My friend Tami and I found ourselves in a win-win-win situation earlier this spring when a representative from the Laughing Fox Farms paid us a visit.
Mitch Eggers, our sons’ friend, offered us a share in a new Community Supported Agriculture farm operated just outside out town.
Fresh Produce? Win. The chance to support an enterprising young man we’ve both known since kindergarten? Win. Win. An opportunity to participate in CSA, a concept we both respect? Win. Win. Win.
Later today, we’ll pick up our second harvest basket of the year. Last week’s basket yielded rhubarb, spring lettuce, peas, spinach and radishes. A wet spring pushed back some of the produce, but eventually we will receive a weekly allotment of 8-12 assorted fresh vegetable varieties.
The best part is, we don’t find out what’s in our basket until we pick it up. It feels like a healthier, less stressful version of Chopped.
Along those lines, Molly and I nailed the salad, main dish and dessert portions of this week’s challenge, but one of us (who may or may not be typing right now), failed on the side dish.
I used the fresh spring salad to make, well, a fresh summer salad. We ate the spinach with fresh pasta and homemade tomato sauce. Molly used the rhubarb, added blueberries and strawberries and whipped up a truly delicious fruit pie. I chopped up the rest of the rhubarb to make a sauce that smelled delicious but tasted like corn stalks. Further research yielded this important tip: field grown rhubarb sometimes needs to be peeled before you cook it.
So, now we know and that’s the beauty of our little summer project. We get to enjoy fresh vegetables grown just down the road from our house at the same time we expand our cooking repertoire. Bon Appetite!
Love your comparrison of the basket with Chopped.
need a “love” button
Thank you!