What is it?

Here are pictures of the final melon from the Inland Empire CSA. What is it??

Whatever it was, it was sweet and delicious. The watermelon and oranges were also especially sweet. Tomatoes were too ripe and several went bad in a couple of days.

I finished all of the produce this week from the CSA except for a few lemons and an orange.

Inland Empire CSA: Mystery Week 5 box

It turns out I had another box waiting for me from the Inland Empire CSA. I'm not sure what happened or why I have another box, but I'm not complaining!

This time, the note under my name said "no grapefruit" and there was ZERO grapefruit in the box.

Week 5's box:

• 1 bag arugula (6.25 oz)
• fingerling potatoes (1 lb 1/2 oz), not pictured
• heirloom tomatoes (2 lb 4.75 oz)
• 6 round zucchini (2 lb 5.75 oz)
• romaine head (9.75 oz)
• mystery melon (2 lb 6.5 oz)
• part of a large seeded watermelon (3 lb 12.5 oz), not pictured
• 2 ears corn (1 lb 9 oz)
• 3 lemons (10.75 oz)
• 5 oranges (1 lb 11 oz)
• 1 eggplant (9.75 oz)

I should be able to use all of the contents this week... but I'm wondering what I'll do with all of the zucchini...

Inland Empire CSA: Wrap up

This week marks the end of the 4-week trial with the Inland Empire CSA. We had a lot of food to finish up from the BBQ we hosted last weekend, so I didn't do as well finishing last week's CSA contents. I still have an apple, 1/2 bag of arugula, the watermelon, the green beans, and 2 grapefruits (surprised?). I plan on taking this week "off" and officially starting the next CSA next Sunday.

Since this was my first CSA, I don't have much to compare it to, but here are some things I liked and didn't like about the Inland Empire CSA:

Yay

• a good amount of fruits and veggies for me (one person, voracious produce eater), although I did supplement by buying greens for the week
• ability to swap out items I didn't want at the farmer's market

Blah

• cost seems higher when I compared it to other CSAs
• most of the produce needed to be eaten immediately (e.g. the tomatoes were almost over-ripe and would get moldy in a day)
• too much grapefruit, but more importantly, they ignored their own message to not put grapefruit in my box!

Inland Empire CSA: Week 4

We had a BBQ at our house on Sunday so Kameran picked up my final box from the Inland Empire CSA at the farmer's market. Obviously I didn't trade anything out. I was a bit annoyed to find 3 grapefruits in the box again, especially because I noticed that they had a noted under my named label: Note: No grapefruit

Apparently the person packing the box did not read that part, or didn't care!

Week 4's box:

• heirloom tomatoes (1 lb 2.5 oz) - probably more than double this, because I had cut some up for the BBQ before I weighed them
• bag of arugula (8.75 oz)
• small bag of green beans (8 oz)
• small watermelon (5 lb 3.25 oz)
• 3 large grapefruits (2 lb 4 oz)
• 8 oranges (2 lb 14.25 oz)
• 4 yellow squash (13.5 oz)
• 2 small green bell peppers (5.75 oz)
• 2 green apples (9.25 oz)
• 2 onions, brown (10.25 oz)
• 3 small heads garlic (2.5 oz)
• 1 bag fingerling potatoes (15.25 oz)
• 2 melons, not sure what kind (2 lb 11.25 oz)
• 1 small melon with green stripes, not sure what kind (14 oz)
• 2 small heads of garlic

I did pretty well with week 3's box, finishing almost everything except for the onions and garlic. Those keep longer though so I'm not worried about using them up.

Inland Empire CSA: Weeks 2 and 3

Since I'm already in week 3 of the Inland Empire CSA, I'll do a recap and post what was in each box.

Week 2's box:

• heirloom tomatoes (3 lb 5.5 oz)
• 3 large grapefruits
• oranges (1 lb 2.25 oz)
• fingerling potatoes (12.75 oz)
• 2 small heads of garlic
• 3 small passionfruits (3.5 oz)
• 3 small onions, brown (6 oz)
• 1 Thai? eggplant (5.5 oz)
• bag of arugula (10.5 oz)
• melon (not sure what type) (2 lb 1.5 oz)
• bunch of radishes, which I swapped out for a bunch of collards

I did pretty well with Week 1's box and was able to eat everything in it. The only thing I didn't particularly enjoy were the radishes. I don't normally buy them and were at a loss at what to do with them. I tried putting them in a salad but found they had too much bite for me. I sauteed them a bit and they tasted "okay" but not wonderful. I ended up giving the rest away to a coworker who loves radishes. However, I was able to eat the radish greens. I sauteed those up with some cauliflower and made a curry out of it.

I had some lazy lunches and dinners (i.e. went out to eat) during week 2 so I wasn't able to use everything up. By the end of week 2, I still had 1.5 grapefruits, 1 passionfruit, 1 onion, the eggplant, and 1/2 of the arugula.

week 3 box

Today I picked up the box for week 3. There were 3 large grapefruits in it again. I like grapefruit and the ones I had were very sweet, but there is only so much of it I can eat! I swapped those out for several bunches of green leaf lettuce and one small bunch of Swiss chard.

Week 3's box:

• fingerling potatoes (1 lb)
• 4 brown onions (1 lb 6 oz)
• bunch of collards (8.25 oz)
• bunch of radishes (1 lb)
• heirloom tomatoes (2 lb 1.5 oz)
• green leaf lettuce (1 lb)
• swiss chard (11.5 oz)
• yellow crookneck squash (1 lb 2.75 oz)
• 3 cucumbers (1 lb 1.5 oz)
• 4 Thai eggplants (8.75 oz)
• melon, not sure what kind? (2 lb, .75 oz)
• melon, not sure what kind (2 lb 6.25 oz)

Looks like I have to figure out something to do with the Thai eggplants. And what to do with the radishes?!

Inland Empire CSA: Week 1

The day I signed up with Inland Empire CSA, one of the workers was able to make a box up for me and I took one home. The four week trial for a small, weekly box costs $140 ($10 is a one-time processing/joining fee) which works out to $35/box. One feature I like about this CSA is that they allow you to swap out things you may not want if you pick your box up at the farmer's market.

Week 1's box contained:

• basket of figs
• salad greens (9 oz)
• collards, 2 bunches (12.5 oz)
• 1 large grapefruit
• bunch of carrots (11.25 oz)
• 1 cucumber
• bunch of green onions (6 oz)
• zucchinis (1 lb 5 oz)
• summer squash (9.5 oz)
• 2 melons (not sure what type these were), (2 lb 2.75 oz)
• brown onions (8 oz)
• 1 bunch radishes (8.25 oz)
• heirloom tomatoes (1 lb 9.75 oz)

I know it's "type-A"-ish that I actually weighed everything but it's the engineer in me! How else am I going to be able to compare?