Nom Nom Nom

[hkellick]

I'll admit that I struggled for a title to this post.

This morning I was pokin' around the internets when I saw a post from chite who is a local friend. She had just signed up for a Share in a Local Farm Commune, Potomac Vegetable Farms that had a Farm sorta near our dance studio in Vienna.

Truth be told, K and I have been interested in being involved with a Farm commune for a while. There are lots of reasons why to get involved with a local farming commune. The first is taste. I, at least, have been big about trying to get local produce IN SEASON because it just TASTES better. Stuff picked early in Florida and shipped via various warehouses until it appears, looking ripe or almost ripe or even likely overripe in your local supermarket... Meh.

Nothing is as good as farm-fresh produce. That's why Farmer's Markets rock, by and large, because they bring in the local produce and they sell it, still ripe and delicious. Not freeze-dried and packed and yadda yadda.

The other problem at least the two of us have is.. we get stuck in ruts. What do you want to make today? I dunno. Feels like we've done our favorites til we're sick of 'em. I think we both have hopes that.. being presented with a pumpkin or a turnip will make us go "OK. Now we have this. What do do with it?" and being adventurous and stuff.

So I call K over it and we consider our options. And decide to just go for a Mini Share. (There are three Share Types.. a Regular Share is about 1/2 a bushel of fresh vegetables a week, a Mini Share is about half that. The other one, the Robust Share.. we're not doing anytime soon.) We might have been a Regular Share work for us, and then again, it might have been a few too many vegetables a week. We don't know yet. We don't really even have a good feel for how much food a 1/2 or 1/4 of bushel really IS and if we even have the room to STORE what we get.

All we know is.. starting the first week of June, we start getting 1/4 a bushel of FRESH locally-grown RIPE produce a week and we keep getting fresh ripe local vegetables for 24 weeks, til the first week of November. And a loaf of fresh homemade bread from Mid September through the first week of November (because we wanted to try it.)

Grocery Shopping and Cooking won't be the same for those 24 weeks. What will we ever do? ;)

And on top of that, the pickup place, the Vienna Farm, acts as a mini-farmers market, selling stuff they, themselves, aren't producing such as sweet corn, apples, and apple cider. ;)

Interestingly, and making us feel a bit lucky, we signed up early this morning, about 11 AM. As of about an hour ago when we checked, the shares are all sold out. We got our share in just in time. PHEW! :)

So.. I'm feeling really good about this, and really excited about trying new stuff (fresh, delicious stuff.)
.. the big question will be what to do with our tomatoes. ;p K and I hate the texture and taste of raw tomatoes. We can try to find a way to cook the crap out of them, I guess.

:)

Comments

[tiamat-the-red.livejournal.com]

First, try them again. I thought I hated tomatos but it turns out I actually despise grocery store tomatos but quite like certain types of FM tomatos. Especially Early Girls, chopped, tossed with salt and olive oil and then put on pasta.

Otherwise, you can make pasta sauce with them, bake them with eggs, make salsa, oven roast them, dry them, can them, or, as a last ditch effort, feed them to people who do like them. Or you can often ask the farm to not give you something you dislike and give you more of something you don't object to, which was what I had planned to do before I figured out I liked tomatos.

[chite.livejournal.com]

the other commenter is right! I hated tomatoes until I started eating really good tomatoes. There are so many different textures of tomatoes--I had no idea! But, if you need some good recipes, I've got em!

Happy to be share buddies!!

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! I got ambitious about planting a veggie garden, since we have the space, but I seem to have a black thumb, and not enough time to service the garden. I got a ton of tomatoes the first year, but nothing else grew. Last year I just did eggplant (SIL's dad grew the seedlings and then gave me the plant). I love fresh veggies though- there's nothing better than that. It might be a good idea for me to look into something like that around here, if it's not too expensive.

As for the tomatoes, I'm the same way about raw tomato. Everyone in my family thinks I'm crazy, but I just don't like tomatoes raw. Fresh tomatoes make GREAT tomato sauce though! Plus, you can make the sauce and freeze a bunch of it to use in the wintertime and it's still delicious.

[chite.livejournal.com]

YES!!

Last year there was a stand at our farmer's market that had 7 lbs of tomatoes for 7 dollars. I made 5 and a half quarts of sauce, used the 1/2 that day, gave away one to a new mom down the block and froze the rest. We just finished up the end of the sauce, 7 months later :)

[jillsmyth.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome. I can't wait for the Farmer's Market in St Norberts to open so we can get some fresh veggies and all again. I wonder if there is something like a share program here...