I am super excited about sharing my first Community Supported Agriculture with my colleague from school. Last fall my foods class subscribed to a fall share at our local farm. We enjoyed it so much and found it rewarding I wanted to have the experience all to myself at home. However, it’s a bit out of my price league. I decided to ask my colleague within my department if she wanted to share the CSA with me for half price and she said yes. We got our first box today. Yay!
I picked up two boxes from Flying Cloud. One box for my classroom which is paid for by an ASAP grant and one box for my colleague and I to split. We already made plans for what we are going to do with our first box. We are making a Kale salad with apples, cranberries and pecans together and splitting the salad at school. We’ll divide the other greens and make our own items at home.
I have also made plans for our classroom CSA box. We’re making Asian mustard greens with brown rice, Caesar salad with homemade croutons, Spicy Kickin’ collards with pintos and baked kale chips. I located the recipes with limited pantry staples for the students to make utilizing our first CSA. Since we’re covering ethnic dishes and adventurous foods and food influences, I knew this was the perfect time to bring in the CSA box. This box definitely influences what we are cooking in foods class!
Here are some items I learned by joining our local CSA:
- Try it for a short period of time (we tried the extended season which was 10 weeks last fall)
- Share it with a neighbor, friend or relative who lives close by
- Cook, bake, research recipes, taste together
- Plan your recipes ahead of time once you find out what’s in your upcoming box (Usually the CSA provides a recipe or two in your email)
- If you there’s something you aren’t sure you’ll like it or it’s starting to wilt; roast it for a fantastic depth of flavor, puree it and add it soups or sauces (I call this sneaky sauces)
- Try everything; be adventurous (our class made squash Alfredo sauce over homemade noodles last year)
- Return your boxes to further sustainability
- Share the good news with others; local farmers need our help spreading the word
What are your best tips or tricks joining, using or sharing a CSA?