community supported agriculture

by Stacy of Little Blue Hen

Don’t have the time to tend a vegetable garden? Hate getting up early and parking at the farmer’s market? Tired of planning meals a week in advance? Still want to eat seasonal, local produce?

Consider buying a share in a CSA.

Not familiar with the idea? Community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs are made of a group of people (share-holders) who provide financial support to a farm and are paid “shares” in the farm’s produce. The farm uses the money to pay for seeds, labor, and equipment. The risk is that in case of natural disaster, drought, or other poor growing conditions, shares may be small (or nothing!).

To find a CSA near you, check out Local Harvest or the Eat Well Guide. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture study in 2007, over 12,500 farms in the United States participate in CSA marketing programs.

What kind of produce will it be? No idea. It depends on what gets harvested that week. For our two-person household, we get a box every other week.
Here is a selection of our first share (dill, cilantro, pumpkin, peas, Romaine lettuce, beets, tomatillos):

It filled my whole counter.
I picked up our second box today and it filled half the dining room table.
Another selection (various fresh herbs, burgundy beans, beets, fennel, onions, okra, cabbage, peppers and squash):

They aim for 12-15 different items in each box. This week’s weighed about 13 pounds, so it’s a good amount of food.

What’s challenging about a CSA is that they include foods that you have never tried (or even heard of) or don’t actually like. What’s great is that they include foods that you have never tried (or even heard of). My husband isn’t a huge vegetable fan, but he has been willing to try new experimental (and even borderline strange) dishes featuring the CSA veggies. Pumpkin tacos, anyone?

Warm climates tend to run their programs all year, where northern farms may only offer summer shares. However, farms plan early, and popular programs fill up fast! If you’re nervous about using everything up, try sharing with a neighbor or a friend — even half a share is often more than enough. The up-front cost may seem high, but if you divide out the cost per week, it may be what you spend on produce already. Splitting the cost (and all that lettuce) makes it even easier.

A good friend of mine, her roommate, and a neighbor all contributed to a CSA share this summer. They then had weekly “CSA dinners” and shared in their veggie bounty!

We are only on our second box of veggies, so I am enjoying it so far but don’t have a ton of experience with it yet. So what do you have to add?

Do you participate in a CSA? Have you? Why or why not?

Quick Dinner: Easy Fettuccine Alfredo

By Joanna of Keeping Feet

I mentioned in my last post that I’m trying an experiment for a month: Meal planning for the entire month and eating out of my pantry and freezer and garden. We had guests over for dinner Saturday, and I needed to make something that would feed twice the number of mouths I normally cook for, and used what I had on hand (and wouldn’t be too “boring” for guests!) Having a few scalable recipes has been useful for me. I prefer a ratio or approximate amounts of ingredients to exactly-measured instructions so I can easily make more or less of something without doing complex math. Another advantage of scalable recipes is I can use exactly what I have on hand rather than having little bits left over.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Equal parts heavy cream and Parmesan cheese, grated
2 Tablespoons butter for every cup of cheese

Fresh-grated parmesan is obviously best, but even the stuff in the green can will work for this recipe.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add cream and mix with butter. Add cheese. Simmer until thickened, stirring occasionally. Add more cheese if desired.

Throw in some garlic, pepper, paprika, or whatever else you might like to spice it up, but just the basic formula will result in a great sauce- way better than what you’d get out of a jar!

Serve hot over fettuccine. Top with grilled chicken strips, if desired. I used leftover roast chicken to top this.

Healthy? Some would say no. I like to think, I’m using whole ingredients rather than ingesting the colorings and preservatives in the jarred sauce, so this recipe is better than the alternative. Some of the cream could probably be replaced with milk to lower the calorie count. I’m not sure if replacing the butter with margarine would work, but it’s worth a try, if you’re concerned about it.

And, Voila! Dinner! In no time!

Using What I Have

By Joanna of Keeping Feet

I’m trying a No Spend Month experiment, and, as part of that, doing some serious cooking-from-my-pantry. Besides the bonus of lowering our grocery spending for a month, this will make room for cans of garden produce in the pantry and frozen vegetables in the freezer.

The catch: I’m the worst when it comes to meal-planning. I faithfully write down the meals that sound good at the time and, when “the time” comes, end up veering off the plan and making something completely different. During a typical week, that’s fine, I can jot down ingredients as I use them up, and go shopping to refill the pantry when the grocery list warrants it. This month, though, I’m going to try to avoid going grocery shopping. I’m going to try to just eat out of the pantry, and I think that’s going to take some strategy, rather than my typical willy-nilly approach. So far, I’m not doing so hot sticking to the month-long meal plan, just 3 days into the month. On the upside, we didn’t eat out all weekend, because, although I didn’t stick to the planned meals, I did cook something.

How do you stick to a meal plan? What about the days when you just don’t feel like eating what’s on the schedule, or you don’t have time to prepare a dish you planned due to working late, etc? I need your tips, because I have a long month ahead of me!

Pre-Packing Lunch

by Kathie of Two Frog Home

Monday mornings are tough, right?   There’s the whole attitude shift from weekend to work / school day and all the rushing of leaving home for the day.  To help make the day a bit easier, I have lunch packed and ready to go on Sunday.

On Sundays, I take a few minutes to get lunches mostly ready for the week.  I try to have things ready for a quick grab and stuff into our lunch bags and use the extra time to chat over coffee with my husband or attend to something else.  I pack things into individual containers that are easy to stack, saving room in the fridge, and easy to pack into bags.  Those individual containers usually contain some of the following:

• Fruit, fresh or home-canned.  I have the fruit ready as we would eat it: chopped, pitted, etc. 
• Assembled salads and individual containers of dressing  
• Soups ready for reheating.  I keep crackers in individual containers in the bread box for quick morning grabs too.
• Snacks are ready to go: baked goods are cut into bars/pieces, seeds and/or nuts are packed into single servings, cheese is cut into chunks, vegetables are peeled and cut into sticks, etc.

I do make sandwiches fresh each morning on the days we’re having those, otherwise I keep everything ready to go.

I know it takes many containers to make this all possible.  I did have a day a few years back when I decided all this pre-packing was necessary and I bought more plastic containers. I also use plastic bags that I wash out and re-use for all this pre-packing.  I’m slowly trying to replace plastic with glass and am keeping my eye out for containers at yard sales and thrift stores for these.

It does take a little mental shift in attitude to pack lunches on Sunday, but its been one that has saved me from much mental anguish and many time crunched mornings.