CSA - Our First Box!

Much to my delight, we've finally joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) program with Johnson's Backyard Garden. We are getting a box every two weeks to start with. Here is the first week's bounty!

I'll break it down -- sweet potato greens, spinach, basil, okra, eggplants, butternut squash, pattypan squash, summer squash, onions, potatoes, hot and sweet peppers, bell peppers, and cucumber.

We started out by slicing some hot peppers on a frozen pizza.

Then I planned my weekly meals based on the veggies we recieved, and went grocery shopping. This is a new method of meal-planning for me, but I think I can get used to it.

One evening I made a lovely Mediterranean feast, full of farm-fresh vegetables.

I made hummus topped with more of those wonderful hot peppers.

I made a pesto quinoa salad using basil, onions, and cucumber, as well as tomatoes from our own garden.

I roasted the eggplants and made some lovely baba ganoush, sprinkled liberally with smoked paprika.

Finally, I sauteed the sweet potato greens with garlic and a pinch of salt.

It was all so good. I'd never eaten sweet potato greens before in my life. That's one benefit of joining a CSA -- getting to try veggies you've never even seen at the supermarket!

Another benefit is that, when you pick up your box, you know everything is fresh, having just been harvested at the farm -- possibly that very morning. Also, it feels good to have my money going to local farmers. Local food is becoming more important to me, as I learn about the necessity of helping the local economy and reducing environmental pollution by cutting down food transportation costs.

I was feeling under the weather today. Tony has passed his summer cold on to me. For some reason, summer colds make me so much  more miserable than winter illnesses. To aid my recuperation, I made one of my all-time favorite comfort food recipes -- the Chard Florentine from Vegan Yum Yum. Except, I used spinach instead of chard, since that's what came in the CSA box.

Are you a CSA member?

Vegan Heritage Press is hosting a giveaway of several of their awesome cookbooks -- check it out!