CSA Weeks 21-24: Done and DONE.

Whew! That felt nothing like 24 weeks, darlings. Maybe it was because we only bought a half-share and were therefore less overwhelmed by random produce, but this year’s CSA was much more manageable than last year’s. Let’s see how it wrapped up (spoiler: anticlimactically).

Week 21 didn’t happen because it flipping snowed. In October! I hate the East Coast sometimes. The One Straw crew didn’t feel safe driving to the market, for which I couldn’t blame them. It was the first time in 23 years they missed a summer market day. Everyone stayed home, and we got twice the veggies for Week 22:


There we have some garlic, bok choy, sweet potatoes, multicolored peppers, broccoli, and it looks like some scallions. The bok choy, peppers, scallions, and broccoli went into this lovely stir-fry with some cashews:


I’m sure we added some garlic, too. Garlic is great because it can just hang out in the Crisper and keeps for a nice long while.

We’ve been really into dicing and roasting sweet potatoes this fall. Sometimes I do them plain, with just some olive oil and salt and pepper, and other times I add a little maple syrup and ginger. I can’t remember what I did this time, but it was delicious. Fun fact: roasted sweet potatoes are an excellent breakfast.

Week 23 didn’t happen either, but not because of any shenanigans by Mother Nature. Red and Lucy and I went to the beach because I had a three-day yoga training weekend. It was wonderful and exhausting and we took a huge pan of Vcon’s Pumpkin-Baked Ziti with us so we wouldn’t have to cook. Here’s a picture of my girl meeting the ocean for the first time:


So we got double the veggies for Week 24, which seemed an appropriate way to finish out the season:


So much leafy greenage! We got spinach, mizuna, mustard greens, bok choy, broccoli, and I think that’s it. We got two of a few of those, so forgive me for being a little confused.

We had to make space in the fridge, but in doing so we found some sticky grossness and also some random bits of onion skin and other detritus. So Red brought out the vacuum:


I suppose we didn’t use all the sweet potatoes after all, as we had one left over for to make this soup:


This is Double Mustard Greens and Roasted Yam Soup from Vegan Soul Kitchen. We made it last year and loved it, so I was glad to have it again.

We picked up some carrots and made this stir-fry with the mizuna, some of the broccoli, and one of the heads of bok choy. It doesn’t look like much in the photo, but it was yummy.


When we realized we had missed a bok choy and a head of broccoli, we kicked ourselves, then steamed up the broccoli and sautéed the extra bok choy with some garlic and all that beautiful spinach. Over rice, it made a perfectly simple and satisfying dinner. And thus did our 2011 CSA experience come to an end.

Like I said, this year was much better than last year, but we were still finding our feet then. This year, we’re old pros. I’m very thankful for One Straw. One of the things I love about them, aside from their excellent food, is their communication. Joan is always available to chat on market days, and she sends out emails when there’s something we need to know. I found her CSA wrap-up email especially interesting, because she explained how this year’s cracked-out weather really affected their harvest. We had a super-hot July and then a really rainy September, so the hard winter squash didn’t fare too well. The beets didn’t have a good time of it, either. The spinach was delicious, but it made only infrequent appearances at the market. Because of a lack of sunshine, the broccoli heads were very small (and being broccoli lovers, we noticed). Evidently many East Coast farmers experienced the same conditions, and flooding left some without a harvest at all. This is very sad, because I’m sure they are small family farmers, like One Straw, and the weather determines their livelihoods. It really brings into focus just how interconnected we all are, and I hope next year is kinder to those who dedicate themselves to feeding us healthy, natural food.