Week 1: That's a Lot of Broccoli

Thanks to a co-worker and fellow CSA participant, I realized our first pick up was only days away. When Thursday arrived, Rob and I grabbed some grocery totes, bundled up and headed to our pick up location. This week's share consisted of:

• Sweet potatoes
• Red Russian Kale
• Totsoi (an asian green)
• Head of butter lettuce
• 2 pounds of broccoli
• Topped turnips
• A whole chicken!
• French bread baguette
• Dozen eggs

Due to some confusion, we did not receive our soup the first week (which was fine since we ended up making some, as you'll see later). Instead, we got goat cheese, YUM! Here's the picture again of all the goods:

That night we were in a rush, so we simply steamed some broccoli, but it was the greenest broccoli I had ever seen! It was delish!

The week's newsletter contained a recipe for "Winter Greens Soup," which made use of both the Kale and the Totsoi - but not all of it. With the remaining greens, we made a stir-fry on a later night. Another odd-ball item that we hadn't experimented with before was turnips. Thankfully, Google came through and Rob was able to locate a recipe for "Caramelized Turnips" and boy were they yummy!

Those of you with meat-phobia may want to be careful with these next pictures. The first picture features the sweet potato fries that I conjured up one evening. Normally I have trouble chopping raw potatos, but these were small and easy to slice. The other items on this plate (stuffed pork chop and mushroom) were purchased from the grocery.




Looks like we need to work on presentation... On an evening where we had a bit more time (actually, we just stayed up really late), we cooked the whole chicken in the oven - beer can style. It turned out so moist and tender!



I left the carving to Rob. That isn't really my style. Of course there were a few more nights of steamed broccoli (with having received 2 lbs, and all). Throughout the week we used the lettuce in sandwiches, finished off the soup, and had some omelets with the eggs. We were both very pleased with the share, as well as our ability to put the items to use. This did, however, take some planning and willpower to not say "Get the door, it's Domino's." Next week I'm hoping to plan a little better upon receiving the share - i.e. scouting out recipes and hitting the grocery. Overall, we're quite pleased and Thursdays are my new favorite day of the week!

Where do sweet potatoes come from?

Two summers have passed since I was first introduced to the idea of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). For various reason, I hesitated to participate in the program - the upfront cost; uncertainty of my ability to incorporate the lesser-known produce items into meals; commitment to utilizing all of the goods before they go bad (i.e. fewer evenings dining out just because I'm not in the mood to cook).

I recognized that the idea behind CSA - ensuring local farmers have buyers for their harvest, and that customers have locally grown produce -  is a positive thing for my community and is an easily accessible change I can make to help our environment. So, when I came across the opportunity to participate in a winter CSA with Grasshoppers Distribution, I knew that the time to hesitate was through!

After conferring with Rob, my boyfriend, we gauged our food needs as well as our typical weekly grocery expenses. Grasshoppers offers a wide array of local item in addition to produce - from milk and butter, to meat and eggs. We settled on the following:

• One produce share (3-4 fresh produce items)
• One loaf of locally baked bread
• Mixed meat (appx. 3 lbs. of local meat, rotating variety each week)
• Dozen eggs, biweekly
• Quart of soup with local ingredients

For 13 weeks we will pick up our share on Thursdays at a church one block from our home. In choosing our items, we knew that this alone will not feed us for the entire week. However, based on what we normally spend at the grocery, we still have money left over to supplement our bellies with a small weekly trip to Whole Foods. 

Much to my relief, Grasshoppers provides a weekly newsletter with a recipe that incorporate the not-so-common produce items! Also included in this newsletter is the name of the farm from where each item came. Below is a shot of week #1. Description and detailed account of how we used each item to follow.

Oh, and btw, my sweet potatoes came from Prospect, Kentucky.