Category Archives: CSA

The Fall CSA, Three Weeks In

Posted on November 15, 2012 by AnnieRie

I can tell Thanksgiving is here. The veggies attest to it.

Sandy Spring Fall CSA Week 3 of 2012

I keep playing “I’m celery the eighth, I am, celery the eighth I am, I am” in my head. These two heads of organic celery were just massive. More than enough for stuffing, or dressing (your preference), and for under the turkey and to use when making turkey noodle soup with the leftovers. Of course, we are also getting veggies next Tuesday (early because the holiday is Thursday), so we may be really up to our ears in celery.

Here’s the list, but modified to show we got extras of a few things, in order to make up for the lost week. Next to each is the cost from my visit today to Harris Teeter. Organic, when possible. Otherwise, regular. The popcorn a guess, based on cost of microwave popcorn in the store. I round up the penny.

1 Bunch French Heirloom Carrots $3
1 Head Broccoli $3.50
1 Butternut Squash (2 1/2 lb) total comes to $3.25
1 Bag Hakurei Turnips (2 1/2 lb) $14.95 (see below)
2 Bunches of Celery $8 (yes, organic were $3.49. EACH)
2 large Yellow Onions (1 1/2 lb) $2.70 total
1 Bunch Lacinato Kale $3
1 Head Napa Cabbage (3 lb) $5.10 total
1 Bunch Yellow Popcorn use $4 to compare to microwave
2 Rutabaga (2 1/2 lb) $3.25 total

The added up cost for this week is $49.65. Cost for a share $31.25 a week. Add to last week where it was $42.22 (remember we lost a week due to Sandy), total is now $91.87. I think. I may need to check my math but it looks like after week 3 we are almost even with what we pay. Down only $2. If they keep adding amounts like they did this week, twice the celery as originally stated. A very large amount of turnips. We should be way ahead by Christmas, as is usually the case with this CSA.

As for the turnips, Hakurei are a delicacy. A small bunch of them (less than 8 ounces in weight) were $2.99 at Harris Teeter today. We got two and a half pounds of them. I really love these turnips. They are sweet. They can be eaten raw or cooked. I am thinking of taking them to my brother’s for Thanksgiving, baked in a light butter sauce with Brussels Sprouts. I need to find Brussels sprouts at one of the last markets this weekend.

Hakurei turnips

As for that popcorn, we found a recipe that says, just put it in a paper bag in the microwave. We need to try this.

Last night was “Use up the CSA” dinner. My roasted root veggies before baking. I added some of my bag ripened heirloom tomatoes to the pan, too.

veggies before roasting

After they finished, I boiled some pasta, added a few cubes of my garlic scape pesto I took out of the freezer and had a primavera of sorts that was so good. We did eat the last grillers from TLV on the side.

Not bad for using up leftover veggies, roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper.

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The Last Weekend of Howard County Farmer’s Markets

Posted on November 14, 2012 by AnnieRie

Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. East Columbia, Glenwood and Oakland Mills. The last three dates of the markets. Will you be stopping by to get items for Thanksgiving dinner? Or, getting a fresh turkey locally?

Pumpkins for pies. Sweet potatoes for a casserole. Apples as well. Sausage for the stuffing. Bread for the stuffing. Eggs. Greens. Lots of good local foods to use for the dinner preparation. Also, many of us have ordered pies from Stone House. Stone House will be setting up at TLV during the tree cutting season.

The regular farmer’s markets may be ending but the local farmers will still have places where you can buy their offerings.

TLV Farm is opening for Cut your own Christmas trees, right after Thanksgiving. They also stay open on Saturdays the rest of the winter for those of us looking for meat and eggs.

Breezy Willow made this announcement in our latest email. Since we just joined their Early Bird for March through May, we will be heading out there on Saturdays to fill in our needs the two months we don’t have a CSA delivery. Here are the words from their email.

“You may still order from our website throughout the winter. We will be opening on Saturdays at Breezy Willow starting the first Saturday in Dec from 10-2pm. Our Alpaca socks and scarves will be available along with more gift items, more information to follow.”

England Acres will be open on Saturdays and Sundays. They are open all year round, and we head out there often particularly for dairy and cheese. They also get other items from farms in the area. They are west of Mt. Airy off Rte. 144, just over the Frederick County line.

Olney Farmers and Artists Market (OFAM) has announced an indoor market starting in January at the Sandy Spring Museum on Rte. 108. They also have a holiday mart on the 2nd of December.

If anyone knows of other farmer’s markets near us, let us know. We will be frequenting the markets to get supplies, particularly meat and eggs, and any root veggies they may have. I will be reporting here what we find.

