Salsa and Other Canned Goods

We have fresh vegetables galore from our CSA. It's that time of year when I put away for winter. I have been busy canning salsa, hot sauce, more salsa, green beans, pickles, and chicken. There's something so satisfying about seeing this:

Become this:

As anyone knows, this is tiring business.

A Bittersweet Ending

CSA has come and gone. 20 weeks full of veggies, new recipes, fresh food now, and storing some up for winter.

Lettuce was plentiful all season, we even got some this last week!

Tomatoes had a bumper crop. from Roma, to Choke Cherry,
to grape, to cherry, to green, to heirloom, to regular.
There's some corn in my fridge to finish this week. There's some wonderful beans in the freezer as well as pureed veggies for Matthew. It's been a wonderful season, and I loved it even more than last year.

Why is it bitter? Because now I'm stuck with the veggies at the store until next spring.

And now I'm off to reserve next year's spot! Gotta do it early, as there was a waiting list this year.


If you are interested, I use Farmer Dave's. He has pickup points in Burlington, Beverly, Somerville, Tewksbury as well as Dracut of course. He also has options ranging from a small share to a super family share! We purchase a regular share.

How big is your eggplant?

Mine is as big as Matthew!

Okay, almost...


Beautiful CSA veggies

Reflections on our CSA

Alas, our CSA has come to an end. Well, technically it came to an end on November 10, 2009. 20 weeks of wonderful vegetables fresh from the farm were ours to enjoy. And overall? Grand success.

Positives: Fresh vegetables, more vegetables eaten in my house, experimented with different vegetables, variety in our diet,

Negatives: Umm....paying for it upfront? Seriously, the worst part was arranging to have one of us available to pick up the vegetables. I guess you could add fruit share to the negatives. We weren't impressed with it, and won't be doing it again anytime soon. I know there were a few more

So, now that registration has opened for this year? Yep, we are signing up. We were happy with the CSA and will miss it...until June 2010.

Flowers and Peaches and Blueberries...oh my!

So this week when I went to pick up my veggies/fruits we were told if we wanted to we could go pick some flowers. Well, I'm a sucker for free stuff and pretty flowers. So off I trounced to pick some flowers. Along the way I was reminded of a couple of things:

1. Flip Flops may be quick to put on, but they are also quick to fall off in loose dirt.
2. Snap dragons snap, but sunflowers really need to shears to come off the stem.
3. The flowers may be pretty on their own, but it helps to check what is in your hand already. Otherwise you end up with a bright red, bright orange, and pale yellow that announce to everyone just how color inept you really are. Don't believe me? Check the picture.

I'm thankful for beautiful vegetables

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5

Smashed Poturnators or Adventures with CSA

Week 2 resulted in these beautiful vegetables:



The new vegetable this week was turnips. Now I know what turnips are, but I have never liked them. As the new vegetable this week, I had to try them again. So I made Smashed Poturnators, which is just turnips and red potatoes mashed together with some butter. They turned out well. The turnips gave a little kick to regular potatoes.



Scallions, basil, arugula, green lettuce, peas, zucchini, summer squash, kousa squash, cucumber, radishes, Hakurei turnip


(And yes, for those of you paying attention, I'm posting a week behind.)

My Adventure with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Tuesday around 3:45 pm, I grab my big reusable bag (freebie in the mail!) and head out to the car. I drive to Farmer Dave's. I enter the barn, check off my name, and off I go to pick out my veggies. I love the crates of veggies sitting waiting to be picked through. The smell is so fresh, and makes me feel excited for dinner. When I'm done, I say bye, and out the door I go, off to check out my new items. It's the best kind of shopping, as the money was exchanged months ago, so it feels free!

I made a goal for this experience that I will pick out a new item each week. Last week's newbie was purslane. I made a purslane and potato salad. It was delicious. The purslane adds an extra kick to regular potato salad.



Veggies: Radishes, zucchini, cucumber, peas, garlic snape, lettuce, purslane, cilantro, spinach