It ain't easy...pickin' beans...

I didn't blog the last CSA pick-up day - which was a double bonus day of veggies and our last installment of meat and eggs. Life has just been too busy with the return to the school year, or so I told myself as the days passed from the pick-up. So, here I am back on the blog trail, hoping to catalog some more chapters in our greener initiative.  

New items this week included celery (very small and thin compared to grocery store celery), tatsoi (seems sort of like a cross between bok choi and spinach), red onions (really oniony), sage, leaf lettuce (yum), and U-pick green beans. My son and husband were very excited about the opportunity to pick beans as our summer bean-pick week was cancelled due to heavy flooding in the field. Green beans, it seems, don't like to swim.

We reached the field this afternoon, low gray clouds hanging over the field...and low, bent people hanging over the beanrows. What a different scene from the cherry tomato rows a few feet over: instead of parents' voices advising little ones as to the correct colors to choose and folks wandering slowly scanning for their pick, the bean patch was all silence and stooping. When you are searching through leggy, leafy bushes less than two feet high for your garden take, there isn't a good opportunity for chatter. My son quietly roamed through the rows with the paper sack, looking for "easy" beans peeking out along the edges, while I dived into the middle of each bush, rummaging around until the full-grown beans showed themselves. More than once I was fooled by the bush stems themselves, and I had to move on down the row empty-handed. Late-season bean picking takes determination and patience, and I found myself thinking that these are two lessons I could stand to relearn on an almost daily basis.

My son and I met in the middle of the patch, and as I dumped my many beans into his sack of a few he said "Mom...picking beans is hard work. But they'll be really good for dinner!" If the end goal is worth enough, the work seems like less. Hmm...an order of green beans with a side of philosophy, anyone?

PS: The beans were really good for dinner!

"Four fried chickens...and a bowl of tomatoes!"

Okay...so that is not exactly the line from The Blues Brothers, but it perfectly describes this week's CSA haul. Or rather "hauls" -- Friday was the first (and likely only) time that both the monthly meat pick-up and bi-weekly veggie pick-up aligned. Kind of like a major convergence of the planets: beautiful, amazing, and leaving you to question what the heck comes next in the universe!

We visited the farm on a beautiful summer afternoon...about 80 degrees, under a sky filled with puffy white clouds and sunshine. This is literally the first time that we didn't end up drenched in sweat just from our walk to the barn from the car. Perfect day for U-pick! We expected to have our choice between picking green beans or cherry tomatoes, and I will  admit that when we reached the field and saw that green beans had a big strike-through, I was bummed. After all, if my silly tomato plants in the backyard ever get to ripening, we'll have cherry tomatoes a plenty to pick...and fresh green beans are so yummy. But, we headed back to the rows to receive our small white paper bag and our instructions.

"You can pick twenty" the farmer said. (Only twenty??? That seemed so, well, not worth the effort.) "But, if you want to taste a variety or two that's okay." (Okay...so no one is going to count the bag if we want a few more...great!) "And...you might want to walk the whole row to see what kinds there are and pick on your way back. Some of my favorites are all the way at the end of the row, and hardly anyone is making it back there to pick them."

We learned long ago that if a person responsible for your food makes a recommendation from the heart, you should follow it. So, we set out through the two longest rows of cherry tomato plants that I have ever seen. I can tell you why no one made it to the end of the rows to pick...the mosquitoes were unbelievable (and, apparently very hungry from their lack of fresh food!) But. the trip to the end of the rows was well worth the bites and scratches: we sampled "black cherry" and "sungold" tomatoes - the best cherry tomatoes that I have ever had. All week we have been savoring those twenty(one) tomatoes

that we brought back - quartering them into salads so everyone can get their share. We just finished them today...I hope we can pick more next Friday (and I'll be prepared with bug spray, 'cause I'm headed to the end of the row.)

In addition to the bag of amazing cherry tomatoes, the barn sent us home with what I would call "typical" farm fare: kale, cukes, scallions, garlic, basil, carrots, eighteen more tomatoes (slicers, yellows, and oranges), with the two unique items being pattypan squash, fennel, and a crimson red watermelon. YUM!

No recipes needed this week, my friends: salads all around!

