Reflections on our CSA summer

As I've mentioned before, this was our first summer receiving a CSA veggie box. Every week, we would receive a rubbermaid bin full to bursting with freshly harvested organic vegetables from the farm. Other than the difficulty of fitting it all into our less than full-size fridge, the box has been a positive experience that has really influenced how we ate this summer.

An August CSA Box. photo credit: Genevieve

Firstly, it provided us with vegetables we couldn't easily find in the grocery stores or usually would not have bought, namely: swiss chard, arugula, rabiole, kholrabi, beets, squash and kale.

Between newer veggies and old favorites coming in each week, we learnt new recipes in order to cook with variety. Some recipes came from the farm newsletter, like this amazing beet-chocolate cake. Over the summer the CSA box has inspired many bowls of stir-fry with accompanying sauces, of roasted vegetables with tahini, of Thai-style pak choi soup, of kale chips, of beet salads, of borscht and of slow-cooked squash with rice pilaf.

This week is our last box and our kitchen and menu plan is going to feel pretty empty without it! As we shift to winter recipes, I'm sure we will keep using many of the recipes we came to love over the summer. We'll just have to start going to the grocery store more often!