Food
May 31st, 2009
Whether you have a newborn or are coming home from work to hungry kids, getting dinner on the table every night is a challenge. Here are our favorite solutions:
1) Pasta. I love pasta. Just boil water and drop it in and in 15 minutes dinner is ready. Throw some frozen peas or asaragus spears into the pot about 3-4 minutes before the pasta is done and - voila! pasta primavera with only one pot to clean.
2) Quesadillas. Cheese and tortilla last forever in the fridge and you can recyle all your leftovers in quesadillas and fry them up in 5 minutes. No leftovers? Canned black beans and frozen corn work great.
3) Soup/Salad and Sandwich. This doesn’t work every day, especially if you have sandwiches for lunch. Did you also notice that extra cheese and heating the sandwich in the toaster oven makes it taste better? Read more…
Food
February 15th, 2009
One of the best ways to get excellent quality organic vegetables for a better price is to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Most small farms today have a hard time surviving because of the cost of running the farm. CSA are a way for people to help small local agriculture survive. You purchase a share in the farm at the beginning of the season, giving the farmer up front enough cash to run the farm for the year. In exchange, you get a weekly delivery of fresh grown vegetables from the farm.
There are many good reasons to join a CSA. It helps a local farmer. It helps the environment since most pollution happens from transporting food from far corners of the earth to your local supermarket. CSAs also usually use environmentally sound agricultural methods and the food is usually organic (not certified organic because of the cost of getting actually certified).
Being part of a CSA is a wonderful experience for a child. Children learn where their food comes from. They learn what is in season are are exposed to more and different vegetables, all delivered personally to your family from your local farmer. You can bring your child to the farm to see where the vegetables are grown and experience how they are harvested. Some farms are really like coops where you have to work on the farm, luckily ours is optional in that regard. Our CSA also issues a weekly newsletter with information on the impact of the weather on the farm and animals on the farm like the groundhog and deer that they are constantly chasing away.
The downside of the CSA is that you do not get to choose which vegetables you want. You get what the farm grows and what is in season. Most people joining for the first time are disappointed when for the first month you just end up with lettuce and salad, but that is all that is in season in the early months. The heavy and big deliveries of squash and tomato come in late summer and early fall. Also, if the season is bad, you get less vegetables. If a storm washes away all the spinach, there is no spinach. Finally, you end up with a lot of vegetables that you would not normally buy and have to be disciplined about either eating them (often experimenting with veggies you don’t know) or freezing them for later use. Some CSAs provide guidance on what the vegetables are and how to cook them or eat them.
CSAs in Hoboken: CATALPA RIDGE FARM
Catalpa Ridge Farm delivers to three locations in Hoboken. The price for a full share is $575 for 2009 or $525 if you sign up before March 15. There is currently a wait list to join this CSA so contact the farm directly if you are interested. It is possible to split a share too, which I think is a good idea, especially if it is your first year doing it. The CSA does not find someone to split with you, you have to arrange that on your own. Veggie deliveries are done May through October. The farm issues a harvest identifier (so you know what is what) and a weekly newsletter with recipes and tips. Examples of how much and what is delivered is available on their website (you can read all of last year’s newsletters). They also do a swap with a fruit farm so there are small samples of fruit deliveries mixed in with the veggies.
Looking for organic veggies on the cheap all year long? There is also the option of joining a coop. In Hoboken, there is Purple Dragon. They offer organic fruit and vegetables all year round at a cost of about $40 a week. Since they do deliveries all year round, not everything is local. For more information, please see their website.