The Other Side of My CSA Adventure

You would think that my blog should be overflowing with farm fresh veggies every single day... with the amount of produce we get in our box every week, our fridge is definitely never empty! But here's why I don't blog about everything we get in our Zephyr Organics box.

There's way too much! At first we were just having trouble keeping up with the leafy greens that don't keep as long in the fridge as some of the hardier vegetables, but now the vegetable abundance is starting to take over. So all the extra vegetables are starting to go into the deep freeze. Of course, if I could use all the vegetables fresh from the ground, I would. But since I can't, this is the next best thing.

So far, I've done batches of kale, beans and broccoli, as well as, asparagus and pea soup. I'm so looking forward to opening up these little baggies in the winter and getting a taste of the summer past.

There's a lot of washing, chopping, blanching, ice-bathing and drying involved... but as hubby says, I'm doing the work up front. And when the new baby arrives in the late fall, I'll probably be glad for all the pre-packaged and pre-cut vegetables (that are so much better and GREENER) than the supermarket's freezer aisle can provide.

We are also gearing up to make some pickles: the slightly spicy, garlic-dill variety that my hubby makes so well. My few cucumber vines are producing some nice pickle-sized cukes (which my eldest son loves to pick) and we've been receiving some monstrous concombres with our CSA share as well.

I figure if this season's CSA continues to be as bountiful as it has been and I'm really diligent about freezing and preserving (as opposed to passing stuff off to my parents :), we'll actually get even more bang for our CSA buck. The way I see it, we may even be able to double the amount of weeks that I can abstain from battered and bruised, non-organic, imported from the USA, supermarket produce!

Thank you to the beautiful farmers out there!!!