Late February VA Produce

You didn’t think I had abandoned our CSA share, did you???

No, ma’am (or sir, if you’re a sir 🙂 )! We were just on a little break from our subscription because we were in and out of town for the holidays and we figured we’d just wait until closer to spring to renew. Boy was I excited to see the goodies we got in our first box back!

If you’re a newer reader, you might not have heard about my love affair with Community Supported Agriculture. It’s an environmentally responsible and healthier way to buy produce because you get it fresh from a farm in your local area! We try to buy as little produce from the store as possible because they tend to offer very little in the way of quality local and organic produce (and they try to charge an arm and a leg for it when they do!). Getting a CSA share is a lot easier and more affordable than you may think it is! To see if there’s one in your area, check this website or just google it! This week in our share we got…

Curly kale! (so glad because I’m on a real kale kick lately…)

Yukon Gold Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes…

Collard Cabbage Greens (not sure how different these are from regular collards but I’m excited to see!)…

Hooray for free range eggs! It makes me happy when the hens are happy.

Hydroponic Romaine Lettuce…

Dried Black Beans…

…and Oats! I’ve never had them from an actual farm before, I usually just buy Quaker or store brand! 😛 I’ll report back on how they are!

Along with offering the CSA share, the organization we support also has a full ordering page that offers all sorts of local food goodies. When I saw that they were offering No Bull Burgers this month, I automatically ordered them! Kath has raved about them several times and since they’re a Virginia specialty I could not resist! The ingredient list and nutrition facts look amazing and I can’t wait to try them.

Since I did my post on meal planning a while back, I thought it might be a fun addition to these CSA posts to tell you guys what my meal plan is to incorporate what we got from the farms! It’s so fun to just be given a bunch of fresh, wonderful ingredients and then be forced to get creative with them! I feel like I’m on Chopped or Iron Chef when the box comes (food dork alert :P)! With this box we’ll be enjoying:

Dinners:

• No Bull burgers with potato fries (I’m thinking I’ll use a combo of the sweets and the Yukon golds!)
• Kale pesto pasta (recipe forthcoming)
• Blackened catfish, collard greens, candied yams
• Kale, white bean, and sausage soup

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren