“What’s cookin’? I don’t know… WHAT IS THAT?” HA!
Hhhm… “You eat these? I thought you just set these out by the pumpkins in fall for color and variety in decorating. Who KNEW?!” lol
Delicata Squash (Organic)
I love that our CSA it has me cookin’ things I barely can pronounce let alone ever set eyes on before. It is a great ADVENTURE! For example, I now have cooked Bok Choy in three separate recipes and we love it. When I first saw it on our CSA pick up list my response was “Bok Choy? Isn’t that the sound a hen makes when it sneezes?… BOK-CHOY!” Gesundheit! (hehe)
What is a CSA? It stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it is a way for you and I to buy seasonal produce directly from local farmers. Buying direct means you are getting fresher foods and you are supporting your local farmers/neighbors.
Besides buying direct what is the benefit of a CSA? I don’t know about you but I find organic produce in the local grocery store to be EXPENSIVE and in SAD SHAPE.
It is important to me as a mom to minimize my family’s exposure to pesticides and herbicides. Before the CSA I would find myself standing in the grocery store wanting organic produce but not willing to pay DOUBLE the price for sorry looking fruits and vegetables. For us, the CSA is MUCH more economical to buy organic produce than our grocery stores are. Ex. We are a family of three that cooks at home 6 days out of 7. We purchased a half share from the local CSA, which we pick up once a week for 25 weeks. The cost is about $17.00 a week for approximately 10lbs of ORGANIC produce. I don’t know about you but I certainly cannot go to the grocery store and buy 10lbs of organic produce for $17.00. I would be lucky to get four items for that.
Pic of our CSA from this week
How did we find out about CSA? We were a part of an organic produce mail order in MI, which we did and didn’t like. When we moved here we looked into CSA originally but were overwhelmed with our choices out here in farmland. So I asked the experts ;-)… I inquired with the local Mom’s group and was giving two options for local ORGANIC CSA’s in our area. I can handle two choices much better than 30.
Since then I have found two websites that I really like because they are informative and functional. The third listed is simply for those still on the fence about buying organic.
The first will help you get a better understanding of what a CSA is and how to get involved.
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
The second is helpful to have if you are new to an area or travel a lot like we do but you want to still eat good healthy food.
http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?pd=Home
This last link is if you are still on the fence about buying organic or just starting out.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/organic-food/NU00255
Now if I could just figure out how to cook these fresh okra so Drew will eat them =P
HAPPY ORGANIC EATING!
Figure out how to get Drew to eat it.....simple : Get recipe for fried Okra from Shelia or Kim of course!!!! YUMMMMMMM!
Posted by: Cindy Sorrell | 09/08/2011 at 09:32 AM