Photo Credit: Katarina 2353 via Compfight cc
Today ends my first month of CSA pickups. If you’re not familiar with it, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Basically you pay a fee to a farm at the beginning of the growing season and then you get a selection of produce each week for the entire growing season.
We’ve been discussing doing this for two years and this is the first year we are finally doing it. We’re participating with Hunter Hill Farm CSA which is run by Daniel Hunter and Bethany Towne. One of the things I love about this CSA is that they have a drop site located within 5 or 10 minutes of my house, here in the city. You can pick up at the farm in rural Easton or at the home of the owners of the farm (Daniel Hunter’s parents) in Bethlehem. I’ve met Gene Hunter, the owner, twice and he has been friendly and helpful. The communications from Bethany Towne have been very informative and she’s also been accommodating and helpful with information about what is in each share and pointing us in the direction of new recipes, for which I have been quite grateful.
Week 1 was mostly greens of various kinds, plus some radishes. The herbs I honestly didn’t know what to do with. I ended up drying the oregano, and I don’t know what to do with the cilantro, though I have a recipe for cilantro pesto that I might be gutsy enough to try. I really enjoyed the roast radishes. The wilted arugula wasn’t a hit with anyone but me, but I didn’t mind much.
Week 2 was more greens, plus turnips, and some onions. Which led to baked onion rings, caramelized turnips and kale chips all of which were amazing. I wasn’t sure what to do with the collard greens yet so I froze them for future use in smoothies.
We missed Week 3 while we were on vacation so Week 4 was an extra large portion, plus there was a cooler of extras for anyone who wanted them. I grabbed a large bag of peas. Wow! I spent over an hour shelling peas and my kids finished them in one sitting. The strawberries were a surprise and very tasty. More turnips, radishes and onions, led to repeat of the above recipes. I could eat those all summer. Broccoli and carrots were tasty too.
So one month in, I’m enjoying this so far. I’m not sure whether we’re breaking even yet. I’ll probably have to figure that out at the end of the summer, though I’m not even sure how I would know. Looking forward to the midsummer produce coming soon.
