The first! (Of the Season)

Hooray, CSA season has started again!

Yesterday Mr Gnoe went to pick up our vegetable bag for the first time in 2011. It’s the 4th year we’ll be getting a bag of local organic veggies from Amelis’hof garden (formerly known as De Aardvlo) every week till Christmas. And the 3rd year I’m consistently logging them with a picture on Graasland.

For those of you wondering what CSA means — have you noticed the Glossary of terms on Graasland?

• Herb flowers
• Leek
• Tomatoes
• Rapini (or turnip tops)
• Spinach
• Lettuce

I already used some spinach and tomato in a pasta salad I had for lunch today. Those beautiful white flowers accompanied last night’s vegan pasta with white asparagus. So now I need to think about what to make of the rest… I guess it’s back to menu planning for Gnoe!

Some of you may have seen my FourSquare tweet last Friday in which I talked about picking up some CSA veggies… #confusing There’s another organic farm nearby from which we get additional vegetables: Groenekans. It’s different in that we aren’t ‘shareholders’ but we do pay a certain amount in advance which enables the farmer to invest in seedlings etc. It also varies from our regular, real CSA in that we get to pick our groceries from a list of availabilities, instead of receiving a surprise packet. And that’s exactly why it is such a good addition to our weekly mystery bag of Amelishof goodies. :)

Any tips on what to cook this week?

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September vitamins

When we collected our organic vegetables at the Groenekans distribution point last Friday, we got this lovely field-bouquet.

Groenekans is the second local farm we get our groceries from. It works different from Amelis’Hof in that we can pick our choice from a weekly list instead of getting a surprise batch of greens, and pre-funding is on a voluntary basis. Because we do pay an amount in advance they gave us these colourful flowers. Nice, eh? I’m not much of an expert on flora, but I bet some of them can be eaten or made into tea… Still, I like ‘em just where they are on the dining table :))

Now, on with the vegetables we got from Amelis’Hof in the last few weeks, our first (bio)organic resource. Although they didn’t only land in our kitchen this time… When Mr Gnoe and I were on a trip to Paris two weeks ago, my friend Elsje took hold of them in our place! She was sweet enough to make a photo so that we would actually know what we had missed out on :)

Amelis'Hof CSA vegetables week 36, 2010

• Endive
• Aubergine (eggplant)
• Lettuce
• Runner beans
• Carrots
• Flat leaf parsley

Elsjes picture of Amelis'hof CSA vegetables week 35, 2010

• Lettuce
• Yellow & pink beetroot (OMG I never had those!)
• Corn on the cob (yum!)
• Basil
• Tomatoes
• Green beans

Amelis'Hof CSA vegetables week 34, 2010

• Leek
• Fennel
• Lettuce
• Green beans
• Corn
• Dill
• Courgette (zucchini)

There will be a new bag of vitamins waiting for us tomorrow afternoon — the last of the summer season… I’m hoping for a really sunny loot! :))