This has been our first closeup and personal experience with a CSA (community supported agriculture) organization. Every Monday we drive about a mile and a half to one of the 20+ delivery sites for Grant Family farms and pick up our Couples Veggie Share and a Single Fruit Share. This was week eight and thus far we've been extremely pleased at the quality and variety of produce we've been receiving.
Our only issue was what to do with it all; we've gotten six to eight different veggies a week. We have friends who split their Couples Veggie Share with neighbors, and we've given our next-door couple a few things. And when we travel we've either donated to the Larimer County Food Bank or, as will happen over the next ten days, while we're up in the mountains at the Y camp with our grandson and then flying him back to his folks in the DC area, a friend will make two pickups for us. She'll keep one for her family and split the second with us when we return.
The real discovery was the recipes. Our CSA sends out a newsletter each week and it took me a week or two to catch on to the sidebars. There are fascinating thins to do with the kale, beets, romaine lettuce, and cabbage we're getting at this time in the veggie season.
Then there were the English peas. The first time we got a large batch of them we just shelled them and added the pods to our kitchen compost bucket. They eventually were transferred to our vermiculture compost bin in a sheltered location just outside our garage.
The following week I spotted a recipe for pea pod soup. I gathered up the ingredients: olive oil, an onion, two cloves of garlic, chicken stock, fresh thyme, zest of one lemon and the pea pods and followed the instructions. I thought the resulting soup was delicious, if a little bland; Lynnette really wanted considerably more kick to it.
Having been local parents to two graduate students from India, we've been introduced to garam masala, a wonderful spice mix. We had a second day's worth of soup left over and heated that up for lunch, adding a couple of tablespoonfuls of garam masala and a teaspoon of minced garlic.
Both of us tried the new recipe and agreed we had made an enormous improvement. I plan to send our suggested alterations back to the CSA. Some may like the "souped up" soup; some may not. We'll probably never make it any other way.
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