Winter CSA Share # 2

Oops. I never told you about the start of our Winter CSA share.

I got my first CSA Winter Share the day before we left for Morocco. I got the email from the farm and said "Oh S***!!" We had so much to do, and I guess that picking up vegetables from Ft Tryon Park was one more thing we had to add to the list. Fortunately winter vegetables store well, so when we arrived home 8 days later everything was still fresh and we ate them just like we always would.

The second share arrived today and it consisted of 2 delicata squashes, a netted bag of potatoes, a plastic bag of carrots (and 3-4 of what looked like parsnips), a netted bag of red onions, a plastic bag of leeks, a large bag of apples, some trimmed yukina and some dark red lettuce. and what I think is a sugar pumpkin, though I can't be 100% sure. The amount, just like last month is good for a once a month delivery. Actually last month every single thing got consumed (even the beets!!) I have full faith that we will get to everything before it goes bad.

Okay-confession time: I have been buying alot of out of season vegetables. I assume that they have been trucked into New York from far flung places, and a few might have possibly been flown in. I don't feel good about it, but I am not exactly doing much about it.

I have a couple of rules, I won't buy berries in the winter, because I know that they will either be terrible, gassed to make them vibrantly colored, or they will flown in from South America. And that is too far for me. I won't buy tomatoes in the winter, mostly for the gassing reason. But also because winter tomatoes taste awful. It just isn't right. I have been buying oranges, which technically are in season, but only somewhere far far from where I live. The kids love them and they are a special treat. They especially love the mandarins with the soft wrinkly skins and the leaves still attached. I have also been buying cucumbers and spinach. The cucumbers are probably where I have been feeling the most guilt. Cucumbers have no place in my kitchen right now. They are a true summer food, and the cukes I have been getting are kind of lousy. They are definitely hothouse cucumbers, and they don't seem firm and fresh like my summertime CSA varieties. However, my kids are eating fewer veggies these days. But they both like cucumbers. And they are a good stand in for other more gluten-ey snacks so I will allow them in my fridge this winter.

Overall we are all eating more meat and more potatoes and rice this winter (uggh, winter hasn't even really begun). I keep trying to make winter veggies, but whether it is pumpkins, squash, leeks, parsnips, turnips or curly kale, I can't find a winter veggie that my kids like. We are traversing a particularly picky place right now. So I am just trying to keep gluten down and whole foods up. So far we are staying on track with getting real food meals on the table and keeping prepared ingredients/ foods at bay. And both the kids are still loving my pumpkin pie smoothies and carrot stick. So they are getting veggies. Thank God for carrots!

If anyone has any kid friendly recipes for winter veggies let me know! I am ready to throw in the towel and just give them three smoothies a day. Only that might undermine the whole "solid food" thing. Ha!