busy day today. So, when Sally was still sleeping at 4:30PM, I called Stephen and asked him to pick up our share. I should send him more often! He came home with 3 fruits. We like to eat our veggies, but LOVE to eat fruit.

Here’s a shot of what we picked up today:

onions, lettuce

bell peppers (one in our share and one gifted from another member)

slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes

peaches, blackberries

watermelon

Since we picked 60 pounds of peaches on Sunday, I’m in clean the kitchen and canning mode. So, this needs to be an easy CSA week. The peppers, onions and slicing tomatoes are going to be frozen. The blackberries will be great with breakfast tomorrow. The lettuce will go into a salad with a cucumber from last weekend. We’ll eat the peaches in oatmeal as they ripen. The watermelon can get in melon line. We have a cantaloupe cut up in the fridge, plus two other melons that we picked up over the weekend. Since everyone in our house loves melon season, we’ll have no problem consuming it. We made two quiches today and have some local pasta in the freezer. We’ll be having easy to throw together meals the next few days.

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 12

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Aug 302011

Pick up #12 for the Geauga Family Farms CSA was today. We pick up at our local Whole Foods. Nick calls it the little Whole Foods because it’s so much smaller than the Cedar Location and doesn’t have a waterfall.

Today’s box was overflowing!

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

Green beans, watermelon (hmmm.. these photos are not to scale)

Lettuce, eggplant

Cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes

Peaches, bell peppers

Cantaloupe, dozen sweet corn

Hot peppers, patty pan squash

We got 3 fruits again this week. In our house that is a good thing. I actually used frozen peaches in today’s oatmeal, so I am excited for the peaches. We have lots of melon since we got extras in our other CSA on Thursday, but we are eating it at a good clip so I don’t think we’ll have a problem. Our biggest challenge is having to take the seeds out of the watermelon for our 22 month old daughter.

We ate 1/2 the corn for dinner tonight and we are getting another 1/2 dozen on Thursday. I’ll probably cook and take the rest of this batch off of the cobs for a wheat berry, corn, bean salad of sorts. We need to pack dinner for our Wednesday outing at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

I’m going to chop and freeze the peppers. I’m assuming the non-bell peppers are hot. They seem to always be hot and I’m not taking chances with them. The bell peppers will go into tomato sauce. I’ll save the hot ones for chili and salsa.

I just read a blog post about mini lasagnas that were made in muffin tins. I may use the eggplant and squash for my own version of that.

The remaining few items will easily be eaten as part of our meals. We need to stay on top of our game this week since we have several meals planned out over the holiday weekend. Friday, I need to blanch/chop/freeze anything that we haven’t used so we don’t have waste.

Fresh Fork CSA–week 13

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Aug 252011

We picked up our Fresh Fork CSA today. In addition to our regular “small”, we also picked up the items from our vacation credit. We were off week 10.

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

Small CSA:

1 yellow doll watermelon
2 ct. eggplant, some mixed colors may be included
1 quart hot Hungarian peppers
1 lb. clover honey
1 medium cantaloupe
Approx. 1 lb. heirloom tomatoes (about 1 large or 2 small)
2 summer squash
1 pint mixed baby sweet peppers
Quarter Peck Golden Supreme apples (about 5 to 6 apples, very crisp, yellow apple)
Approx. 1 lb. slicing tomatoes

Here’s a group shot:

I’m going to make my favorite cole slaw recipe and it uses a couple of apples. The rest will probably go into my oatmeal and/or be made into a quick applesauce for the kids. We also got eggplant on Tuesday, so I think I’ll be making a veggie lasagna tomorrow.

I’m not sure about the squash. If it doesn’t end up in the lasagna, we’ll probably grill it. All of the tomatoes are going into sauce since I have a stock of them from Tuesday’s CSA as well.

The sweet peppers will get added to my sauce. I’m never sure what to do with the hot ones. I don’t like to make things that aren’t kid friendly (and Lyn friendly).

I don’t cook with refined sugar, so we use lots of honey. I’m excited to try the clover honey that we received.

Yum! We are certainly enjoying our local melon this year. I’m curious to try the watermelon since it’s “yellow” and I’m not sure what to expect.

In addition to our share above, we had $25 to spend on items from the on-line store since we were on a planned vacation a couple of weeks back. I decided on lettuce ($2.75), 2 cantaloupes ($3.60 ea.), 2 packages of Chorizo sausage ($12.40) and 2 quarts of yogurt ($9.90). The total was $28.65, so I paid Robert $3.65 at the truck.

It was fun to stock up on Chorizo and yogurt since we were out of both. Neither of my CSAs received lettuce this week, so I was glad to have it as well. I love the vacation flexibility with Fresh Fork!

Geauga Family Farms–week 11

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Aug 232011

Wow, we had pick up #11 today for the Geauga Family Farms CSA. We had 14 different items!

Here’s what we received:

Let’s take a closer look.

Green bell peppers, onions

Hot pepper, yellow squash

Pickling cucumbers, peaches

Yellow beans, basil

Beets, watermelon

Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes

Eggplant, cabbage

We didn’t do too badly last week, but we had company this weekend and I feel a little bit behind. It’s really because of peach and tomato picking, not the CSA items. I finally canned the tomatoes yesterday and I’m finishing the peaches now.

With this week’s CSA items, I see some coleslaw in our future since we got cabbage today and we are getting apples on Thursday. I’ll make some pasta sauce with the tomatoes, basil, eggplant and squash and we’ll have that with pasta for a meal. I’ll probably add that hot pepper too.

I’ll also be making some more pickles. I think we ate all of the ones from the last batch, so that’s timely.

I think this week is easy, especially since we don’t have any meals out planned.

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