Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 6): Tomato, Tomahtoh…

{Note: If you’re wondering what happened to week 5, the answer is that we took the week off…}

If there’s one thing I LOVE about our local farm, it’s that they have the most amazing cherry tomatoes I’ve ever had in my entire life. These things are like candy, seriously. So when I saw that this week’s veggie box included not just a pint of cherry tomatoes but also some heirloom tomatoes, I swooned…and then promptly told dh that I was GETTING THIS VEGGIE BOX and we will FIGURE OUT how to get through them all before I leave for BlogHer’12. (I’m heading to NYC without the family, but since cherry tomatoes don’t last all that long in our house, this shouldn’t be a problem.)

This week’s list of goodies was a nice balance of “WTHMORECUCUMBERS?!” and “Ohhhh Tomatoes!”. We even got a pair of small purple potatoes, which promptly were turned into purple potato chips with the remnants from a prior week’s veggie’s box. In fact, thanks to our local farmstand (which has a fishmonger truck on Fridays only), our dinner Friday night was entirely local: sea scallops from Provincetown, corn from the farm and potato chips made from the farm’s purple potatoes. SO GOOD.

Year 2 Week 6 Veggie Box

TOMATOES!! YEAY!!!

  • Potatoes
  • Green Peppers
  • Cucumbers
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Corn
  • Wax Beans
  • Zucchini
  • Heirloom Tomatoes

Now, lest you think we don’t have a plan for the heirlooms yet…guess again. DH has a basil plant at work (don’t judge – I think it’s wicked cool), and he brought home a container of freshly picked basil leaves to go with the heirlooms. And I will acquire some mozzarella. And then we shall have a caprese salad and ALL WILL BE RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. But lest anyone think I’ve gone crazy locavore and am planning to press my own olive oil…think again. Colavita is my friend. And it will still be awesome.

The peppers will likely be snack-time for the kiddos, who are complete pepper-heads, and the wax beans may just get steamed and eaten with dinner. That’s the funny thing about some of these summer veggies: they’re so wonderful that the best preparation is often next-to-no work. Just wash, dry and eat. Or maybe wash, steam and eat. Zucchini and other squash do well on the grill (especially if you sprinkle some spices and herbs on top, or a mixture like Penzeys Greek Seasoning – a fan favorite in our household). It’s not until you start to get to the fall and all those winter squash that more prep really needs to come into play.

So score one yet again for the veggie box – the simpler the preparation, the easier it is to incorporate into a busy schedule that leaves little time for elaborate dishes during the week. More on the value of the box in a later post…for now, I’m just going to enjoy making my (even brief) plans for all this lovely local veggie goodness.

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 4): Not much savings…but I’ll take it!

After so long without a CSA, it’s actually fairly difficult getting back into the swing of things – making sure that we plan meals around what we got and building in the time needed to make the CSA worth its weight. We’ve had a minor amount of spoilage over the past few weeks, but we’ve tried to make things work as best as we can. The corn went the first night, and we have an idea for something to do with the turnips, beets and potatoes (the only downside being that it requires using the oven and it’s a KAJILLION DEGREES outside, so the last place I want more heat is INSIDE my air-conditioned house).

So, here’s how things shook out for this week:

Year 2 – Summer Week 4
Weight
(lb)
Grocery Store Unit Price
(per lb)
Grocery Store Total Item Cost
Blueberries (pint) 1.00 $4.99 $4.99
Red Potatoes 1.65 $1.49 $2.46
Fancy Squash 1.73 $1.99 $3.45
Cucumbers 1.86 $1.99 $3.70
Baby Turnips 0.58 $2.49 $1.44
Beets (bunch) 1.00 $2.99 $2.99
Mustard Greens (bunch) 1.00 $1.29 $1.29
Corn (ears) 6.00 $0.50 $3.00
Carrots 0.45 $0.99 $0.45
Grocery Store Total Cost $23.77
Year 2 Summer Week 4 Savings (Deficit) $1.77

All in all, it’s not a huge savings, and the odds are that we won’t have some massive shift that suddenly gets us in the black for the remainder of the CSA season. Still, that’s not the only point, so consider this only one variable in the overall equation.

Hopefully the summer CSA boxes will yield more recipes, too; guess I have some experimentation in the kitchen to get on about…

Adventures in CSA (year 2 week 4): CORN

It’s hard to overstate how much I love the corn from our local farm: it’s truly awesome. It’s just the sweetest corn, and it’s always such good quality. So, when I saw that this week’s CSA box was going to include six ears of corn, I immediately signed up to get a box. NO QUESTION IN MY MIND. The funny thing with this box is that the amount of root veg included suggests a good opportunity to do a nice roasted root veg mixture, but the kids won’t go for it as much as dh & I would, so we’ll have to space things out a little more. Still, it’s a lovely blend of items in the box this week.

 

Year 2 Week 4 CSA box

Corn + roots = OMG YES…

 

  • Potatoes
  • Beets
  • Carrots
  • Corn
  • Turnips
  • Squash
  • Cucumbers
  • Mustard Greens
  • Blueberries

 

The one thing I’m completely at a loss about is the cucumbers. This is far more cuke that we’d use in a salad or just eat raw, so I need some ideas (besides “Just make a metric buttload of Tzadziki and invest in pita”). Not that it wouldn’t be a good idea, but this is enough cukes for a party-sized batch and we’re not in party mode for another two weeks.

On the plus side, as I write this, I can say that one item is already gone: the corn was wolfed down at dinner last night. SO GOOD.