This spring Dave and I signed up for a share of groundswell farm to see what it would be like to participate in community supported agriculture (CSA). It has been really enjoyable to buy veggies directly from the people who grow them, including one of my favorites: beets!
must be my Lithuanian heritage that gives me an affinity for beets!
I tried this recipe last night cooking up this bad boy beet: roasted beet wedges. I did cook the beet in the microwave for 15 minutes covered in a little water because really, who has an hour and 1/2 to wait around to roast a beet? It was so yummy with just the salt, olive oil & rosemary! It’s also been fun to be able to take Reuben to see where our food was grown. Part of signing up for a membership was committing to working on the farm for three hours- which we will probably do sometime in the next month.
backing up the tractor at groundswell farm
One of the reasons we decided to do a CSA share was that this past January I turned over a new spinach leaf leaf and committed to the goal of eating 5 fruits/veggies a day- going with the American Dietetic Associations recommendation of “strive for 5″ (catchy isn’t it?) to try and be healthier, lose weight and be more mindful of what I was consuming. The thing that really got me thinking about food was the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver that my book club read last August. Other than ancient scriptures, this was probably in the top 3 most influential books of my life, I highly recommend it especially now when there are so many fresh crops available!
Because of being part of a CSA I’ve had the opportunity to try new veggies that I’d normally ignore in the produce section of Meijer. Each week we have loved trying new things like Chinese cabbage, okra and varieties of carrots like these red beauties pictured below. I’m also amazed how different some vegetables taste when they’re fresh from the ground rather than having been carted across the country. What are some of your favorite summer fruits or veggies?
it's a vegetable rainbow!
beautiful & delicious red carrots- we eat them with the skins on.
