Fair Shares
I joined a CSA this week. A Community Supported Agriculture program that gives me a box of goodies every week, according to what’s seasonal.
I’m so excited!
I joined Fair Shares, a “non-profit organization dedicated to getting fresh, local, seasonal food into the hands of more St. Louisans–regardless of their income.”
Further, “Fair Shares will donate profits and work with other organizations to help low-income families gain access to “real” food. Fair Shares is working with local farmers and producers to form a Combined CSA (CCSA). Each week, we’ll collect, organize and distribute a well-rounded example of the freshest, seasonal, sustainably-produced foods available in St. Louis all year long.”
Sounds awesome, right? I thought so and put myself on their wait list a few months ago. It’s a bit costly, around $50 a week for 47 weeks (and you put up much of the money up front, even with payment plans, so the farmers are paid) but this CSA is not all produce.
You get meat each week, plus grains, eggs, honey, cheeses, mushrooms, jams, etc. as they are available.
This is what we got this week.
We have:
Lee Farms Cantaloupe
Sunny Ridge Farm Blackberries
Lee Farms Summer Squash
Hale Farms White Eggplant
Hale Farms Asian Eggplant
Rutherford Farm Pea Shoots
Brick City Gardens Lettuce
Hale Farm Tomatoes
Gooding Farm Sweet Onions
Lee Farm Green Peppers
American Grassfed Beef -cruelty/hormone free Ground Beef
River Hills Poultry Alliance Eggs
San Luis (St. Louis) Tortilla Chips
Companion Baking (St. Louis) Multigrain Rolls
And Toby.
And there WAS a full container of blackberries and more rolls, but the kids couldn’t wait and ate them in the car. Those blackberries tasted like wine, full bodied sweet tart amazing wine.
The purpose of me signing up for this was mainly because my Papa was a farmer, my Grandma had a garden on the farm. I KNOW what real food tastes like. And it’s not what your grocery store is selling you. Have you ever had a home-grown tomato? Oh my god. There is NO comparison. Same goes for strawberries, green beans, onions, asparagus, cherries and the like.
I wondered what other real food tasted like. This was my biggest incentive. Good tasting things.
Also, Fair Shares is dedicated to growers who grow consciously. Meaning, they grow mostly organic but some will, on rare occasions, use a gentler pesticide in light of losing an entire crop. All grow organically in all regular situations, choosing to nurture the land by rotating crops and using natural pesticides like posting bird houses near a crop. All meat farmers raise their animals cruelty-free. Chickens roam around clover fields, pigs have ample room and no one gets hormones.
This is a nice perk and one I’m thrilled to now give to my family.
So I get this surprise box every week, since everything is grown according to season. We’ll get more produce now, more meat/jams/cheeses in the winter. This is my first week’s box and it contained some items I have either never seen or rarely cook.
I know what to do with tomatoes (uh, we mainly just eat them because OMG they are delicious), I know what to do with farm eggs. I can make things with green peppers and onions. We just gobbled up those blackberries in a day.
But pea shoots? What the hell are pea shoots?
I found a website dedicated to pea shoots, Peashoots.com! (Oh, internet, don’t stop loving me like you do.)
There, I found a recipe for Pea Shoot Bubble and Squeak. NB and I decided this is possibly the best and most ridiculously named dish ever, and that was enough to make it. And it was AWESOME.
People, make this:
Pea Shoot Bubble and Squeak
Ingredients
* 4 Medium Potatoes
* 1 Onion
* 2 Carrots
* 2 Leeks
* 100g Pea Shoots (this is about a 1/2 cup)
* 2 tbsp Butter
* 1 tbsp Olive Oil
Peel the potatoes then chop into small cubes. Place the potatoes in a pan of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes or until soft enough to mash. The smaller the potatoes are cut, the quicker they will cook. If you have left over carrots and leeks from a previous meal they would be perfect in this recipe. Alternatively, peel and chop the carrots and leeks into small cubes and blanch them for 10 minutes while the potatoes are cooking.
Finely chop the onion and fry in 1tsp each of butter and olive oil. Once the potato is cooked, mash it until smooth, add the onion, cooked carrot and leek. Chop the pea shoots finely then add to the mash. Mix thoroughly then allow to cool for 5 minutes. This can be served as an alternative to plain potato mash, or fried to make bubble and squeak. Heat the remaining oil and butter in a frying pan.