Also contact me here, or you may be receiving an email to sign up for the event at the Conservancy that I am coordinating. It will feature an indoor “Meet Your Local Farmers” event on the 20th of January. Farmers will have some items to sell, will be doing CSA signups, will be talking about living and working on their farms. More to follow as I work out details with participants and the Conservancy.

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The Value of Our Fall CSA

Posted on November 13, 2012 by AnnieRie

Fall is when most of the markets go away. Buying local and organic gets harder. Our CSA provides us with fresh organic veggies. How does it all shake our from a financial standpoint?

Last week our ten items came in this way.

Turnips and greens $3.28. Carrots 2 lb.$2.98. Sweet potatoes, 4 lb. $7.98. Scallions $2.58. Collards $2.69. Cabanelle peppers $4.29. Heirloom squash $3.49. Radishes $2.97. Leeks $3.49 each! Two of them $6.98. Celery $3.98.

Total: $42.22. We pay $31.25 a week for the CSA. I still believe some of them aren’t adequately priced when I can’t find them on the web sites.

Already more than $11 up. Even after the storms, we are ahead.

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Shirt Sleeve Weather

Posted on November 12, 2012 by AnnieRie

aka Indian Summer

This weekend and today certainly have been those types of days. The high today is supposed to hit 70 degrees. It was a beautiful morning. The maple finally peaked, and I had to record it before the rains come tomorrow and bring down most of the leaves. It is amazing how it turns from green to yellow to red within the span of a week.

the maple today

This morning it was just spectacular, as seen from the driveway coming into the property. And below, this is the closer look from last Tuesday, as it was just really beginning to change.

the maple beginning to turn

We finally got the garage doors cleaned. We were out there in jeans and T shirts. Can not believe how nice it has been.

no more dirt and grime left from Sandy

With how nice it was, we considered lunch outdoors. After all, the patio was sunny and we were repositioning the furniture back where it belongs and returning the place to its pre-storm condition. We could not believe how much trash and junk was blown under and around all the plant beds, but now it is cleaned up. Finally. The bird feeders are all hung. The branches and most of the leaves cleaned up. The only thing left is cutting back the spirea and the spice bush, once we have a few more freeze warnings and they all lose their leaves.

I made us salads using CSA veggies, and we wandered outside to enjoy the warmth of the sun. The salads include one of my favorite ways to serve chicken and swiss. Getting one thick slice of each at Boarman’s. This time I got some honey BBQ chicken breast. Cut it in cubes and serve on top of greens with an apple diced on top.

chef’s salad, my way

Loving the Hakurei turnips and the French breakfast radishes on this salad. Can’t wait to see what goodies the CSA brings this week.

hocofood@@@

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It’s a Chicken Soup Kinda Day

Posted on November 9, 2012 by AnnieRie

You know, a little blustery. Sunny, but breezy. Fall weather that makes you crave chicken soup. I knew when we got celery and carrots in the CSA box that I would be making soup.

Turns out that I bought a rotisserie chicken from Costco last night as I was running late. I always turn leftover rotisserie chicken into soup if I have the ingredients. So right now, soup is happily bubbling on the stove top. It will be ready to serve about an hour from now.

chicken soup simmering on the stove

I started with about half the chicken, including all the bones, the skin and shredding the breast meat before adding it to three cups of chicken stock and two cups of water. For herbs and spices, I used tarragon, salt and pepper, all to taste. I don’t measure herbs.

I added the trilogy. Celery, carrot and onion. Two carrots. One onion. About half a cup of celery. That’s it for now.

By the way, purple carrots aren’t purple inside. Here is one I was starting to peel. They are really sweet, though. I love them shaved into salads, too. But this one and another made it into the pot.

As for the noodles, they will go in just before I serve the soup. Only staying in for a few minutes. These are fresh egg noodles from Baugher’s in Westminster. I love these noodles. Four simple ingredients. Oodles of taste.

Chicken noodle soup. Reminds me so much of my childhood. Makes me feel warm just thinking about it. And, to serve with it, I will pull a Stone House Bakery loaf of bread out of the freezer and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes. Warm bread and hot soup. Yum!

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Fall CSA Week 2, sort of

Posted on November 8, 2012 by AnnieRie

Week One was canceled due to Sandy. When they can, we will be getting more items before the eight weeks are done.

Today we did get larger amounts of stuff. Not the variety, but the quantity was up. Sandy Spring Fall CSA delivered to Columbia for us to pick up today. Ten items.

