Saturday, August 30, 2008

Food, glorious food!


We picked up our first of (at least) three monthly baskets today. We are hoping that it makes us enjoy cooking again, and helps us be more creative in the kitchen than we have become lately. Everything in the basket looks great, and we have already planned our weekly menu around all the great produce. Here is the complete list of what was in our basket:
  • Milk, 1/2 gallon (organic, low-fat)
  • Raw-milk Colby cheese
  • Bacon
  • Rice
  • Shiitake mushrooms
  • 3 bags of purple hull peas (like black eyed peas, but with a purple bit instead of black)
  • A bag of basil
  • A bag of spring salad mix
  • 3 smallish Japanese eggplants
  • 1 or 2 pint box of grapes
  • 1 or 2 pint box of peppers, several varieties
  • 5 sweet potatoes
  • Loaf multi-grain bread
  • Watermelon
  • 1 jar grape jelly
  • 1 jar honey
The basket is $60/month, which breaks down to $15/week. This is a little bit steep, perhaps, but I know that we would spend more than $15/week if we could go to the Austin/Sunset Valley farmer's market, or the Seattle University District Market. Now, most of what is in the basket will be gone at the end of this week, but not all of it. We are putting two of the bags of peas in the freezer for use at a later date. I might put the bacon away too, if I can resist its lure at breakfast time. The honey and jelly will last for quite a while. And we can supplement with the other CSA-type program I found, which is delivered every other week. Anything to make cooking (and eating) fun again!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That actually looks like a very good deal by my standards! We could easily spend $15 in our neck of the woods on the milk, bacon and cheese alone. Our CSA farm probably costs about that much for the season, and although I think we get more vegetables, especially with the u-pick stuff, that's all we get. They sell local honey, bread, yogurt, cheese, miso etc. at the pick-up shed, a convenience that I appreciate, but none of those things are included in the CSA price. I guess we're also paying for the pleasure of taking the toddler to the farm to "work in the fields" and watch the horses plowing under fields, harvesting their grain, etc.

Hope said...

I think we would get more vegetables, if it wasn't the end of August. In Arkansas, like in Texas, it is a mostly dead time of the growing year. Too hot for anything vegetable to be happy. I just hope we get some apples or peaches next month. And if we stay with it, vegetable will probably come in April, May, June...

Anonymous said...

So you only get one basket per month? What are you suppose to do the other three weeks? M