"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!

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!