We're Feeling Green!

Today is the first day of our Community Supported Agriculture(CSA) program! Last summer, I found a posting on Craigslist where a mom was selling off the remaining 10 or so weeks of her box (out of 22 weeks) because she was having a new baby and thought it was getting too much for her to pick up the box and try to get her family to eat veggies. I quickly purchased the remainder of the subscription from her for $85 and sent Michael to pick it up every Wednesday at the Durham Farmer's Market on his way home from work. We had fun trying out all kinds of vegetables the last half of the summer.

Our CSA is through Harlands Creek Farm in Pittsboro http://www.harlands-creek-farm.com/
This week, we got our 82 page cookbook filled with tips, strategies, and great ideas. Judy Lessler, the farmer/organizer is amazing in that she puts together a mealplan for the week, using the recipes in the cookbook, the vegetables in the box and the meat, cheeses and eggs we subscribe to also. The mealplan paper also comes with a shopping list, indicating which additional items to purchase. Some of them can be purchased at the farmer's market (if I train Michael to look at the shopping list and buy the stuff). One quick trip through Whole Foods tonight got me just the right amount of extras to make all our meals. Here is what we got:

Arugula and mixed salad greens

Green garlic

Kohlrabi

Lettuce

Parsley

Radishes

Strawberries

Sweet potatoes

Tatsoi Eggs Sausage

Some meals we'll be trying out this week are:
-Sausage Pizza with sliced green garlic, julienned kohlrabi pieces, sauteed kohlrabi leaves w/ green salad
-Radish top soup and tabbouleh with pita bread, fresh strawberries
-Roasted Sweet Potato Risotto and green salad with sliced radishes
-Stir fried shrimp with tatsoi served over rice. lettuce and arugula salad
and the light meals:
--Sausage, Grits, Salsa and Eggs, orange juice
--Maple Pecan Sweet Potato Quick Bread with cream cheese, strawberries
--Mediterranean Tuna sand Radish Salad with crackers over Black Seeded Simpson lettuce

Oh, I forgot two very important details!
1)Judy included a 3 page section on cooking with and for children, because I told her I was quite hesitant to do it this year with the addition of our third child in June. That was so sweet! I love that our dinners for most of the week are planned out now and I can just follow the recipes and supplement as needed.
2)Subscribing full-price this year (without the craigslist bargain) was quite costly, so Michael and I decided we'd use our Christmas gift money from my mom and my dad to help fund this project. Thanks Mom and Dad! I'll get those Christmas thank you notes out in the mail soon, I promise!

To get started with the first box, I wore myself out today by taking the kids to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get this huge salad spinner (which Michael has used to wash all the produce while I've been typing)
then over to U mall for some of these Peak Fresh bags
and the Salad Crisper bag

We look forward to eating a healthy, whole diet and relying less on the "emergency" food of Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee Ravioli, Kraft Mac and Cheese, and Pancakes and Sausage on a stick that have been spotted in our kitchen recently.