Jonathan + Kristie Member Diary - Week of June 22

# Distribution

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Kristie and I live with two dogs, Bijoux and Roux. They don’t get much of the share, although Roux was pretty into the sugarsnap pea we gave her. We share a half-share of veggies and of orchard (which hasn’t started yet). This doesn’t seem like much, but it can still be challenging to store and cook all this food.

Pro tip: occasionally you can buy extras like loose cartons of eggs or a spare chicken. This is a great way to sample tasty new CSA eats, and figure out if you’re ready to sign up for a share the next season.

pic by JBerger

Our schedules are pretty busy and we eat out or order in a *lot* for the sake of convenience, but one of the reasons we do CSA is to slow down and try to cook and eat more together, in the house. I *love* leafy greens, so this weeks share was pretty exciting: spinach, rainbow chard, mizuna, radishes, garlic, garlic scapes, lettuce, snap peas, and broccoli rabe. We also scored some Maple Syrup samples from the [Circle C Maple Farm][] in Pine Bush NY. Thanks guys!

pic by JBerger

I had distribution duty this week and was handing out the meat share. It wasn’t long before I was wishing we’d ordered some; luckily there was a spare chicken, so we picked that up (along with a loose carton of eggs).

pic by JBerger

By the time distribution was done it was a little late to cook and eat, so we grabbed a bite at Landhaus (the grill at the back of The Woods). After eating, we shlepped our haul home.

pic by JBerger

*Pro Tip: we’ve got a ton of tote bags, but we set aside the orange ones (with a few extra plastic bags stowed inside) for CSA. This makes them easy to find and grab.* Continue reading

Week #3 Member Diary - Fox Force 5

Asparagus May 2015

ASPARAGUS SEASON! May means we are knee deep into Asparagus season. This week’s distribution was another 2 pounds. We also get an Egg Share and a Large Meat Share. Our household tends to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days so we have get full shares of everything.Large Meat 2015

Egg May 2015

Having been spoiled by the super fresh asparagus we get from Greig Farm, we really only eat asparagus during the month of May when it is in season here in NY. Store bought spears shipped from thousands of miles away just doesn’t compare. So for the month of May we tend to eat asparagus for every meal. Continue reading

COUGAR Member Diary

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In the five years we’ve been Southside CSA members, we’ve frequently planned a fall dinner party in order to share some of our haul and try out some more ambitious dishes to share in our blog post. This year we did have a party, but one of an entirely different sort. Since we welcomed Elias, our seven month old, into our family, our meals need to be fast and ideally sharable with a baby. We still like to entertain, though, so our recipes this week will feature two meals from the beginning of the weak meant to take us through a few days, a few lightning fast meals, baby friendly treats, and some party food from the Halloween bash we threw for Elias’s buddies and their parents.

This week’s share

We pick up bi-weekly, and we have the veggie, orchard, berry, egg, and meat shares. We began the week with several (still fresh!) leftover items from our previous week’s pickup due to some busy schedules, stomach viruses, and time spent out of town with our families. So, some items featured in this week’s meals are from the prior week.

Included in this week’s pickup: Apples, apple cider, red and yellow onions, decorative gourds (‘tis the season), popping corn, Swiss chard, two bunches of spinach, mustard greens, and a head of cabbage.

Beginning of the week meals

We began each of the last two weeks with soups.

Last week, we used up some of our CSA veggies with a corn chowder.

For this chowder we used:

  • Olive Oil
  • 3 strips of bacon
  • 2 onions (CSA)
  • 6 cups of chicken stock (we used a stock made from the scraps of a Northwind Farm chicken, veggie scraps, and some CSA lemongrass for kick)
  • 4 ears of corn, kernels off the cob, and two ears reserved for the soup
  • 3 waxy potatoes (store bought)
  • 2 Cups of Cream
  • Salt and Pepper
  1. We cooked the bacon in a bit of olive oil, then took it out of the pan.
  2. Then, we sautéed up a few small onions
  3. When those were soft, we added the stock and the corn. We threw in the cobs for extra flavor
  4. Then we added the potatoes. When everything was cooked through, we added cream and salt and pepper to taste.

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This lasted us through three dinners! Continue reading

Brock Member Diary - Week of Sept 15th

This week our vegetable share was: acorn squash, eggplant, tomatillos, poblano peppers, serrano peppers, tomatoes, lemon grass, onions, and kale. We also have a half berry share, which was a bag of apples, a pumpkin, and a (decorative?) gourd.

