CSA: dinner and reflections

Hubby and I decided to join a CSA for the first time last year. We'd talked about it for years, and every year I would do a ton of research on local farms...and then get totally overwhelmed by the number of choices and give up. Finally, last winter, we bit the bullet: picked a farm and sent in our money.

In case you're unfamiliar,

In basic terms, CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

From the USDA's National Agricultural Library: http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csadef.shtml

Last year was not a good year for many of our local farms, so it wasn't the best for us either. It was too cold and then too hot and then too wet and then too dry...nothing much grew. We got squash, squash, and more squash...and that was it. I appreciated that the farm wanted us to feel like we were getting our money's worth (as much as they could, given the weather), but it was way more than we could deal with. I made every zucchini recipe known to man, froze a bunch of sliced squash and no-noodle lasagna, made countless jars of pickles, gave a ton of food away, and still couldn't keep up.

So hubby and I had a big heart-to-heart this winter; we knew that it wasn't fair to judge CSAs based on last year's experience. We decided to give it another try this year, although we switched to another farm that several friends had joined, knowing that they got a lot more variety than we did, even with last year's crazy weather.

This summer has been a true CSA experience. This farm offers us an amazing variety of veggies each week, but not too much of any one thing (except maybe cukes). The farmer sends fabulously detailed newsletters each week, filled with farm news, recipes, and pictures of the interns working on the farm. We were a little overwhelmed by the amount of greens at the beginning of the season, until we started making green smoothies as an afternoon snack each day.

Our box this past week provided us with this amazing meal: fresh tomatoes, garlic, carrots, celery, and onions went into this fresh tomato sauce. Scallions went into the cheddar and scallion rolls (twitterbaked with Kayte and Margaret). Fresh garlic, parsley, and basil went into the meatballs. We ate delicious broccoli on the side. All of the veggies are incredibly fresh; I can't believe how much better everything tastes than when we buy them from the grocery store. Even the celery, which I think of as being so bland, smells and tastes so celery-y. The whole family is excited to see what we get each week, and the kids love asking which of our foods came from our veggie box.

We still have many veggies to use before our next pick-up on Thursday. Farm potatoes and peppers will go with our grilled chicken tomorrow. Tuesday night's fried rice will include the rest of the broccoli, scallions, carrots, and cabbage. I gave two eggplants to my mom, I'll have to make another batch of pickles, and I'm waiting for inspiration for the giant bag of beets.

Which leads me to my final reflection: as wonderful as the food tastes, as much as I love the connection to a local farm, as much as I believe in the ideals of a CSA, I don't think we'll do it again. I miss choice; we get so much food that our meals are all determined by which recipe uses up the most farm veggies. This is especially challenging at the beginning of the summer when you get the same foods over and over (I could make this bok choy and kale recipe in my sleep!). I miss shopping at the farmer's market; although we still go, I can't justify buying additional produce when I can't keep up with what we have and when we've already spent so much money. And I can't stand the guilt of throwing food away when we can't get to everything, even though our farmer insists that it's still worth it and we're still doing good.

Still, it's been such a valuable experience, and I'm so glad we tried it...and I'm excited to see what's in this week's box! :-)

Summer bounty

I meant to do my final post for ice cream week today, but instead spent my day dealing with the over-abundance of produce from our CSA.



The past three week's worth of beets became these chocolate beet muffins (thanks to Sara for tweeting about them yesterday, as I'd had no inspiration for dealing with the shelf full of red globes). They were a huge hit with the whole family, and I'm sure the extra cup of beet puree that I stashed in the freezer will be put to similar use soon.

The drawer full of cukes became seven jars of bread and butter pickles, a hot packed version of these fridge pickles. I love the ease of refrigerator pickles, but just don't have the fridge space.

And finally, I revisited small batch canning when I received a bag full of tomatoes, a ton of green and hot peppers, and onions in this week's box: three jars of hubby's favorite salsa.

For the first time, canning seemed more natural, less overwhelming. I didn't need to review the instructions every two seconds, and I made all of the salsa and almost all of the pickles without needing another pair of hands. Makes me feel more confident about the next over-flowing box of goodies coming my way!

Wordless Wednesday: Adventures in small batch canning

Strawberry-honey-thyme jam with Alton Brown's English muffins

"The best peach applesauce ever!!!"

 We're staying in today. Yesterday, we spent the day at the apple orchard and a pumpkin festival . . . Great fun. But all of us have been fighting colds this week, and we decided to spend most of today indoors.

Looking for a fun fall/Halloween cooking project to do with the kids this morning, I found a recipe for peach-applesauce in one of the little guy's favorite cookbooks: C is for Cooking.

(Like his mom, he cannot seem to own enough cookbooks . . . or spend enough time paging through them. Luckily, his nana works at a library and is frequently able to get him discarded cookbooks!) Having just been to the orchard yesterday, we had three bags of apples sitting on the counter, waiting to be made into something yummy.

The last time I made applesauce, it didn't go very well and I swore I wouldn't do it again. Looking back, I think I just didn't cook the apples long enough, so they were incredibly difficult to get through the food mill. Today, it went much better! The recipe in the Sesame cookbook calls for peeling and coring the apples and cooking them in a ton of water. It seemed like it would make a pretty watery, flavorless applesauce. So, I combined instructions from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and ATK's Family Cookbook, in addition to the Sesame idea of adding canned peaches.

The BEST peach applesauce ever!
1. Cut 10 large apples into four to six pieces.
2. Cut a can of peaches into small chunks. (This is a great job for the little ones!)

