Sippel CSA report 6/6/09

Mr. T and I decided to do a CSA this year and actually got signed up for one. We talked about it last year but just never got around to it. For anyone who might not know, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is where you basically buy a small share of a farm. You pay up front and then get veggies every week during the growing season. You theoretically are also assuming some of the risk that the farmers bear but can also reap the rewards. www.localharvest.org is a great web site to read more about them and find one near you.

I decided to start showing off our weekly haul on here. I know when we were trying to decide whether or not to do one, we really wanted to know more about what we'd actually get.

We decided to go with the Sippel Family Farm for our CSA. There are several other great farms doing CSAs in the Columbus area. I wish we could try them all, but alas, there is only so much food two people can eat! So far, I love it!

6/6/09
Mr. T picked up the CSA yesterday so I don't have a good picture of the whole stash. We got Swiss Chard, Clipped Red Romaine Lettuce, Scallions, and Kohlrabi. What is kohlrabi, you ask? Well, here's a picture!



I'm sorry for the bad picture. I'm not a photographer by any means anyway, but I broke my camera last night and have to settle for using my phone for the moment.

Since I am starting this blog 3 weeks into CSA season, let me give a quick recap of the last two weeks.

5/30/09
We got:
1 head of bibb lettuce (not quite as big as last week's lettuce but still big)
1 bag of mixed salad greens (even bigger)
1 bunch of kale
1 bunch of radishes
1 bunch of green onions

I loved that this week was pretty different from last week! I've never cooked kale or really done anything with radishes, so this week should be fun. Here's a picture of our haul:



5/23/09
They said it was a light week since it was the very beginning of the season. We got:
1 giant head of lettuce (I mean GIANT)
1 bag of spinach leaves
1 bag of mixed salad greens
1 large bunch of mint

This fit fully into a grocery sack. I used some of the lettuce to make a giant Greek salad for a BBQ on Monday and then the rest for another Greek salad for Mr. T and I later that week (plus some for lunch for me). We got 2 dinner salads out of the mixed greens and 3 big spinach salads out of the spinach. I haven't done anything with the mint yet but I froze it so we can have mojitos sometime.

One thing I noticed that was great was how long everything stayed fresh. We didn't have the spinach until Thursday night, and I know that the spinach I normally buy goes bad in that amount of time. I imagine this must have something to do with how ridiculously fresh the food was and also how much time "normal" produce must waste in the processing and trucking to get it to us.