What's for dinner tonight

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This blog is mainly to help me remember what I've done with my CSA food in the past and what I plan to do with it in the future. My husband and I belong to a Community Supported Agriculture farm and get fresh organic produce every Saturday from the beginning of May through January. We're trying a new farm this year, Harmony Valley. We also get cheese twice a month and freshly roasted coffee. Since we get a full share every week it means that I have a substantial amount of produce to deal with. There are just the two of us eating the food except for occasional guests but we think it keeps us eating fresher healthier food and we definitely get our quota of veggies.


My techniques for "what do with all these vegetables" is the following:

1) Pick them at the pick up site

2) Bring them home and find out what's in the box. HVF sends out an e-mail message describing the produce, including pictures, the day before but you're never sure of the quantity. Such as are you getting a large eggplant that you could use for eggplant parmigiana or a little tiny one to include in a stir fry.

3) I weigh or make note of the quantities I have to work with.

4) Next I enter it all onto my spread sheet, ex: broccoli 1#, green beans 1#

5) Then I plan what I'm going to do with all of the food. These vegetables become the backbone of our menus for the week. For instance if I have a lot of lettuce and salad greens, I'll probably plan to incorporate them into a couple of main dish salads. Besides listing the recipe I indicate what cookbook, website, etc. it is from.

6) Next I check to see what additional items I'll need to purchase for my recipes, such as chicken, etc. I try to get as many of the products as possible at our local farmers' markets.

7) I post my weekly recipes on the refrigerator. This planning seems like it might take some time (and it does) but I only have to do it once a week.


This is an example of one of my weekly spreadsheets:










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