CSA Adventures with Carla!

Carla is a York St. CSA shareholder who has volunteerd her time to talk about the CSA experience and how she utilizes every CSA item so she doesn't waste and feels good about her food! Enjoy reading!

Monday July 15th:
As we saw last week the distributions are getting larger…our family is not!! Yesterday I was feeling like Lucy and Ethyl in the chocolate factory…the chocolates coming faster than they could box them up. I’m putting the blame on the Swiss Chard. Sooooo, in an effort to 1) not waste anything and 2) not be shown up by a vegetable and 3) combat the wet, nasty day…I took everything out that needed attention and now have a cauldron of soup on the stove and a heavenly scent wafting through the house.

Here’s what I had to work with:
Carrots…all colors from last week and the week before
Onions…used the one from last week and a regular supermarket one (sigh)
Garlic
A BIG bag of Swiss Chard…from 3 weeks of distributions. (we ate the other stuff already)
A large can of tomatoes, a box with not even a cup of barley and about a quarter bag of regular old brown lentils and two lone polish sausages lurking in the fridge.
Everybody knows how to make soup…so I did the normal sautéing of onions, carrots, sausage, threw in the garlic, added some ground cumin and two quarts of low-sodiumchicken broth, brought it to a boil and tossed in the barley…giving it a head start for about ½ hour. Then the tomatoes, lentils and chard.

So far I have ready for the freezer 3 pint and a half jars filled with what I’m now calling a “stew”…I guess there was more barley than I thought!! Anyway…when I heat it up, I’ll add MORE broth.

I did mention we are only two people? I figure after tonight, we’ll STILL have soup for lunch the next two days. It really made a TON…oh, at the homemade Rye bread will be just perfect…with perhaps a smear of butter!

Our refrigerator is lighter as well as the pantry. So…we’re ready for tomorrow and another distribution.

It SURE feels great to scan and utilize. I feel like an urban pioneer!! The best part……we are eating clean, feeling good and take pride is supporting the community.

Really looking forward to the turnips this week!

See you at the CSA pick-up..
Carla