Friday, June 11, 2010

Cooking with CSA

For those of you who don't know what CSA stands for, it stands for Community Supported Agriculture. It is a great way to eat healthy foods, at a good price, and also support your local farms. The way it works is that you purchase a share (or half share as I did) of produce for a season. You pay ahead of time, the farms can use your money to put in their seeds, do their work, etc and you get a share of the produce throughout the growing season. There are winter harvests, summer harvests, and some even have spring and fall ones. Every week from June through October I will be getting a box of fresh produce from several different local farms. (My CSA is part of a co-op). There is a risk involved....if the farm suffers from weather problems, etc, you may lose your part of that harvest too. However, by joining a co-op, my risk is spread among a number of farms. Some CSAs also have meat, egg, and dairy options as well.

The photo above is my first take of the summer. Pictured are radishes, turnips, rhubarb, mixed salad greens, green onions, strawberries, and spearmint. I was also given a small tomato plant. I haven't cooked with most of those things before, so this is a great learning experience for me as well.

On my menu tonight....
Grilled Salmon
Grilled Radishes
Mixed Green Salad
Cheesy Carrot and Turnips
Rhubarb Pie

I'll let you know how it turns out....and if it is good, I'll post a few recipes. I'll even let you know what my kids think of it. I'm sure that I will hear the following...."Gwoss Momma" and "I want chicken nuggets". :)

1 comment:

  1. I probably should have read more closely, but have you done CSA before? i was thinking of doing that this summer, but my husband doesn't like the "you don't get to choose what you get" aspect. I'm all for it. I would never eat kale or whatever, if it didn't get added to my weekly share, you know? I want to try.
    OH-- visiting from Rants from Mommyland

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