There are only two of us, and we try to use up or prepare and freeze everything each week. Our strategy is to eat the most perishable items first, and keep the more hardy veggies for later in the week. We didn’t get around to eating the acorn squash yet, but maybe we’ll be inspired next week.
To start, we decided to roast all of the peppers and the tomatillos in the oven to make a green chile stew with chicken. After they were roasted, we removed the seeds and ribs of the chiles, blended them with some chicken stock, and added the puree to some onions that were cooked in a little olive oil, and some shredded poached chicken. We ate this over rice with some cilantro and lime, and it was definitely a little spicy, but we enjoyed it.
Our next project was a snack of kale chips. We tore the kale into pieces, tossed it with some olive oil and salt and cooked it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Continue reading

FUNCORE Member Diary - Week of August 11th

This week we received:

  • 1 head red leaf lettuce
  • 1 bunch green beans
  • 1 dozen eggs
  • 1 quart blueberries
  • 1 bunch radishes
  • 1 bunch spinach
  • 4 ears corn
  • 4 tomatoes
  • 2 summer squash
  • 3 cucumbers
  • 1 bunch of sage

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We were going camping this weekend so we needed to strategize a bit in order to make sure we had a weeks worth of delicious lunches to bring to work, as well as 3 meals to contribute to the camping trip.

For lunch during the week, we made easy pita pockets filled with chicken breast, and thin slices of radishes, carrots and cucumber. Top it all off with homemade Goddess dressing- delicious and so easy!. Check out this neat trick I learned to help your pita keep it’s shape. Simply cut off a silver from the top then use the silver to wedge the pita open while it toasts. Voila! Life Hack!

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Here is the recipe to make your own version of Goddess dressing at home:

2 tablespoons safflower or canola oil
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/2 cup tahini
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup roughly chopped scallions (about 2-3 big ones)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon plus a healthy dash of tamari (or whatever soy saucy kinda thing you roll with)
3 garlic cloves
some salt and pepper to taste

Put it all in a blender or food processor and whizz it until its smooth. Better make a double batch though, cause you might just drink it out of the bottle.

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For our camping trip, we prepared in advance some whole wheat pesto pasta using ramp pesto that we had made last year and stored in the freezer. We served it with simply sauteed tomatoes, squash, carrots and green beans- a sort of rustic take on ratatouille. Continue reading

June 23 - B week - week 8 of 30

MimoMex Vegetable Share
1lb sweet peas
1bag flor de calabaza (squash blossoms) (use them in a frittata, a soup, quesadillas, or stuffed with cheese, battered and fried)
2 white onions
3 green onions
4 garlic bulbs
1 bunch mizuna
1 bunch sweet chard
1 lb salad mix

Greig Farm Berry Share
4 quarts strawberries

Yellow Bell Egg Share
1 dozen
Yellow Bell Chicken Share
1 pack chicken thighs
1pk split shell chicken breast
Northwind Farm Meat Share
1pack chorizo
1porterhouse steak

1 pack chicken thighs

1 split chicken breast

small beef shank

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Week 1 - A Berry, Egg, Meat & Chicken

 

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Greig Farm (Mostly) Berry Share
-14oz of Asparagus

 

Yellow Bell Egg Share
-1 dozen eggs

 

Northwind Meat Share
-Boneless Rump Roast, Ground Turkey Meat, Pork Chops, Ground Beef, Split Chicken Breast

 

Chicken Share
-1 chicken

 

 

 

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Coffee & Donuts Member Diary Week #23 (Sept 30)

Every Monday night, the three of us look forward to a kitchen full of locally grown vegetables from MimoMex farm. It was important to us to not only eat healthier, but to get involved in our community and support our local farms. It is always a surprise to see what we will be taking home that evening, looking forward to creating dishes using fresh and seasonal produce. To help store our vegetables, we store most items in the fruit and vegetable drawers in our refrigerator, using plastic onion and tomato savers and GreenBags that help preserve the freshness and prolong the life of our herbs and leafy greens.

With this week’s September 30th CSA share from MimoMex farm, Alison, Shaina, and Kate, aka Coffee & Donuts (more on our share name later…) used this week’s items to highlight the basket’s Mexican flavors, using the corn, cilantro, red onion, and radishes to create chicken corn enchiladas with homemade green sauce! A green enchilada sauce is hard to come by in supermarkets, so we decided to make our own! To make this super easy medium spiced green enchilada sauce, we used this week’s cilantro and red onion, and previous week’s garlic, green bell peppers, jalapenos, and one habanero pepper. We found a good base recipe online, and tweaked it to make it slightly spicier.

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LEGS Member Diary for Week #6

pic by georgie greville

This is our 5th year with the delicious and lovely Southside CSA- we are a 2 person (soon to be 3) operation and get the Full Monty Deluxe. Now that I am pregnant, I am more grateful than ever to have access to amazing quality eggs, fruit and produce from a such a reliable source. This week we got a dozen huge, healthy eggs and a big handful of fresh asparagus- we are in to asparagus and have had no problem eating it for weeks- they are so great in scrambled eggs, frittatas, salads and soups.

pic by georgie greville

Continue reading