Wednesday, June 22, 2016

2016 CSA share Week 2 & a Sweet gift

I went to pick up my share last week and was pleasantly surprised by a few extra goodies from Geauga Family Farms CSA.


 This was their way of saying thank you for being patient while they worked out the bugs of a new site and new drivers.

It was so nice of them, and I'm really happy for some extra goodies.

There was lettuce, cherry tomatoes,  turnips, broccoli, strawberries,  strawberry jam, and a loaf of wheat bread!

  How incredibly nice.   I hope the other ladies who waited with me were as pleasantly surprised as I was.

My regular share was nice too...

 We got lettuce,  broccoli,  strawberries, zucchini,  turnips, rhubarb and green onions.

Pretty quickly I made a jar of rhubarb jam from my CSA share.

I just cut the pieces into 1 inch(ish) pieces, added a little sugar, a splash of lemon juice,  and a little butter and let it simmer for about an hour until it was thickend.  I popped a lid on it.

 This isn't the NFPA approved way to seal jams, but I've been known to use it on the odd occasion.
It went into the frig after it sealed.


I've got about 6 more pounds to "do" something with in the next few days.

  I got a medium sized harvest from my yard this time
.

As you can see I've got 2 types of rhubarb.  
The dark red one isn't quite as sour as the green, but we like them mixed together. 


The rhubarb is doing well in the strawberry bed.  I gathered a few berries too.
Not so many this day...I think the squirrels have been helping themselves.  Stinkers!


I'll make crushed strawberries with them and serve them over pound cake with whipped cream for Don and berries and cream for me. (I'm gluten intolerant to a huge degree )

I've been toying around with the idea of making a low carb berry cake. 
We'll see.

Have you ever eaten rhubarb and do you like it?


Thursday, June 9, 2016

Geauga Family Farms CSA 2016 Season, Week 1

My 2016 Geauga Family Farms CSA (community sponsored agriculture group) had its first delivery Wednesday June 8th..   As always, the fresh veggies we got were beautiful.

There was a bit of a snafu with the truck leaving 30 minutes early, new site, new process, new driver,  but other than that, there were no problems.  There were 3 of us plus the lady who orchestrated this new pick up location who had to wait for the driver to come back.  Thankfully they were able to.  I really enjoyed my time there talking with one of the ladies about preparation and cooking techniques we used with various veggies and fruit we expected to receive from our CSA bags.

This year I decided on a medium share
since it's mostly Don and me home alone these days.



My medium share consisted of 2 large kohlrabi with greens, a nice bunch of kale I believe,  a HUGE head of leaf lettuce, a really nice bag of spinach 
a quart and a pint of strawberries,  and a bundle of garlic scapes. 
All 100%  Organic!
Yum!


To clean my lettuce and to help preserve it, I rinse it in cool water in a large bowl...

  Then I place a couple handfuls at a time into my salad spinner, give em a spin...

Then store them in a large baggie with paper towels to absorb any moisture that lingers or condensation that accumulates in the bag.  If the paper towel gets saturated,  replace it with a fresh one.

I do this same process with all of my greens, including the greens that come on top of a bunch of veggies such as turnip, beet, or kohlrabi. 
 If the greens have a thick rib, I strip the greens off of them before bagging.
I love fresh raw kohlrabi,  so these will get sliced and put in a bowl for a great snack.

I haven't decided what I'll do with the spinach and scapes as of yet, but the day is still young.

What would you do with them if they were in your frig?