Support Agriculture, We Do.

It a little counter intuitive, but we don’t grow any vegetables on our farm.  As much as I would like to we have a few reasons why we can’t. 1) We have more trees than we know what to do with and too much shade to grow anything besides hostas and maybe a basil plant here or there.  2) I don’t like gardening as much as I thought I did. Maybe it’s just this year and being 4 months pregnant does not make me want to brave the heat and do some weeding.  Even something as self sufficient as the hostas are looking a little sad in their over grown flower beds.  So! That’s why we get our produce from a local CSA (two of them in fact).

For those of you that might not know, a CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture farm operation.  In this type of sales model you sell shares of your harvest for a particular price at the beginning of the season, and each week provide a predetermined amount of whatever product is read at that time.  It’s essentially the customer taking the risk with the farmer.  So each week Erik stops in Boone to visit Julie and Scott (owners of Wilber’s North Side Market http://www.wilbersproduce.com/) and gets our bag of cucumbers, strawberries, beans, peas, corn, squash, onions, and tons more.  As well as on Wednesdays I pick up our share from Paula (Owner of Twin Girls Garden http://www.twingirlsgarden.com/)

One thing you have to do when you sign up with a CSA is be committed.  When you get this big bag of produce it can be a little over whelming.  Most people don’t eat that many veggies in a week and it’s hard to incorporate it into your meal planning.  I try to do as much prep work on my off days so the meal making during the week isn't such an undertaking.

I’ve got the most time on the weekends so I try to get a lot of cooking out of the way then.  Here are some of my creations from this Saturday. Both recipies are things you can just add as a side to any meal with little effort. 

The ingredients change in our CSA pasta salad depending on what we get so feel free to make up your own. All CSA items are listed with an *.

CSA Pasta Salad

1 purple pepper*

2 small onions*

1 head of broccoli*

1 small head of cauliflower*

3-4 carrots*

1 cup or so of cherry tomatoes*

1 red radish and 1 white radish*

A few sticks of celery

Macaroni noodles (or any noodles)

Italian dressing

Cook noodles according to package directions.  Chop veggies finely and add to cooked and drained noodles.  Add enough Italian dressing to coat.  It’s a picnic favorite at our house!

CSA Coleslaw

Bunch of cabbage leaves finely shredded or chopped* (I don’t know how many, just a bunch)

3-4 shredded carrots*

1 onion* (green onions are best, but regular yellow onions work just fine)

¼ cup mayo

1 tsp vinegar

1 tsp celery seed (optional)

Mix shredded cabbage, carrots, and onions in a large bowl.  Mix mayo, vinegar and celery seed in a separate bowl to make the sauce.  (You might have to make more than one batch of the sauce depending on how much cabbage you used.)  Coat veggies with sauce and refrigerate.  Another picnic favorite at the farm.  

CSA Pasta Salad, and you can see the Coleslaw behind it. Pretty isn't it?

An Eggplant and Tomato from Wilber's Northside Market. Thanks Julie and Scott, for making such beautiful produce for my family.  I think eggplant parmesan is in our future tonight!