A Basket Full of Greens

Here's this week's basket from the CSA I joined this past spring.

Contents:
Two bags of salad mix (Arugula, Mizuna, purple leaf spinach, green spinach)
Edible flowers
Turnips/turnip greens
Swiss Chard
Oyster mushrooms
Garlic greens

The CSA is a collaboration between Brother Nature produce, Earthworks Community Farm and Faith Farm. Besides the produce, there's a prepared item in the basket each week. One week was Greg's carrot-based hot sauce, another was an unbelievably tasty jar of 8 Mile Honey. We've had Earthworks jam, oil-based potato salad with fresh herbs, and other good stuff as well. The CSA costs $26/week to join. Each week's basket is a lot for one person to handle, but it's perfect to share. The thing I like best about the membership to the CSA isn't all the special jars of goodness, it's the fact that I eat healthier because I get this produce each week. That sounds like infomercial speak, but it's true. It's like being on a sports team - I hardly work out unless I've got some kind of schedule imposed on me to get my self in action.


The other thing I really like about the CSA is figuring out how to cook with this stuff. Mostly I cook completely amateur dishes with the produce - like Mustard greens with Bacon, Onion and a cold beer. Or a side dish of Potatoes with Rosemary, Olive Oil and Salt. The Fresh Egg Sandwich I made with Traffic Jam Cheddar was a hit, but still pretty basic. Same thing with the Roasted Beet Salad.

But sometimes I pull off something legit with the items like Oyster Mushroom Risotto. Or I set out on a cooking tangent that sounds great at first but falls through in the delivery. Like Meatbread: a mixture of meatloaf and cornbread (this came to me in a dream a few years back, and I cooked it the next night for my roommate and his friend visiting town). Meatbread can also be called Cornloaf. The beauty of this dish is that you can serve it with ketchup/hot sauce, or maple syrup/honey. It can go either way. Just load up the table with condiments and have at it. Meatbread is still more of a "conceptual" meal then an actual "dinner" but one of these days I'm gonna nail it.

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Speaking of falling thru in the delivery... The Hanging Gardens volunteer day took place on 5/21 and it was a great success! I even surprised myself that things worked out as well as they did. The 90% chance of storms forecasted for that day never touched us. I was told that about a mile North of the Forest Arms it was a complete downpour for most of the afternoon.

Things have been growing quite well the past three weeks. We're in the process of putting together some videos and stock photos of the event, but for a taste of what the day was like, check out the public gallery of photos available here.