Vegan MoFo! CSA veggies
My boyfriend and I belong to a local CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture program. These programs have really gained in popularity in the last few years. There are quite a few in the Philly area, and we belong to Red Earth Farm/Farm to City. The CSA model works like this- you pay a certain amount up front to a local farm, and they deliver a certain amount of vegetables to you every week. It can seem expensive to fork over a chunk of money all at once, but especially if your farm is organic, it’s actually quite a good deal. Plus you know you are supporting a local independent farm.
Most CSAs have options for different share sizes. We get a full share, which is supposed to feed a “family of four” but I guess two hungry vegans count as four people where vegetables are concerned! Even so, it sometimes takes a bit of planning to make sure I don’t leave anything mouldering in the crisper. Some things like peppers and onions I’ll chop up in advance and freeze for later.
Our CSA is a choice CSA, which means we get to go online once a week and pick ten items from a list. Some CSAs are not by choice, so you get a random box each week. That could be annoying but I also kind of like the challenge of not knowing what you’ll end up with. Well, I forgot to place our request for this week’s veggies, which means we got farmer’s choice! I was curious to see what we’d get, and it was: apples, pears, broccoli, turnips, a GIANT head of lettuce, some other leafy green things (arugula? mustard?) in a bag, some peppers, and tomatoes. I’m a bit stumped by the pears since I don’t really like them very much, so that’ll be a challenge! If anyone has any good pear recipes, let me know in the comments! I also probably would not have ordered turnips. I’d probably just throw them in a veggie soup, but I think I’ll see if I can’t find something more exciting to do with them.
CSA’s are great! We belong to one too! This week was also got apples, tomatoes, and pears. What a wonderful surprise. Everyone should join if they can. Supporting local farms and eating healthy organic food at a fraction of the cost.
Awesome CSA goodies.