CSA Week 1

CSA season is here!  I'm a little surprised just how much I've been looking forward to this day. It's a little hard to explain why it's so enjoyable, but it is. I love that we have only a vague idea of what we're going to be getting. I love that both the owners and their son are at every pick-up and are not only willing, but eager to talk to everyone about what's happening on the farm. I love that they took anyone who wanted one on a half hour long tour of the farm, and explained how Farmer Ike is working to preserve heirloom varieties. I absolutely love that everyone who works on the farm clearly has a passion and love for their job.

On to the pick-up

  

 We get an email a couple of days before the pickup telling us what the farmers expect to have ready for pickup day, but as it's up to Mother Nature, there are always some surprises. Today we came home with -

Purple Peacock Kale

Kohlrabi

Broccoli

We already had the cutie patootie, but I added her for scale

Arugula

Swiss Chard

Buttercruch lettuce

Scallions

In addition to running their fruit and veggie CSA, North Star also sponsers a couple of other local companies for CSA pickup at the farm. Since today was the first day, they were all there to talk about what they offer. I'm a sucker for free samples (I have an unhealthy guilty conscience) and a daughter who loves cheese, so we left as new members of the Hillacres Pride Cheese CSA.
The cheese CSA is a pick up every 2 weeks, instead of every week, but they had this week's share available, even if you hadn't signed up ahead of time, so we got to bring home these yummies

Savory Herb chedder and fresh Feta.

One of the most fun things about the CSA is that for the most part, we don't get a say in what veggies we bring home. They do have a swap box, so if there's something you really don't want, you can exchange it for something else, but we have enjoyed trying new things.
Our dinner tonight consisted of Adorned Marlboro Man sandwiches, courtesy of The Pioneer Woman, (minus half of the butter she calls for) with CSA arugula, potato salad that my mom brought by, and baked swiss chard, loosely based on this recipe, although I added garlic when roasting the stems, used only a sprinkle of Parmesan and used ricotta cheese (whatever was leftover in the fridge, probably around 1/2 cup) instead of the cream. Truth be told, I think it had too much cheese, but I can pretty much guarantee that I was the ONLY person in this household that thought that.

Yum

And finally, just because she's too stinkin cute for words