Take handfuls of the mashed potato mix and make into patties then fry for 2 minutes on each side until golden brown. Delicious served with cold meat, slices of ham or grilled sausages.
Turns out, Bubble and Squeak is pretty much a potato pancake dish. I didn’t take any pictures of it. We had to eat it. It was so delicious and the nice thing I’m learning about Bubble and Squeak is that you can add any veggies you pretty much want. People just use leftover mashed potatoes and any leftover vegetables on hand, just mix it up, shape patties out of it, fry and eat it. Delicious! Totally filling comfort food.
NB and I had this with smoked turkey sausage (which, honestly, I could have left out and still had a filling dinner) and a summer squash recipe from Simply Recipes, a food blog.
Make this one too:
Mom’s Summer Squash Recipe
Ingredients
2 lbs squash and/or zucchini, sliced
1 green bell pepper, seeds removed, sliced
2 smallish tomatoes or one large tomato, peeled and cut into wedges
1/2 yellow onion, peeled and sliced
1 clove of garlic, chopped
Olive oil
5 or 6 slices of cheese - jack or cheddar (I used shredded cheddar, no idea how much, a half a cup? a cup? I eyeballed it.)
Basil, either dry or chopped fresh
Salt and pepper
Put onion, garlic, squash, bell pepper into a large saucepan with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Put on high heat and brown the vegetables slightly to develop flavor. As you are browning, sprinkle either dried basil or chopped fresh basil on the vegetables. When vegetables are slightly browned, remove from heat, add the slices of cheese, and cover the pan.
In a separate stick-free fry pan, put the tomatoes and cook at medium hi heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want to let the juice from the tomatoes evaporate some. After 5 minutes, add the tomatoes to the rest of the vegetables and stir. NOTE: I didn’t do this at all. I just used one pan. Why use two? I just threw the tomatoes into the same pan at the very end. I didn’t want to really cook them, just barely warm them. Salt and pepper to taste.
This dish was also awesome. So colorful and delicious. The cheese didn’t make the dish cheesy so much as savory. I pretty much just chopped the veggies and garlic, threw in all but the tomatoes, turned the burner up fairly high and let it go. I stirred it sometimes but pretty much was making the Bubble and Squeak at the same time. At the end, after about ten or fifteen minutes (I really don’t know, it’s not a dish you have to babysit) I added the tomatoes and cheese until melty. And then we ate it.
Happily, there are leftovers of both. Go on, go eat well today.
Posted by Melissa on August 1st, 2008 under CSA Haul, Recipes6 Responses to “Fair Shares”
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August 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
I put myself on this wait list a few weeks ago and told hte hubby I was firmly committed to joining as soon as a slot becomes avalble.. LOVE know other cool people are on the same page..
August 1st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I heard about this CSA earlier in the year, but never did anything about it. Your food sounds delicious! Keep us up to date.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:05 am
This is awesome! I can’t afford it right now, but I know a lot of my co-workers would love it. And you got a bonus kitty with your delivery! How nice :)
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Theresa, it would also be a LOT of food for two people to try to consume. You can, however, split a share with someone through the website forums or if you know someone who wants a split. That, of course, cuts the cost in half if you are ever interested.
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I would SO TOTALLY do this if anyone in my family besides me would be willing to regularly eat random mystery vegetables.
*sigh*
My husband refuses to eat asparagus, artichokes, fresh spinach, beans of any kind, and most kinds of squash. He will only eat tomatoes if they are cooked. He eats broccoli and carrots and peas and green beans only because I have convinced him to.
And my son thinks all vegetables are poison.
I wonder where he gets that from?
I, on the other hand, have never met a vegetable I didn’t like.
Incidentally, I have four tomato plants in my yard right now the size of small trees. And I am the only one in my family who will eat tomatoes off the vine. Is that not sacrilege?
(I give the ones I can’t eat or turn into sauce to my neighbors.)
August 4th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Ooooh, fresh summer squash. I eat it raw! a little ranch dressing & dip, dip, dip away.