We've talked about it often, but this year we finally made the decision to join a CSA. You can read more about Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) and the one we joined here. We chose this particular one on the recommendation of a neighbour and because the pick-up location is literally around the corner from our house.
We like the idea of eating more seasonal, locally-grown foods, and incorporating more organic produce into our meals (the farm we chose is in the process of transitioning to all certified organic production, but they specify which items are certified organic, non-organic, spray free, etc. each week).
There are tons of options to choose from; we chose a small veggie share and a small fruit share. We wanted to buy an egg share, but we were too slow to sign up and missed out. The CSA we joined posts the contents of the coming week's shares on their website every Friday, which makes it easy to meal plan and figure out what else you'll need to pick up at the grocery store.
The total cost of our shares works out to around $25 a week, though I'm sure the volume of produce we get will vary (some weeks more, some weeks less), depending on the time of year. I'm hoping it will encourage us to waste less food, since we'll be focused on making multiple meals with the same five or six ingredients instead of deciding which meals we want to eat and then going shopping.
If you've ever thought about joining a CSA, or wondered if it's right for you, I thought it would be fun to document what we get each week and what we make with it, along with a few stray observations about our experience. Sound good? Here we go!
WEEK ONE
We got:
- Cabbage
- Potatoes
- Turnips
- Squash
- Onions
- Alfalfa sprouts
- Apples
- Dried apples
- Frozen blueberries
We made:
- Asian stir-fry with shrimp and cabbage
- Beet and quinoa salad with alfalfa sprouts
- Baked fish with potato and turnip cakes
- Seared tofu bahn mi sandwiches (we pickled turnip in place of daikon)
- Lemon (soy) chicken with roasted squash with chili yogurt and cilantro sauce (we followed the original recipe from our Plenty More cookbook)
Stray observations:
- We added grated onion to our potato and turnip cakes for extra flavour. They make a great leftover work lunch with Greek yogurt and chives on the side.
- Hannah ate the entire pint of blueberries on her own. Not all at once, but still.
- Dried apples are delicious. They quickly became my go-to snack with a couple slices of cheese and a small handful of nuts.
- Alfalfa sprouts! I forgot how much I love you.
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