Early Bird CSA Week One

Our first trip out to Breezy Willow for the spring CSA pick up. Definitely different than our other two forays into CSAs. Last year the winter one delivered to your house and you picked what you wanted online. We took a break from winter CSA this year.

Our summer one is the box type. What’s in the box is what you get. This is the first one where you go inside and pick your veggies and count out or weigh them. It also includes value added items like Florida citrus, bread and eggs. A nice haul. Mostly organic, except for the fruit from Florida, I think. I did forget to ask about the farm practices for the grapefruit and oranges.

Here is what we got.

Four ruby red grapefruit, five oranges, four york apples and four red delicious apples, eight carrots, three pounds of sweet potatoes, one pound of beets, 1/2 pound button mushrooms, one pound of Tuscan kale. We chose a cinnamon raisin bread, and we got our first dozen eggs.

Those breads are very large. This could become interesting, depending on what is there. I may be freezing bread to use later in the summer. I do know French toast will be on the menu because the bread tastes wonderful. Give it a few days as older bread makes good French toast. I am making a dish using the kale, a new one for me (the dish, not the kale). I need to find a few more ingredients before I decide if I make it.

I may try grapefruit granita, since there may be a number of weeks with grapefruit, and we aren’t huge citrus for breakfast people.

The other thing I picked up today was a bag of Michele’s granola. I heard about it, but never tried it. We had it for dessert tonight with some of the blueberry yogurt left from my last visit to England Acres. I see Breezy Willow also carries it. This yogurt is really rich. The granola is great.

This CSA costs $38.50 a week. The free range eggs would be $4.50 to buy. Great Harvest breads $5 or $6 each. Grapefruit, $1.75 each in the store the other day. Oranges $1 each. $21.50 before counting the veggies and apples. Getting these really fresh organic veggies, fruit, eggs and bread is a bargain.

A good base for a week’s cooking. Lots of people there today when they opened. I need to time it so we aren’t there in the first rush. It did get to be a little crazy trying to maneuver the driveway with over a dozen cars coming and going. Nice to see that they are successful. Convenient, too. A good beginning.

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