According to my calendar, we have six weeks left for the CSA farm this season. I might try to work my way in there at some point during the off season to see what’s going on and whether they have any other types of organic food that we can purchase. Stay tuned for more pictures from the farm.

As you can see, we picked up more vegetables (especially yellow squash and zucchini) than we have in the recent past. Also, I can tell you that the share we received from Saturday, September 11th was pretty substantial, which is a good thing. Stay tuned – more pictures in the coming days…

Pretty cool, huh? The alternative to having these chickens freely ranging around the farm is to have them all cooped up in ridiculous small cages, pecking at each other for sustenance since they’re not able to find food on their own. It’s gross what the industrialized farms do to their animals – which is why I like seeing these chickens walking around like they own the place each week!

Sunday morning breakfast - side shot

Sunday morning breakfast - top shot

Okay, so right off the bat you should know that the wheat toast and the eggs are from Wegmans, not the farm. The ingredients from the local CSA farm are: fresh garlic, green peppers, yellow squash, and red tomatoes. I added the mushrooms (a lot of mushrooms – also from Wegmans), bacon bits, and some salt and pepper. It was absolutely delicious!

Part of what makes the food that I make with farm food so tasty is the fact that the organic produce seems to have more “punch” in terms of flavor. The garlic is much more potent than the stuff you buy at the store, the green peppers actually have a strong peppery taste, and the yellow squash is great. I’m looking forward to picking up more of this delicious produce this Saturday!

It's getting better...

While this week’s take was better than last week’s, it’s still not the same type of abundance that we experienced during the first few weeks of this year’s season. I talked to the farmer a little bit and it seems that the fields are very dry and thus affecting the overall output of the farm. New Jersey has had a weird weather system this summer, flipping between scorching hot days, stuffy humid days, and the occasional rainy days.

Oh well. Tomorrow I’m going to post pictures of the omelet that I ate for breakfast this morning. It was a delicious combination of produce from the farm!

Eh. Scant at best.

Pretty scant, huh? All that I was able to pick up in addition to what’s in the picture is some berries. I am, of course, heading back to the farm this Saturday morning so I’m hoping that there is a better take this week. In any event, I’ll post the results here.

Take #2 for the 2010 Season

Just like the first week, you’ll see some kale and garlic scapes in there. Also, there was some red leaf lettuce as well as some collard greens and red kale (I think).

I should have taken a picture of what we picked up this past weekend – huge bulbs of organic garlic dominated the take and I’m not sure when we’ll ever actually use all of them. However, it’s better to have this stuff than not, right? Stay tuned – I’m trying to get some CSA take pictures up each week or at least every other week.

Our first take for the 2010 season

Thus far I’ve only tasted some of the garlic scapes after they were made into a very strong pesto by my roommate. I also mixed some of the pesto into some vodka sauce that I had with my garden rotini last night – it was pretty good! As the weeks go on we’ll be getting more and varied types of produce so stay tuned to see what the farm brings us this year!

Oh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that my roommate and I completely gutted our refrigerator and freezer on Saturday afternoon. After the top-to-bottom cleaning that we gave that thing, there was enough room for us to place the entire bucket of produce that we got from the farm (the red bucket in the picture above) on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. It was a perfect fit!

This morning, I went to the Merrick Farm and picked up my half share of the week’s bounty. I picked up a bunch of interesting looking produce – some of which I know what to do with, some of which I have no idea. I’m going to take some time this morning and make a gigantic salad out of our existing produce from the farm. The new stuff I’m just going to “bank” at the bottom of the fridge in the crisper. Then I’ll be spending a portion of today down in Belmar at a friend’s barbecue.

My goal is to spend this evening relaxing. I’ve had pretty active, hectic weekends for the last few weeks and next weekend I’ll be in Nashville so relaxing will be a nice change of pace!

In the mean time, come on down to the shore!

Below, though, are pictures of our first “real” take from the farm. As you’ll see, it’s enough greens to last two or three people a good week…which is great because that’s when we’re going back again! Click on the thumbnails below for bigger versions of the pictures.

     

     

If you have a CSA farm in your area, I recommend calling them to see if you can still get a share this season or if you can sign up early for next season!