I got my CSA box!

Hooray for Wednesdays! Besides being the day we go to our mom's group, it is now also the day I get my box of delicious, nutritious organic locally grown veggies. Check it out!










This box had:
1 bunch of red beats
1 bunch of red kale
1 bunch of sorrel
1 bunch of mizuna
1 bundle of chives
2 large shallots
1/2 lb. of crimini mushrooms
2 heads of green leaf lettuce
1 long english cucumber

So, we thought we would try out a "seasonal" recipe last night. It was a bit challenging just to find something we all agreed on that was wheat free and vegetarian (we had company for dinner) and also dairy free (though i did end up fudging on that a bit. We ended up making a delicious fresh chunky pasta sauce with rice spirals and a Greek salad.











The kids weren't big on the pasta sauce (I'm sure they'll get used to fresher sauces with time) but the adults all liked it and would eat it again! Why don't you try some yourself. Check out the recipe here . Let me know what you think, or any changes that you made to it yourself!

We got our meat!

So, here is what 155 pounds of beef looks like:










We got:
18 lbs. of ground beef
13 lbs. of bones
7 lbs. top round roasts
7 lbs. of prime rib
6 lbs. of chuck steak
6 lbs. bottom round roasts
5 1/2 pounds of short ribs
5 1/2 pounds of t bone steaks
5 lbs. of stewing beef
4 lb. cross rib roast
4 1/2 lb. sirloin tip roast
3 pounds of top sirloin steaks
1 1/4 lbs. of tenderloin

Now if you're a math person, you know that doesn't add up to 155 pounds, it's actually around 86 pounds. We called the farmer to verify (as it is our first time buying this way and we weren't sure). The half of the cow we claimed as our own weighed 155 pound hanging. After being butchered you end up with 65-75% of that weight in cuts. We are also entitled to the innards (ie. the tongue, the liver), but we passed.

Our meat is a mix of Angus, Limousin and Hereford. They are raised without hormones, not fed any animal by products, they are grass raised locally on over 100 acres of hay fields. They have free range weather permitting. This farm is basically organic, except for the treated wood in the fence :) Gotta love politics and paperwork!

Program in a Box

It's Alicia writing here...

I have been thinking a lot lately about eating locally and supporting our local farmers and the economy. But in all honesty, I hadn't put that to practical use until 3 weeks ago. I was reading the local paper when I came across an article about Local Farms Delivery. The thought behind this program was to support local farmers while eating farm fresh produce that was either in season or produce that could be stored over winter months. I called the same day and ordered my first 4 boxes.

I waited expectantly on the first Monday for the delivery. My patience began to wear thin when the box hadn't been dropped off by 9am...but that's just because I was super excited and I was hoping to wake up at 7:30, open my door and find a box full of wonderful goodies! It finally arrived around 2:00pm, just as I was leaving to pick up my oldest from school. I quickly glanced in the box and to my shock there was a bunch of unrecognizable leafy greens..oh no! But no worries my nearby friend had a produce guide which quickly identified the greens as Rapini or Broccoli Raab



The box also contained carrots, apples, potatoes, leeks, red onion, a few cooking onions, parsnips, 1 dozen brown eggs, and 1 loaf of organic homemade bread. Just by looking at it I wasn't sure if it was worth the $40 I paid for it. So... I went to the local Thrifty's to do a price comparison. To my surprise there was a $16.00 difference - my box being the better price.

So now I'm on to my third box. It has been a journey trying to figure out what to do with the vegetables. I discovered that Rapini is ok in pasta, however we do not like the stems. My husband ate the stir-fry containing a bunch of Kale that we received the second week.

This morning I diced up 8 cups of fresh Rhubarb and prepared it for the freezer (I know, I should probably eat it fresh but I honestly don't have time this week to deal with it!). Nadine and I have been looking into other box programs because there have been a few downsides to this one. First off, I know that apples aren't in season but if I do find them in my box I would hope they weren't as beat up as some of the ones I've seen this past month. I am also more than capable of making my own bread every week. So, we will keep you in the loop as far as the food box programs go. In general though I do think that the food box idea is terrific. It gets you eating locally and in season which I am very grateful for, not to mention that we are actually eating more leafy greens!

Just out of mere curiosity, do you try to eat seasonally? What determines what you buy in the store? Price? A menu plan for the week?

Cheers,
Alicia

Where's the beef?

For those of you who don't remember, there was an old ad for Wendy's with a funny little old lady complaining about the size of her beef patty and the well known slogan "where's the beef" was born. Check out the ad here.

What is the point of this? Well, us two hens have been discussing meat for quite some time now. When looking at our food budgets, meat is a huge expense. And, thanks to Jamie Oliver, we are now starting to question what is in our meat and where does it come from? If you haven't ever seen his show, I'm not that far ahead of you! I watched my first episode last night and was absolutely disgusted by what I learned! (For those of you in Canada, check out watch.ctv.ca to watch it online free.)

So again, what is the point of this? Well, I've never put too much thought into my options when it comes to meat. What we have locally is basically whatever we have at the 3 closest grocery stores right?! WRONG! There are a lot of options! So, we started shopping around. We have a local farmers market that sells a lot of produce and a lot of locally raised grain fed meat! While that is awesome, that type of meat can come with a hefty price from $4 a pound for ground beef to $10 a pound (on sale) for t-bone steaks! Is this type of meat worth the price? I'm sure it is...but on our budget for my family, it is just more than we can afford. So, we found an alternative! Through a friend we heard about a local farm that raises their cows in open pastures and are fed on the grass of the fields. They are locally slaughtered and then sold in large quantities for a good price.

My first reaction was, "yeah right, a 'good' price". So, we did some more searching around and called the farm today. They sell their beef for $3.50 a pound! And you can get ground beef, roasts, stewing beef, steaks (and if you are lucky, bones for making soup). So what did we do?

We bought half a cow!!!!!

We get to pick up our meat today so we'll show you then what we got then. I am so excited though because when i went through and worked it out this is a really cheap, healthy way to get local meat! They do their next round of sales in October, so our 75 pounds of beef (each) needs to last us six months. That means we have about 3 pounds of beef a week to eat and it only cost us $12.50 a week. And there is no pink sludge in any of the meat! (Watch Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution).

I still have to look into the FDA approvals for Canada regarding the pink sludge, but I did ask the ever so uncomfortable question to the farmer who raised our cows. "What goes into your ground beef?" He wasn't really sure what I was asking. But I know that it is all the left over scraps of meat from the butchers cutting and the butcher grinds it on site so I'm not worried about it being sent out to be centrifuged, washed in ammonia and then added as filler to my ground beef.

So, stayed tuned for pictures of our beef and many delicious recipes as we learn to cook with cuts of meat that we wouldn't usually buy (due to their high cost). And for interest sake, let us know where you get your meat; do you go to your grocery store or buy from somewhere local?