Feed the Need, Out and About

We just had a really great weekend, and not so shockingly it pretty much revolved around food.  For the most part any way.  We joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year and although we've only had two pick-up's, we are really loving it.  So the way this works is, you find a farm in your area that sells CSA farm shares and pay a flat rate at the beginning of the season (for us it's June-October) and each week you pick up a box of vegetables at your designated location.  I love that each week is a mystery and we work around whatever we get.  The farm we signed on with is Early Morning Farm and it is certified organic.

This was what came in last week's box.  There were carrots, Swiss chard, bok choi, parsley, red leaf lettuce, arugula, leaf lettuce, snap peas, sunchokes and spinach.  I think that's everything.  We pick our box for this week up tomorrow and all we have left is some arugula.  Not bad right?  We are eating our veggies, that's for sure.

One thing that I really liked about the whole CSA set up is trying things that I may not have otherwise thought to try.  Like sunchokes for example.  These gnarly little rooty gingerish looking things are pretty darned delish.  We had them roasted last week (with other root vegetables) and tonight we had them sauteed and tossed with spinach. Yum.

Each week we get an e-mail from the farm telling us what we're getting and what they're up to.  This weekend they had an open house so we decided to check it out.  Now we know exactly where all that chard is coming from!

And we are excited about all these tomatoes in the works (and there are a ton of them!). 

And as a little bonus, we also got to check out a couple of visiting llamas.  They make for some seriously soft yarn.

Since the farm is so close to Ithaca, we decided to spend the first part of the day checking out the gorges and waterfalls.  We had a blast and got in a pretty good workout to boot!

The kids were really into all the falls and determined to go swimming despite the 64 degree water temps.  Me, not so much.

Phoebe even braved the diving board at Robert Treman State Park.  She liked that about as much as Space Mountain in Disney World (aka, not a fan, won't be doing that again).

During the first half of the weekend we went berry picking near Otisco Lake.  It was a beautiful day out there.

We picked a bunch of strawberries.  They were a little on the small side but really, really tasty.  Some of the best I've had.  We did have to work for them though (maybe we were a little late).

Here's a little sampling of our haul (along with a lovely bouquet picked for me by Phoebe).  So all in all it was a great weekend, we saw some sights, learned new things, and got some serious exercise (I was pretty sore by bedtime last night!).  Next time I'll fill you in on what we've been doing with all this great food!