Who Knew Our CSA Was Famous?

Well, maybe Henry's Farm isn't exactly famous, but Terra, Henry's sister, has written a book titled The Seasons on Henry's Farm: A Year of Food and Life on a Sustainable Farm. I purchased a copy of the book today when we picked up our CSA produce, and both Terra and Henry were gracious enough to autograph it for me!

Last week's timing for CSA pickup wasn't good--hubby and I went out of town for a couple of days and then spent a couple of days recovering while the produce wilted in the refrigerator. The two bags of spinach were all that survived, so I washed it this evening and boiled it in salted water for a few minutes. I'll add it to some pasta and maybe even to an omelette or two this week; the rest will go in the freezer for another day.

This week, we ended up with a lot of greens: two heads of lettuce, a head of broccoli, a bunch of radishes, some huge green onions, some beet greens (some with a bit of beet on the bottom--an added bonus), a choi of some sort, and some cilantro.

I also learned that apparently the farm has two other CSAs: a meat CSA and a fruit CSA! Henry's farm must be enormous. I'm just delighted we were accepted for the veggie CSA. Watching it unfold and seeing what new items we get each week is fun, and it's wonderful to be eating healthy, pesticide- and herbicide-free foods while my garden is just getting started!

An added bonus at today's pickup: strawberries for sale, fresh from the field! I bought 3 pints and cleaned them. Until you have tasted a field-ripe strawberry, picked that day at its peak of freshness, you haven't eaten a strawberry! The strawberries trucked in from California can't begin to compare. Plus, knowing that they are chemical-free is important to me, since berries purchased at the store are usually laden with chemicals farmers have sprayed on the fields.

I spent the evening processing the foods; I can't wait to begin eating them! It looks like we have a lot of wonderful salads in our future. Now, if I can just get some goat cheese at farmer's market this weekend...

Broccoli Never Tasted So Good

Yesterday I went to our local farmer's market. I would provide you with a picture, but it was cloudy and began to rain, so I decided to get my veggies and meat and duck out before the clouds exploded. (Which they did, about one minute after I got into my car.)

I'm impressed with how friendly the farmer's market vendors are. Before I make any purchases at a stand, I ask questions. For vegetables and fruit and herbs, I ask whether they have used any herbicide, pesticide, or insecticide on their fields or products. If the answer is yes, I thank them and move on; if the answer is no, I will purchase the produce. If the vendor is selling meat or dairy or eggs, I ask whether antibiotics or hormones were used on the animals. If that's a no, I ask whether the animals are free-range. If they have four-legged critters, I want to make sure the grazers are grass-fed, not corn-fed.

Luckily, we have several "organic" veggie and animal farmers. (I put that word in quotation marks because legally, farmers are not allowed to label their products as organic unless they meet the USDA organic guidelines.) So yesterday I purchased a green pepper (the only one left at the market), the last carton of eggs, some bratwurst burgers, and some broccoli. I would have had a much bigger haul if I had been able to force myself out of bed earlier than 10 a.m. Maybe next week.

The meat is pricey--$4.89 a pound for the bratwurst burgers, which added up to $15.31 for 10 patties. But I am willing to pay extra to know that I am not eating added hormones or antibiotics, and honestly, about $1.50 per burger (they're a good size) is not unreasonable for good meat. I'll supplement my meat purchases with complimentary deer meat from my friend Blake's family's hunting adventures.

The broccoli was incredibly inexpensive. It was priced at $1 per pound, so I asked for two pounds. I ended up with a plastic grocery bag full of broccoli! They had already trimmed the heavy core away from the branches, so what I was getting was completely edible. I steamed the broccoli for dinner, and I could not believe how wonderful it tasted. The broccoli from the store doesn't have a tenth of the flavor that this broccoli had. No more store broccoli for me! I also found out that you can freeze broccoli without blanching (it stores for about 6 weeks that way), so I may have to load up on broccoli and do some freezing.

The eggs were more expensive than I could find at the grocery store, but again, since they are antibiotic- and hormone-free, I'm willing to pay the extra. They were asking $3.50 for a dozen medium eggs. They had one dozen left, with one cracked egg. They offered it to me for $3 if I didn't mind the cracked egg, so I leaped at the opportunity. I'm looking forward to tasting home-grown eggs from free-range chickens.

After the farmer's market, I stopped by Kroger to pick up some organic milk (we prefer Horizon or Organic Valley, but we'll settle for the store brand as long as it's organic). I spied some portobello mushrooms on manager's special for only $1.49 for a 1-pound package instead of the $3.79 regular price. Once I got home, I cleaned the mushrooms and sliced them, then sauteed them in a little bit of olive oil, and packaged them in snack-size Ziploc bags. Then I placed all those bags in a larger 1-gallon Ziploc freezer bag. When I need portobello mushrooms for a recipe, I just run the bag under warm water for a minute or so and then empty the mushrooms into the sauce or whatever I'm using them for.

Tomorrow my goal is to pick whatever zucchini is ready and to freeze some and bake with some. The freezer is beginning to fill up with healthy food for winter. I feel a bit like a squirrel, hiding nuts for the lean months.