I love vegetables.
As a kid I was spoiled by the ever plentiful harvest that my grandfather provided to us every year. He loved to garden, it was his passion, and so we had fresh vegetables all spring, summer and fall and then the extras were frozen or canned to provide for the remainder of the year.
As an adult I love vegetables just as much but hate buying produce from the grocery store as the majority of it is not locally grown and often comes from overseas. I frequently shop the local farmer’s market but don’t always find the time on a weekend during the summer to get there leaving the fridge bare of fresh veggies.
To remedy that problem we have joined a CSA this year. For those unfamiliar with what a CSA is I’ll give a brief explanation. CSA stands for community supported agricultural. Members of the CSA pay a predetermined amount for a “share” of the farms harvest. Depending on the CSA, the pick-up location may be at the local farmers market, directly at the farm, or at another community location. Some farms also offer egg shares and fruit shares to go along with the vegetables. That’s the short description of what a CSA is. You can find much more information on the web.
This year we chose to join a CSA through Denison Farm because they had a very convenient pick-up location at our local YMCA on Tuesday evenings from 4-7. The Y happens to be situated en route between daycare and home so I am able to get O and then pick up our vegetables.
Our first share pick-up was yesterday, and boy did it exceed my expectations. We received a box full of beautiful produce with an awesome additional small container of strawberries, yum!
This is what was contained in our first box:
Strawberries, yum!
Cilantro and Scallions,
Two beautiful heads of lettuce,
Broccoli and Garlic Scapes,
Swiss Chard,
and Bok Choy.
I’ll be honest, a few of these things I have never cooked before. I’ve seen both bok choy ans swiss chard but have never ventured into the world of cooking them. So I spent some time yesterday researching recipes and found a few that sounded interesting. I’m trying one tonight so I will report back tomorrow!
Happy Cooking!
Offside Roll 