Something I've forgotten to mention on here, but which has probably become apparent: we decided to take a year off from our CSA this season. It was a sad decision for me, but something Craig really encouraged. He wants me to see if I can buy our produce locally with only items we truly want and will eat, and decide if it isn't more cost efficient this way. It's true that the mixed/surprise bag can be a challenge each week with a CSA, and inevitably there will be things that we don't really care for that we try to find a way to eat and enjoy. Additionally, come harvest time with our garden, we end up receiving a lot of the things we already have plenty of (tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, peppers) right in our back yard.
But I liked the branching out and learning our way through new foods. I liked the challenge of planning our weekly meals around the bag rather than the shopping planned around the meals. It felt good to eat that way. Plus, at pick up time, our farmers always had a trade bin available that we could exchange something we didn't want for more of something else we preferred. And at $16 per week, I definitely thought the bag was a cost savings compared to grocery store prices or even farmers market shopping of the same quantity.
Currently, my two biggest problem with local produce shopping outside of the CSA are:
1) It's inconvenient. Compared to a swing by the hospital across the street from my work every Tuesday, driving around to farmers markets - especially the downtown market on Saturday mornings because our Saturdays mornings are almost ALWAYS spoken for - just takes up a lot of time, gas and interruption of schedule.
2) Hardly any farm markets have greenhouse-started vegetables available early in the season. I could count on chemical-free tomatoes and lettuce, etc. from June 1st through mid-November with our CSA bags even though that exceeds the typical growing season for those things. Shopping at local markets, those vegetables are available for a much shorter span of time and most everything starts around mid-July (fruit not included). So while I had been using and eating FAR more vegetables by this time the past two years, I'm still just waiting around for things to ripen right now.
I know. Poor me. This attitude that I'm putting our right now is exactly what I fight against in most cases. The whole "eating whatever we want whenever we want regardless of how far it had to travel or where it came from". But in this case, it's still local and still "organic". It was just grown in a greenhouse to be made available outside of the regular season. So, not quite the same thing.
Craig and the kids just aren't as adventurous as me when it comes to trying new foods. It's a challenge to please all of us at once sometimes. I get bored of repetition of the same types of meals that they find "acceptable" and they have no interest in trying out various ways to use kale, for example. Family time at the table is huge to me and I want it to be enjoyable for all of us. So I'm giving this a try. And I'm not super happy about it. We've certainly been enjoying our u-pick fruit thus far. And I know a nice chunk of the produce at Meijer comes from sorta-local farms in Michigan. I'm also anxiously awaiting Bench Farms on Navarre to open their daily market for vegetables grown on their farm. Instead of feeling obligated to a Saturday morning or single weeknight with quite a drive to get to certain markets, Bench's is open daily and not far from our house. Their typical opening date for the market is about mid-July. Not too far from now, so I'll be patient. But it's just that I would've had about six weeks of local, organic vegetables with convenient pick up and great price already by that point had we done our CSA. :(
Okay, moving onto this week: June 22-28.
We had a cookout with the Rethmans at Pearsons on Saturday evening. It was nothing short of a Thanksgiving-sized feast, but with better food. BBQ chicken sandwiches, corn on the cob, avocado, tomato and feta salsa, etc. I brought avocado hummus with "everything" pretzel crisps (Pinterest), spring potato salad (Smitten Kitchen) and homemade strawberry ice cream with cones. It was heavenly.
Also this week:
2) tacos with homemade salsa
3) big salads with grilled chicken for Craig and kids, and eggplant sandwich with a green salad for me
4) cherry crisp for dessert
I love having Sophie help out in the kitchen when I'm in too big of a hurry.
Then tonight, we got together with our favorite group of friends at the Munoz residence for a homemade surf 'n turf dinner. We all chipped in for our meat and seafood and everyone brought a side. I brought a cherry pie with our picked cherries.
Good times. Good eats.
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