After dinner (including fresh tomato and cucumber salad) we headed back out to meet with Beth, the meat farmer. DH had read online that the farm sent many chickens to the butcher this week, so he was prepared for a bag full of mostly chickens. Again - these chickens taste amazing: see the picture of our yummy roasted chicken dinner (served with wonderful farm-fresh cabbage slaw with honey-vinaigrette) from earlier in the week...

but they are, admittedly, a bit lightweight. The three of us can devour one to the bones with no leftovers, which is not how we typically use a whole chicken. The bag seemed rather heavy, and when we got home we were pleasantly surprised to pull out of our share bag two pounds of ground beef (can you say wonderful burgers?), sausage patties, round steaks, stew meat, and one...two...three...four chickens, all cut into halves. That, my friends, will be a lot of chicken to eat! If only I could fry chicken...and serve it with coke. And some dry white toast. And some more tomatoes...

Long, Hot Days of Summer

We made our third visit to the CSA farm last Friday to claim our veggies, and the smell of fresh "green" living things combined with the thick humid air almost stopped me in my tracks when we got out of the car: this is what our ancestors who settled on the prairie endured day in and day out without modern convenience. You wanted food to eat? You worked in the fields and fed your animals, and complaining wasn't really an option. Powerful people, those settlers!

I was wondering how our take for the week would be since we had about three days of heavy rains prior to the harvest...the big bummer was that the planned u-pick green bean "experience" had to be postponed because of seriously muddy fields. (In our family, fresh green beans might just be the perfect food!) Our baskets were still pretty full, but we had a greater percentage of lower-bulk "normal" items: tomatoes (which made me crazy since I still have not a single red one in my own garden!), carrots, cucumber, yellow squash, hot yellow peppers scallions, green cabbage, more beets (!), and swiss chard. And potatoes. Perfect, round, small new potatoes. Yum....

We made a fresh asian-style slaw of cabbage and carrots the first night: dressed in equal parts soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and oil mixed with sugar, salt, and pepper to taste I loved it, DH was okay with it (he prefers sweeter slaw) and DS was, well, not super pleased. The next adventure was roasted and grilled beets: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grilled-Beets-in-Rosemary-Vinegar/Detail.aspx

Now, I will say that a beet no more wants to be peeled and sliced than it wants to be grated (see my previous entry for the gory details!) but it does take marinade very nicely and the results were super tasty to both of the adults. DS - not a fan of beets. Or of vinegar. So - that should have been a no-brainer, right? We will definitely do this recipe again for the grown-ups!

In the protein department, we thawed and grilled our new york strip steaks this week - absolutely amazing to look at the steaks before cooking!

 DH debated on how much fat to leave on or trim off...and maybe still left too much. While we had enough flare-ups that I didn't take an "after" picture (read: burny-looking char on the top), the insides were still amazingly tasty and juicy. Mmmm...meat that remembers, well, being meat. We still have chickens and more ground beef to experiment with before we meet up with farmer Beth and her cooler-of-protein next Friday...maybe more pictures to be added soon!

Stay cool - eat local - and enjoy the summer!

"Axe-Murderer" Salad...and other tries this week!

Okay - now that I have your attention! We have had some interesting results from this week's garden CSA haul. The winners were:
- Harukrei turnip and strawberry salad: thinly sliced turnips over raw, torn up turnip greens. Inspired by this basic recipe http://www.examiner.com/cooking-in-portland/hakurei-turnips-from-top-to-bottom. But, since we had no tomatos, we added strawberries for the sweet, acidic element and substituted bottled Italian dressing since we were low on time. DH and I thought it was great...DS actually served himself more and asked when we would have it again!

- Mixed-veggie stir-fry: featured napa cabbage, kohlrabi sliced, kohlrabi greens, harukei turnips sliced, sugar-snap peas, scallions, and garlic scapes from the CSA (and carrots and some left-over skirt steak - to pacify DS, who is not a big stir-fry fan.) Everything came out great except the kohlrabi greens - overcooked, maybe?

- Massaged Kohlrabi-Green Salad w/ Peaches: Much like the massaged kale salad from two weeks ago, but with kohlrabi greens and, well, peaches...the greens were much better this way, and DS served himself more of this one as well!

