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April 29, 2009
CSA box
I'm so excited about sharing a biweekly CSA box with a church friend.
I've been intrigued about CSA boxes for awhile. At first, I heard people talk about them and weren't sure exactly what they were. CSA stands for community supported agriculture. I think the simplistic explanation is that farmers offer the community a "share" in their produce, frequently, organically grown produce. Through buying a box, you invest in the local economy, and get very fresh produce at (hopefully) a very reasonable price. I think our box may also have had some in-season, organic produce not from a local farm, but the principle, I think, is the same.
So, in a box that cost a little over $40 between the two families, we got:
1 pineapple
1 bunch of bananas
A few tomatoes
5 lbs. potatoes
Sweet potatoes
3 lbs. apples
2 lbs. carrots
A bunch of oranges
Green beans
1 head broccoli
1 lb. strawberries
A gigantic purple onion
2 heads swiss chard
2 enormous heads of lettuce (romaine?)
I certainly am not going to ennumerate the veggies we get every time ("How to turn your blog frightfully dull in one easy step"), but I would like to start a series on what meals I make with the CSA boxes. I feel really inspired to be creative with this, not really knowing what I'll get each week, but knowing that I'll have really fresh fruits and veggies to work with.
Maybe my friend will even chime in and do a guest blog sometime on what they've done with their half. And if any of the rest of you are doing CSA boxes and find something fun to do with the veggies, I would love it if you chimed in, or even if you blogged about it yourself and left a link to it.
CSA , cooking stuff | By Tim and Jo | 1:20 PM
Comments
So where's the pineapple farm in Georgia? LOL!
I definitely want to blog about our CSA box. Hoping I'm not over-psyching my self about this...
Posted by: Jeannette at April 29, 2009 10:51 PM
I'm sure you're not, DiBer! It was so fun to unpack the box and see the piles of veggies come out. And it's nice if you're in an I-don't-know-what-to-get-at-the-grocery-store sort of phase. :-)
Yeah, the pineapple was what made me think that they were supplementing the box, which is fine--it was all organic, which is more than I usually get anyways, unless it's on sale.
Posted by: Jo at April 30, 2009 10:32 AM
We did this when we lived in Scotland & I loved it -- esp. how creative it makes you be in the kitchen. I remember making cauliflower curry w/ a huge cauliflower.
Posted by: ashley at April 30, 2009 9:32 PM
My roommates and I did this last year. It was like Christmas every week! I loved all those fresh veggies, although it did force us to eat more veggies so they wouldn't go bad...and we kept getting scallions for like 6 weeks in a row and ran out of ideas of what to do with them. My favorite memory is the eggplant parmesan I made with the fresh eggplant and fresh basil we got one week. Hmm....makes my mouth water again!
Posted by: funke at May 4, 2009 7:36 PM
It really does feel like Christmas! "And if you're really bad, Santa will only bring you cabbage in your CSA box..."
Though I can see how six weeks of scallions could stretch your creativity!
Posted by: Jo at May 5, 2009 11:25 AM
Hello! I'm a friend of J'net's and that's how I found you and I am excited about your blogging your CSA box! We will be getting one in the summer, we did it last year and I'm afraid I found little use for the kohlrabi we got, but I look forward to keeping up with how you use all your goodies, sounds like you got a ton of great stuff!!
Posted by: jonesey at May 7, 2009 3:02 PM
Hi Jonesy! Fun!! I would love to hear about what you do with your CSA box this summer--let me know, and I'll create a link to it. I think this could be a fun challenge, and it will be really fun to get ideas from others like you who are getting seasonal foods (especially since you're a seasoned veteran!).
Posted by: Jo at May 7, 2009 7:24 PM
So after reading about your box and what you were doing with it all I looked for a CSA here. There is one very near us but I just missed the season. It is from Jan. to May here in FL, I didn't think about the fact that we would have a different season. I guess I will just have to wait until next year.
Posted by: Sarah Ginny at May 8, 2009 7:51 AM
