Laura + Merav Member Diary for Week of June 15th

Laura + Merav

Hey guys! This blog post is coming at you from Laura and Merav. We are friends and roommates and this is our second season doing the CSA. We get a bi-weekly egg and veggie share. We share groceries and cook a lot of meals together so sharing the CSA works out really well for us. We were super excited for veggies to start and this week was definitely all about the greens. This week of cooking has basically been all about shoving greens into anything and everything that we make.

Here’s a rundown of some meals that we’ve made and how we’ve been using our shares.

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After picking up our share on Monday, I decided to make a giant salad using a lot of those salad greens since those tend to perish more quickly than some of the sturdier greens we got. 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

Stephanie Member Diary

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Holy greens this week! This is what my partner, Brian, and I got in our MimoMex Veggie and Orchard half shares: mustard greens, red mustard greens, arugula, mizuna, spinach, broccoli, cilantro, onions, baby pumpkins, a Sugar Baby pumpkin, Empire apples, apple cider.
Monday:
Usually I try to clear out the fridge before my pickup so that there’s room for CSA goods and we don’t have any leftovers to eat (which would discourage us from cooking). That didn’t happen this weekend…we had guests over and ordered a ton of takeout one night instead of cooking, so not only did we have all those leftovers, we had a bunch of veggies that I’d been planning to cook. No room in the fridge!
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Steps I took to clear out the fridge and store the share goods:
1. Drank the last of some white wine to get rid of the bottle. Need to start somewhere!
2. Finished up some takeout for dinner. No cooking tonight; clearing/storing only.
3. Cut our losses and traded some wilting cilantro for this week’s lively cilantro. Put the new cilantro in a glass with water (like a bouquet of flowers) and with a small plastic bag over the top. Old cilantro went in a bin for composting.
4. To help the rest of the greens last longer and reduce their bulk: picked out the wilted ones, trimmed off the stems, washed and spun the leaves, and packed them in plastic containers lined and layered with paper towels. Way laborious but worth it.
5. Consolidated carrots and celery with some radishes from a previous share in a FoodSaver container since they’re all supposed to be stored the same way anyway (with moisture and the air vents closed) and none of them produce ethylene.

Continue reading

Laura & Merav Member Diary

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My roommate and I share our CSA which is a half share of veggies, eggs, and orchard. This is our first year doing a CSA and we have been loving it! Here’s how we’ve been using the share this week:

Monday: After picking up the share, we decided to make a quiche with the spinach, corn, red onion (from two weeks ago), and eggs from the share. I just used a quick store bought crust, then I just sauteed up the veggies and added them to the crust. Then poured a mixture of 4 whisked eggs and about a half cup of milk plus salt and pepper on top. We added some shredded cheddar cheese and cilantro on top, then baked. This is a quick and easy meal that also makes great breakfasts or lunches throughout the week. We served the quiche with a salad using the Asian mixed greens and the radishes.
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Tuesday: Today we had vegetarian black bean tacos. I just used some simmered black beans and served the tacos with a salad using an ear of roasted corn, cilantro, red onion from 2 weeks ago, and a non-CSA tomato. On top I used a tomatillo salsa that I had from last week that is the recipe that you guys posted a few weeks ago. It is really yummy!
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Wednesday: Tonight we had Asian rice bowls (although I served it on a plate!), kind of a mix between Japanese and Korean flavors. This meal is also a good way to use up any random vegetables you may have lying around as you can pretty much throw whatever you want in here. The base is steamed Japanese sushi rice, then I added: steamed mustard greens, sliced radishes, and a soft boiled egg all from the share, plus some sliced avocado, kimchi from a jar that I had in the fridge, and chopped scallions. I just made a dressing with miso paste, rice vinegar, and sesame oil and drizzled that on top.
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Thursday: Dinner was Was leftovers tonight but I did get around to roasting my pumpkin from two weeks ago. Just roasted in the over then pureed in the food processor. I saved it in ziplocks and will keep in the freezer until I’m ready to make a pie!
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Friday and Saturday we didn’t cook. Sunday we made a soup with the other bunch of mustard greens and lamb sausage as well as some other random veggies thrown in. We served it with bread and cheese!!

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So that’s our menu for the week. We still have some greens and cilantro that we’ll use up this coming week!

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

RAINA Member Diary Week #10

RAINA

Clockwise from top left:

  1. strawberry and almond milk smoothies
  2. our daughter supervising the monday CSA Pickup
  3. Dal and bhaji
  4. In production (yellow lentils, garlic and spinach with white onion)
  5. peas and carrots, frozen and ready for some homemade baby food
  6. roasted beets in situ
  7. beet greens sauteeing with garlic
  8. barley, beets, beet green salad
  9. carrots (the better to see you with!)

 

With a new member of our family (above, supervising), two busy jobs, and a LOT of adjusting in the last year, we’ve struggled with eating well and sustainably. We were excited when one of our neighbors told us about the Southside CSA… Continue reading

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

Member Diary #6: George & Melissa- June 18th Share

This is our third year with Southside CSA and the coming of the new season has become one of the most exciting parts of our year! We are a couple sharing a half monty, including veggie, orchard, and egg share, as well as a half berry and half chicken share. We did do the meat share last year but felt like the chicken share would match our eating habits better this year. A half share for two people seems to be the right amount for us, as we both work busy jobs, but try and eat most of our dinners at home during the week and at least one big meal during the weekend.

This week was the first week of veggie share, which was very exciting. Here is the share in all of its glory on our dining table once we got home on Monday night. Especially impressive this week were the amazing amounts of strawberries and yet another beautiful big chicken from Feather Ridge:

Continue reading

Member Diary #14 - Lucas & Ali

This weeks goodies:

1 bunch of spinach 1 head of lettuce 1 bunch of radishes 1/2 pound of tomatillos 1/2 pound of jalapenos 1 eggplant 1 acorn squash 1 bunch of parsley 1 bunch of mint 1 bunch of coriander apples galore! punnet of raspberries

I was a little worried about doing the member diary this week, as at the last minute Lucas had to go away for work which left me on my lonesome with all this fruit & vege to consume, to get creative with & to write about! Not the worst task in the world, but I’m 35 weeks pregnant and feeling very much like being cooked for rather than doing the cooking! But I soldiered on and this is what the week looked like! Continue reading

Member Diary – Week #1. Suz & Lon.

Diary Entry: #1 Tuesday, June 16th Dinner for 2 @ 8:50PM

Dear fellow Southside CSA’ers,

We are super excited to be the first contestants to contribute our blog-like diary entries for the first week of vegetable distribution. I know everyone must be as thrilled as we are that the season has begun. Lon is the master chef that has improvised these fantastic meals using the first week’s vegetables and herbs. We hope you are inspired to make these meals for yourself because as the professional taste tester in the house, they are deslish!! XOXOXO Suz + Lon McCaffrey

Seasoned Bass Filets served atop a warm Tomato garlic-scape mushroom ragout + a spinach salad dressed with lemon juice & olive oil Continue reading