3. Fill a large dutch oven with about 1/2 inch of water. Add a pinch of salt.
4. Dump in the apple pieces, cover, and bring to a boil over medium heat.
5. Once boiling, take the cover off, and add 1/4 cup brown sugar and two cinnamon sticks.
6. Stir frequently until the apples are mushy mushy mushy (about 30+ minutes).
7. Add the chopped peaches.
8. Pass through a food mill. (Another great job for the little ones, providing they have some help with holding the mill onto the bowl.)

 
9. I added a bit more brown sugar (maybe another tablespoon or two); our apples weren't very sweet to begin with.

We ended up with two pints of peach-applesauce for the freezer and another two pints for the fridge. Plus a few bowls for taste tests. The little guy's verdict? "Mom, this is the BEST peach-applesauce in the whole world!!!" and then he had thirds.

Strawberry Freezer Jam

When I read Nicole's post on Pinch My Salt about strawberry freezer jam, I was intrigued, but not convinced. Like Nicole, I assumed that because it was such an easy process, it must be inferior to the "real" stuff.

Last Christmas, one of hubby's coworkers gave us a jar. I stuffed it in the freezer and forgot about it. Eh, freezer jam; not the real thing.

Fast forward to the middle of this summer, when I stumbled on the jar, realized we didn't have any strawberry jelly in the house, and decided to try it. Oh my goodness, it was so tasty! And when I started making my own yogurt later this summer, we started using a spoonful of jam to sweeten it; by far the best strawberry yogurt ever. We went through the jar in record speed. Luckily another friend dropped off a jar, so we defrosted that one - and lickety split, it was gone, too.

So today, I picked up a package of freezer pectin and four pounds of strawberries ~ and in a half hour, we had eight jars of strawberry freezer jam!

First canning adventures: Zesty salsa!

Last summer while learning to bake bread, I also spent a ton of my time reading food blogs, and I read about some other things (besides bread) that I really longed to try: making my own butter, making homemade yogurt, and canning . . . something, anything.

Apparently this is the summer to realize my cooking dreams!

Left: canned salsa
Center: homemade yogurt & granola
Right: cultured butter with 40% rye

I've been following Andrea's (Family & Food & Other Things) canning adventures with Tigress' Can Jam for a long while, and the descriptions of the canning process fascinate me. I love making things from scratch and knowing the exact ingredients of the things I feed my family. Canning just adds a whole new level.

Then a few days ago, we happened to be at a farm supply store and all of their canning supplies were on sale! I couldn't resist. I got a pot with rack, set of canning supplies, and the Ball Blue Guide to Preserving, all for only $25! Can't beat that.

I figured I'd stick them in the basement and give them a try early next summer. And then we found ourselves at the farmer's market this weekend, and I thought about all of the extra tomatoes that I had at home, so we bought a few more tomatoes, a bunch of peppers, and some cilantro, and came home and made SALSA! Salsa has to be one of my hubby's all-time favorite foods, so even though our kitchen was a disaster and I was constantly yelling out for help, he was fully in support of this project and happy to be my faithful assistant.

I chose the zesty salsa recipe from the Blue Book, and although the book says not to vary the recipe at all, I did cut the recipe based on how many tomatoes we had (75% of the original) and subbed in a few different ingredients (mainly types of peppers) based on what we had at the house ~ and added a little extra cilantro because we love it.


Zesty Salsa
(adapted from Ball Blue Guide to Preserving)
7 1/2 cups chopped, peeled, and cored tomatoes
4 cups chopped and seeded peppers (lady slippers, anaheim, pablano)
3 1/2 cups chopped onions (red and yellow)
1 1/2 cups chopped and seeded hot peppers (jalepenos, hot banana)
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 1/4 tsp salt
1 cup vinegar (cider and red wine)

I first chopped everything up for the salsa. In hindsight, I should have started the pots simmering with the bottles and lids then; I didn't anticipate how long they would take to come to a simmer. But then I realized that I had the wrong size lids, so I had to run out to the store to get the right size anyway, so it ended up being better that I hadn't started the pots.

When I got home, I washed the jars and lids and then started all three big pots: one with the salsa, one with the jars and lids, and the canning pot. I was very careful not to let the pots get above 180 F and was thankful for my Thermapen (although I also kept reminding myself that people have been canning since long before instant-read thermometers so it was probably okay not to be too obsessive).

Once the salsa and jars had been simmering for 10 minutes, I started the canning process (with my faithful assistant). Hubby lifted each jar carefully out of the pan and put it on a towel, and then I ladeled in salsa.

He used the jar lifter to take out each lid and place it carefully on the jar. I wiped the threads of the jars clean with a towel and lightly screwed the bands in place.

Then hubby used the nifty jar lifter to place them into the canner and lowered the canning rack. We need to work on this step, as we had a hard time getting the pint jars to fit securely in the rack and a couple of them kept tipping over, which was a little stressful.

We covered the pot, brought it to a rolling boil, and set the timer for 15 minutes. Once the timer beeped, we let everything rest for 5 minutes, took out the jars, and left them alone over night. I heard a few satisfying pops! which was exciting.

This morning I checked the lids: there was no give and I couldn't pry them off. I took the bands off and cleaned the bottles and now we have several months worth of bottled salsa ready to go!

Of course, we also popped one open so hubby could give it a try: he loved the various pepper flavors and said he was sad that he's lived with store-bought salsa all this time. I really enjoyed this salsa with chips as well. More importantly, though, my first canning adventure was a success!