Sandy Spring 2012 Fall CSA

The list:
2 large Leeks
2 Heads of Celery
1 Bunch Hakurei Turnips
1 Bag Sweet Cubanelle Peppers
1 Bunch French Breakfast Radishes
1 Bunch Collards
1 Thelma Sanders Squash
1 Bag Purple Carrots (almost two pounds)
1 Bunch White Scallions
1 Bag White Hamon Sweet Potatoes (almost four pounds)

The Thelma Sanders squash is a new one to me. It is an heirloom. I can’t wait to try it. And, the White Hamon. Such a great sweet potato. They will become something associated with Thanksgiving, like sweet potato casserole, or a pumpkin pie.

Plus, I really love the Hakurei turnips. They are sweet, and getting all those lovely greens is a bonus. Plus, celery with lots of greens. I may be making a pesto with the turnip greens, radish greens, celery greens, scallion tops, pine nuts, pecorino and olive oil. Sounds like a great meal for pasta this weekend.

Hmmm, carrots and celery. There are also a few onions left from previous weeks. And, half a TLV farm chicken in the freezer. Sounds like a chicken soup is soon to come, as well.

Loving all this fresh organic food.

hocofood@@@

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Summary of the Summer CSA

Posted on November 1, 2012 by AnnieRie

Twenty five weeks. 285 items. 130 different items. That is where we ended up this year with our Sandy Spring CSA. We had quite a few brand new discoveries this year. Good ones like cheese pumpkins. Not so good ones like cardoons. Which were woody.

Some interesting observations. We did not get asparagus at all. Strange, but never.

The most delivered item was collard greens, eight times. Followed by broccoli, bok choy and zucchini, seven times each. Like this week with collards, broccoli and a humongous bok choy.

A typical May delivery. Lots of variety. Large amounts. Beautiful organic veggies. Can’t beat what we get. We pay $740 for 25 weeks of veggies and some fruit. All organic. A real bargain. But, you have to like veggies. Which we do. I did some creative swapping this year and ended up with at least 8 deliverables of roma tomatoes, suitable for canning. Organic roma. Huge beautiful tomatoes that now live in my freezer to make winter dinners. All told roughly 35 pounds of romas.

The weirdest thing we got? The African horned melon. At least in my opinion. And, I didn’t find it that appealing. I now know in the future if it ever shows up, it is back into that swap box.

Coolest new thing we got? Edamame on the stalk. I loved boiling them in salted water and eating them like peanuts. They are so good that way. But, cleaning a stalk full of edamame is a little messy and time consuming.

All in all, definitely worth the money. I quit figuring out the savings when we were almost $200 ahead of what it cost to join. Next year we will be back. In fact, since I am doing Breezy Willow’s winter CSA, it overlaps for four weeks and we will be getting double deliveries for three weeks.

The fall CSA from Sandy Spring was supposed to start today, but Hurricane Sandy got in the way. No delivery. They are promising to make it up, and I bet they deliver like they promise. With 80 farmers spread across the Lancaster region, they will pool resources and find us good food to bring down on the trucks next week. Hope their losses were minimal, and recoverable. Thankfully this hurricane hit after summer CSA, which is way larger than the fall.

If you have a little sense of adventure, this CSA is a bargain, and trying new veggies is the challenge that keeps it interesting. After all, corn, tomatoes, green beans and onions get boring. We all need a little kohlrabi, turnips or rutabaga to fall into our baskets and make us think differently about what we eat. My roasted veggies included all three plus a sweet potato.

honey glazed roasted root veggies

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Eating Locally: The Wrap Up for Summer

Posted on November 1, 2012 by AnnieRie

The Summer SOLE Food Challenge, SSFC, is over. I made it through remembering to post almost every week. Eating locally is so easy around here when the markets are still hopping.

Today is the East Columbia Market. Miller Library finished yesterday. The Glenwood and Oakland Mills markets will continue until the weekend before Thanksgiving, and East Columbia ends on the 15th of November. Stocking up on meats from the markets will allow me to continue to put something made in Howard County on my table throughout the winter.

We haven’t heard yet what would be included in the delivery and whether our CSA delivery will take place today. After I finish with the first graders at the Conservancy, I am either picking up a fall delivery, or heading to East Columbia to get a few things. I let the refrigerator get pretty empty before the storm.

I did remember to take some tomatoes and pesto out of the freezer yesterday so tonight there will be pizza with TLV bacon, tomatoes and pesto from my garden, and Bowling Green mozzarella. Mostly local, except for the crust.

The pesto and oven roasted tomatoes are defrosting today. The bacon is out, and I will fry up the entire package, crumble it and use it in salads, omelets and soups. I need eggs, as I hit zero yesterday. Sounds like a trip to TLV Saturday is in store.

You can eat healthy, organic, IPM, non GMO foods around here fairly easily. The ten of us from our challenge have all signed on to continue looking for sources and posting about what we do in the winter. Details are being worked out by us now. I will modify my Food Challenges page to reflect it.

