Southside CSA

SOKIO – We are a family of three—Amanda, Mauricio and newborn Paulo who is just twelve weeks old. We pick up full vegetable, berry, orchard, and egg shares every week, and a meat share every other week. We’ve also bought large quantities of maple syrup through Southside CSA.

We joined the CSA last year, and it transformed our lives in an amazing way! We were planning our wedding celebration which happened in August, and also got pregnant a couple of months into the season. The incredibly delicious produce, fruit and meat nourished me throughout my pregnancy (we continued with the winter shares as well), and after sampling quite a lot of meat in the first few months, we ended up special ordering some lamb, steaks and sausages for our wedding reception.

It’s been fun to come back to the Woods for pickups on a weekly basis, and a great way for some of our friends who are also members to get to know Paulo.

 This last week the first strawberries arrived, and that’s definitely a hallelujah feeling for me!

I was also reminded of how bountiful the shares can be as the summer kicks in—we definitely need to clear some room in our freezer! We bought a small counter height freezer last year to store all of the meat and berries we were getting, and it’s been wonderful to feast off of last season all year long. We still have some blueberries and beets from last summer and some vegetables from the winter share.

 

This one accompanied some meat and sausage we had in the freezer from an earlier pickup. We’re trying to avoid eating lots of bread, so we’ve been adding tortillas to our plates more often than not.

Here is a light pasta lunch made with machas, which are a type of clam from Chile that we bring back in cans when we visit Mauricio’s family, and with fresh garlic.

This was brunch one day with a ground pork hash from our meat collection in the freezer. Mauricio made an amazing salsa verde, which adorns the eggs, with the garlic and cilantro from this week. I could eat that with everything!

After a few days of enjoying the fresh strawberries, I decided to make a sauce with the rest of them. It works really well with ice cream, and I recycled one of the tomato puree jars from the winter share to store it.

 Paulo had a bit of feeding frenzy this weekend, which means he nursed on and off for many hours, and I’ve been feeling really depleted. We decided to defrost an asparagus soup I’d made a couple of weeks ago with the enormous collection of asparagus we’d received. We make our own stock from beef bones, which makes anything delicious and incredibly nourishing. Between this and another round of ice cream with strawberry sauce, I hope to get my strength back!