- "Axe-Murderer" Salad: a basic slaw of thinly sliced napa cabbage, thin-sliced carrots, and grated beets, dressed in a light vinagrette of equal parts honey and rice wine vinegar whisked with salt, pepper, and enough oil to make it all work.

Okay -- that one takes some explaining! No, there is no recipe or website linked to "Axe-Murderer" salad...the name was inspired by the terrific purple, oozy mess which results when one attempts to grate a beet. Now I have absolutely zero experience with beets in their natural state...and almost no experience with beets whatsoever. I will own the fact that, as we cruised the CSA line and encountered the largest bunch of beets on the planet staring at us I gave a shudder, thinking "great...who the heck wants beets?" But, I kept reading how beets are sweet and go great in slaws and salads, so I concocted this all by myself. I went into the act of grating beets in a very naive way...to look at them, they seem hard and dry, and I assumed that they would be as easy to manage as potatoes. They are, in fact, the wettest veggie I have ever wrangled! Advice to those who want to grate beets is cover your workspace (and yourself) in as many layers of protective garb as you can muster - I had beet-splatter all the way up my arms, in my hair, and on my glasses! (I can only assume that beets are vibrant and full of life, and are very reluctant to give it up just so I can make a slaw.)  DS approached the table and stated: "Ewwwww...BEETS! (read: "I have never tasted a beet and have no desire to try something that purple...ever.") After one bite, we received two thumbs-up from the anti-beet grump...that's good enough for me!

Only "eh" result of the week was a braised kohlrabi with spinach side-dish...grated kohlrabi root sauteed with onion, butter, and tossed with fresh basil. Not bad...but not great. Much like sauerkraut, but with no "sour" factor.

I hope to do a better job of photo-logging the next bunch of items...sometimes I just end up covered in veggie parts and the camera isn't on my mind!

Meat and (not) Potatoes

It is CSA day here in the 'burbs, and we are ready for round two. The verdict on our first two weeks in the veggie CSA is a resounding "yum" combined with a healthy dose of "oohh...should have put that in the crisper drawer..."

We managed to consume about 75% of the veggies that we received from our first visit, in spite of the fact that we were on vacation (read: eating mass quantities of restaurant fare) for much of the two weeks.The Chinese cabbage head and the scallions were left to their own devices on the lower shelves as the drawers were full, and I now know that leafy greens can't survive that way. Bummer. But, the kale in the drawers was very nice even after a full week, and sauteed up with the summer squash and some shrimp to make a pretty tasty pasta toss. So...we'll be looking forward to consuming this week's bounty: more harukai turnips, garlic scapes, scallions, Napa cabbage, and sugar snap peas (insert happy dance of yumminess here!), as well as new items like bok choy leaves, kohlrabi, zucchini, and the largest beets I have ever seen. Like "use-as-a-deadly-weapon" large.

Our other new adventure - our meat CSA membership - started officially last Friday. (No pictures yet, as a bag of frozen meat isn't nearly as photogenic!) Meat pick-up was in the evening, after dinner, so we were eating and chatting about what we might get in the shipment and DS asked how far it was to the meat farm...when we responded about 90 minutes, he gave a deep sigh, looked at the clock, and proclaimed that he wasn't sure we could make it there before it closed. (Oops...forgot to tell him that the farmers deliver to a local shopping center -- he seemed very relieved that the whole trip would take about 10 minutes total!)

We arrived at the shopping center and all looked at each other, wondering how this pickup worked. We noticed several families coming and going with silver-looking carry bags, and entered the store which was hosting the deliveries - a fancy-schmancy wine tasting and gift shoppe (fully deserving of an extra "-pe.") We walked to the back and met Beth, our farmer, who promptly shook our hands, asked our names, and entered us in her database on her IPad: farm-fresh meets high-tech! Beth dug through one of her three huge wheely-coolers and handed us our very own silver carry bag full of frozen meat and a dozen fresh eggs...when DS mentioned that he had never had fresh eggs she warned us: "When you crack them, the yolk will look orange, and it will be ball-shaped - it won't spread out!" When we got home we unpacked two pounds of ground beef, one pound of ground sausage, three fryer chickens, a pack of New York strip steaks, and a pack of pork chops. Bummer that it all had to go into the freezer for vacation!