I made a really good crock pot potato leek soup last night, letting the soup cook while we cleaned up the house, and put things back where they belonged. No pictures, because besides being exhausted, two of the potatoes were purple so the soup looked a little weird.

Yes, you can mix all sorts of potatoes into that soup. One of them was even a white sweet potato. I put half the soup in the blender just before serving so we had chunky creamy soup. Four leeks, all the potatoes, an onion, a little celery from the fridge, my homemade veggie broth as a starter, and towards the end I added a cup of almond milk to make it creamy but keep it lactose free. Everything was cut into cubes or small pieces and dumped in the crock pot with a little salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence.

OFf to chase first graders around for a few hours. We are teaching rocks, fossils and extinct animals. Should be a fun morning. Here’s hoping the sun comes out.

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Odds and Ends from West County

Posted on October 29, 2012 by AnnieRie

Just some random thoughts as we head into the storm. Not many cars on our roads. Usually there is some traffic in the afternoon.

The mailman came early today. Out here with unprotected mailboxes, it is important to go out and get the mail before it blows out of the box. During the snowstorms a few years back, the boxes blew open and we had mail scattered all over our neighbor’s fields.

We got a few emails today about CSA’s. Sandy Spring canceled Tuesday deliveries and have no idea if the Thursday or Saturday will happen. The farmers all will be affected by this rain, in many low lying fields. They can’t pick in this weather either. We hope they come through with minimal damage as we know how hard they work. There are 80 farmers in the cooperative, but all of them in the same area of PA.

20121029-150435.jpg

We also received an email from Breezy Willow, as we have signed up for their early bird CSA starting in late winter. This week is canceled for them in their summer/fall CSA. Keep our local farmers in your thoughts as this weather affects them just as they are finishing up their harvests and heading for winter.

We had two quick power glitches so far. Taking our oven off line while I am slow cooking dinner in it. Crossing our fingers here, that my pork and roasted veggies get done. Right now, we still have power. Winds are whipping trees left and right. Thankfully, we had a local business, Oasis (Ten Oaks Nursery), aggressively cut back our property line trash trees after they were damaged during the derecho.

We did put ice in two coolers and moved the fridge items there. The meat in the freezer is covered by six bags of ice, and I am freezing plastic containers with water to move over to the coolers if I need to replenish. Dumped all the ice maker ice in the fridge cooler since I learned after the derecho how much mess we get with melting ice. Ice maker in the top fridge is a pain sometimes.

On an interesting note, my Menu magazine from Wegmans arrived in the mail. With Christmas cookies on the cover. And, a recipe for honey glazed roasted root veggies. That is what I did with all the turnips, beets, a rutabaga and a sweet potato from the CSA.

I will try and keep posting what is going on out here as long as we have power, or I may do short posts from the iPad. See how well the UPS up here keeps my iPad charged if we lose power.

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Finishing the Eat Local Challenge

Posted on October 27, 2012 by AnnieRie

Monday is the last reporting day for our Summer Challenge, to eat at least one meal a week using locally sourced ingredients. Who knows how crazy it will be around here by Monday, but at least I know there will be a number of local meals consumed by us. Many of them involving local eggs.

farm fresh eggs

I made eggs for breakfast today and used up the last of the Canela wheat bread for toast. I will be hardboiling a dozen eggs and putting them aside to make egg salad in case we lose power. We set up a small cooler for lunch foods, placing all the condiments and salad makings in it, the way we ate breakfast and lunch after the derecho in June.

I always have my tuna, cannellini bean and onion salad ingredients on hand, but they aren’t local. Well, the onions are, but not the rest.

Tuscan tuna and bean salad

Hmmm, Tuscan tuna and bean salad, served with local breads and a few of my dill pickles from the jars. Mostly local. I have a loaf of potato onion bread in the freezer from Stone House. I can warm it in the oven tonight to defrost it and save a few hunks to have with a simple salad. Egg salad, or tuna salad. I have celery from the CSA. The only non local items as usual will be condiments like mayo or olive oil.

I am cleaning out the most perishable (and the more pricey) items in the meat/fish freezer, so I will be baking a large whack of wild Alaskan salmon tonight. Since I have been so diligent here in getting ready for this storm, the odds keep getting higher that it will pass us by.

It is only when I have no ice, no water, no batteries and ignore the frantic admonishments on the TV, that we end up with no power. Still, we are crossing our fingers. At least the temperatures aren’t bad. No real high temps, and no subfreezing temps in the future that would make us miserable without A/C or heat.

The SSFC Eat Local Challenge is ending, but the ten of us are talking about how we will address winter eating, using locally sourced items. Sometime in the future, our google reader will have the details, and we will continue finding ways to eat local foods year round.

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