Mató & Maple Syrup » CSA

KEG CSA Week 3

alexandra — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 02:30:48 +0000

Starting today, I’ll post a picture of each week’s share, linking to anything I post about what I cooked with it.

This week my small share included:

rhubarb
green onions
radishes
strawberries
eggs
shelling peas

I added to that:

ground lamb
asian greens
garlic scapes
tomato salsa
raspberry jam

And they have become, so far:

Rhubarb & Strawberry custard pie
Lamb & bulgur patties (aka Kofta) served with tomato salsa
Braised radishes with goat’s milk butter, parsley, green onions, and sea salt

Last of the winter share

alexandra — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:47:24 +0000

As I mentioned a number of times here, I subscribed to the Kawartha Ecological Growers CSA about six weeks ago. This past week I picked my last share of the winter crop and I’m now getting ready for the long wait (about six weeks) for the beginning of the summer share.

This week I got: carrots, two kinds of potatoes, eggs from an amish farm, dandelion greens, green onions, wild leeks, garlic greens, broccoli sprouts, carrots & cabbage coleslaw, sausage, radishes, and some fun items – fiddleheads and popping corn on the cob!

A zoom on some of the items:

Subscribing to a CSA

alexandra — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:23:28 +0000

CSA stands for Community Shared Agriculture. We all know that the best produce is grown locally in small farms that grow a diversity of produce. One of the greatest challenges facing farmers of such idyllic places is selling their food. Managing a farm is hard work and if a tomato doesn’t make it to someone’s table in five days, that tomato is gone. One of the creative ways around this problem is for farmers to sell their produce before harvest to guarantee their sales. The way it works is that customers buy a share of the farm’s production at the beginning of the season and from then on, the farmer delivers a basket of fresh produce every week. There are several options around Toronto but I finally found one that caught my eye. The Kawartha Ecological Growers is not one farm but rather a cooperative of over twenty small farms in the Kawarthas, a fertile area north of Toronto. Having so many farmers to draw from means also that the risk of crop failure is reduced. But what I really like about KEG is not only the variety of produce but also the extras they bring out each week – flours, jams, beans, meats, and the nicest eggs you’ll fine anywhere. So I stopped by to drop off my cheque last week to get the last three of the winter share and today I picked up my bounty. This is what I came home with:

Click on the picture to see the notes on flickr.

The eggs were the highlight for me. They are from Araucana chickens, a heritage breed I first read about last summer in Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.Unlike your regular brown or white eggs, the Araucana eggs are a striking light blue/green shade. Very photogenic:

Since I had a bit of tomato sauce leftover in the fridge, I made a simple dinner with the fresh eggs noodles and a salad with the greens, radish, sprouts, grated beets, and sunflower seeds. So comforting.

Click on the image to see the rest of the pictures