As we eat our veggies and meats this week, I will be logging some pictures and some recipes, and will post the results...here's to fresh, sustainable eating in the 'burbs!

Welcome to a CSA

For our family, we always joke about the danger of inertia. It usually seems to hold us in our places (like the inertia generated by the warm, comfy couch which keeps us lying there watching the end of "The Matrix" for about the thirtieth time); but, once broken, it can propel us into exciting and sometimes tiring patterns of new behaviors (like a daily effort to fend off the clutter which would otherwise build up on our countertop.) I will be the first to admit that I am resistant to change -- and my DH (Dear Husband) would heartily agree with that statement!

So...imagine my surprise when, after a short fast-track course in Environmental Biology (read: How The World Will Fall Into Irreversible Distress If We Don't Act Fast!) I decided that it was time for me to step outside my comfort zone and initiate some changes rather than wait for changes to be thrust upon me. Searching for more sustainable products, manufactured by more sustainably run companies, limiting household waste -- these kinds of conversations were not typical in our house B.B.C. (Before Biology Class). Now, well...they are the tip of the iceberg.

And now, to the present. This Father's Day, DS (Dear Son - catch on to the pattern?) and I offered fairly lame tribute -- homemade chocolate chip cookie bars, a new waterproof watch, and the age-old invitation to pick out something yummy to cook for a special dinner. DH's choice was to grill grass-fed beef burgers, a never-before prepared item in our food repertoire. We have experimented with organic and less-processed meats with good results, but usually we shop based on what looks best for the best price. So, grass-fed beef was certainly not in our usual grocery cart.

Those burgers were delicious. Not just tender, but also with a fresher flavor and a finer texture. We were finishing up dinner dishes and talking about how we could afford to keep grass-fed beef in the family line-up when one of us discussed the fact that, as residents of the Great Midwest there surely should be a semi-local farm that we could make arrangements with to purchase a quarter-side of beef. That was all it took - DH sped off to the laptop and in about an hour had researched not only local farms offering freezer meats, but also CSAs offering meats and veggies from local farms at reasonable prices.

For those of you who are new to this term, CSA stands for Consumer Supported Agriculture, and it represents the idea that food can come from a farm to your table without a middle man or three (packagers, shippers, marketers). CSAs operate in different ways - some require you to volunteer, some require you to pick up your food, some will deliver, some require a season commitment, and some a shorter term order. But, the purpose is the same: to match consumers with their food as it should be - farm-fresh and local.

So, after comparing costs to what we usually purchase from the grocery store and valuing for freshness and quality, we took a very new plunge and signed on for a whole season's worth of organic veggies from one very local pick-it-up-yourself farm and a three-month agreement with a semi-local pasture-and-grain meat farm which delivers from about 90 minutes away. DS (who is 8, and a fairly adventurous eater - especially of veggies) was intrigued with the idea that we would be mainly eating whatever came in the shipments rather than shopping for "favorite" veggies and meats, and he agreed that the would try everything with no complaining. I felt a bit like a rebel - sticking it to the big grocers - until I started chatting with some friends and immediately wondered if they would think we had lost our marbles. After all, I didn't know anyone else who used CSAs: what if we ended up with a whole bag of green stuff that no one knew how to cook?

Last Friday was our first veggie installment - you can see in the picture that our bounty was huge! Lettuce, snap peas (super yum!), Chinese cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, summer squash (yum!), radishes (not so yum), harukai turnips (surprisingly good) and garlic scapes (???) nearly covered our table...and then covered every single shelf in our fridge...and filled every drawer...maybe this plan wasn't so well thought out! So far, we have been enjoying the harvest, and almost everything has been well received by everyone in the house, including my mom from out-of-town. Biggest hit: fresh, steamed sugar snap peas... Massaged Kale Salad (a favorite of my sister (well, technically sister-in-law, but not in spirit) was also a great try (although it might need more massaging next time!)

I have plans in future posts to document favorite meals, so stay tuned. The meat box for the month arrives on Friday, so I will share that haul as well.