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

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

December Winter Share Distribution

With these whirlwind weeks of holiday cooking and new years celebrations, it seems like it was just yesterday but it was actually a few weeks ago on December 17th that we had our first distribution of our 5 month Winter season. We figured before we start posting all the amazing things we have been cooking/baking/preserving, it was about time we did an informational post about the December shares….

Dec 2013 Winter Sun Vegetable Share

Dec 2013 Winter Sun Vegetable Share

Winter Sun Vegetable Share

This month’s distribution included 6 frozen items. Typically we get 5 items plus a fresh bag of pea shoots. Unfortunately, early December was a hard one for pea shoots. The farm that we get our pea shoots from, Little Seed Gardens in Chatham, NY, was hit particularly hard with a cold snap and they lost their pea shoots. (The plan as it stands is to have pea shoots again in January and in subsequent months.) Therefore, in December we all got an extra frozen item in place of the pea shoots.

Winter Share Tomato Paste Pic by Ryan Kuonen

The December share included the following:

  • 24 oz jar of Tomato Puree from Taliaferro Farm & Williams Farm
  • Butternut Squash Puree from Black Horse Farm in Coxsackie, NY
  • Winterbor Kale from Stoneledge Farm in South Cairo, NY
  • Blueberries from Mead Orchards Farm in Tivoli, NY
  • Green Beans from Markristo Farm in Hillsdale, NY
  • Diced Peppers from Hepworth Farm in Milton, NY
  • Sweet Corn from Gills Farm in Hurley, NY
Montrose guarding the eggs

Montrose guarding the eggs

Egg Share

Members picked up their dozen’s of gorgeous eggs…..

Dec 2013 Whole Meat Share

Dec 2013 Whole Meat Share

Northwind Farm Meat Shares

Half Share - The average weight comes to 7.7 lbs per share

  • Barbary Duck
  • Ground Turkey Meat
  • Chicken split Breast
  • Breakfast Sausage
  • Rib Steak

Whole Share - The average weight total comes to 11lbs per share

  • Barbary Duck
  • Turkey Drumsticks
  • Breakfast Sausage
  • Ground Turkey
  • Turkey Tenderloins
  • Rib Steak
Tasting of beers n' hot sauces

Tasting of beers n’ hot sauces

Broken Stove Beer Tasting Club

This month’s selection of homebrew goodness:

3 22 ounce bottles of the following -

  • Dunkelweisen
  • Scotch Ale
  • Smoked Porter

Still time to get in on our winter shares. Prices to join will be updated on the blog later today…..

Iris Member Diary for Week of Nov 4th

IMG_126Veggie Share: Red potatoes, yellow onions, scallions, kale, popcorn on the cob, cilantro, acorn squash, butternut squash.

Orchard Share: One quart apple cider, apples

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Our household stats: We are a family of four (two adults, a four-year old, and an infant) with a Week B half-share of both Veggie and Orchard. It takes us a full two weeks to use up all the produce. Sadly, Berry and Egg Share season is over. This week we enjoyed hearty meals featuring roasted potatoes, roasted butternut squash, apple crisp, hot apple cider, snake bites (IPA with cider!) and kale salad. Lots of kale salad. Continue reading

Veggie Monster Member Diary from Oct 28th Share Week

Share pic by katerina barry This week we got butternut squash, potatoes, red onions, carrots, kale, mustard greens, cilantro, parsley, popping corn, apple and apple cider. We have a Full Monty share; We eat mostly vegan and usually have no problem getting through our fruit and vegetables each week. This is our 5th year in the CSA, so by now there are very few surprises. We have our favorite recipes for each vegetable that we return to each year.
Image02_SquashChickpeaCurryWith butternut squash, we pretty much always make a butternut squash and chickpea curry from Madhur Jaffrey’s wonderful “World Vegetarian” cookbook. Continue reading

Meeshka Member Diary - Apples, Strawberries & Squash

greigfarmstrawberry pic by Mo Kim
Meeshka Share Family shares with us some yummy recipes for all those apples, strawberries in the freezer, and squash you have piling up on the counter….

Curry with Butternut Squash by Nicole

pic by nicole tanska

 

Nicole shares another gem with us - Check out the recipe (and cooking tips) for Thai Red Curry with Squash & Potato over at her fab blog, Tiny Kitchen BK.

BOTZ-GREEN Member Diary

pic by corrine botz
We are new to the Southside CSA and enjoying it immensely. We are trying to eat especially healthy as I’m expecting our first baby in October. Here are two recipes we made from our produce this week.
pic by corrine botz

151 Kent Member Diary Week #13

Basil Our share feeds three in our household: one chef who works at Parish Hall, one expert baker and me, a girl whose cooking skills plateau at stir-fry. We typically plan dinner once a week, where we use the majority of our produce share (half-berry, half-orchard, full veggie). The amount of produce we get in a week is sometimes more than we can manage to eat. Making one meal large enough for leftovers is a convenient way to use it up. This week we received a plethora of blessed veggies: corn, onions, kale, leeks, squash, beets, carrots, and basil along with a bucket of blueberries. We store the veggies in the refrigerator and the basil in a glass of water.

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Continue reading

Member Diary: 369 Studio’s October 28th Share

Hello CSA friends,
With all the pumpkins we received this last season, we thought to share our latest healthy pumpkin pie recipe. Also, we made some great popcorn from the dried cobs using a mixture of coconut oil and butter. This was another first for us; much like figuring out what to do with the kohlrabi and other vegetables that we had not encountered nor cooked before.
Below the recipe are photos of the finished pie and this week’s favorite CSA gems.
Hope you Enjoy!

369 Studios: Gisel, Nelson and Horacio

Continue reading