Suzie's Farm: Week 6, final week

I picked up my final week's CSA box from Suzie's Farm on Saturday. It contained the following:

• 1 head lettuce (8.5 oz)
• yellow beans (13.25 oz)
• bunch of carrots with greens attached (10.25 oz)
• bag of spinach (4.5 oz)
• bag of arugula (6 oz)
• sweet yellow snap peas (9 oz)
• bunch of white turnips (13.5 oz)
• 1 small Romanesco cauliflower, with lots of leaves attached (1 lb 14 oz)
• small crowns of broccoli (11.75 oz)
• container of pea greens (4 oz box), originally supposed to be sunflower greens
• 2 small Sweet Pepper Golden treasure (3 oz)

Can I make anything with the pretty greens attached to the carrots?

I mostly finished everything from last week's box except for the squash and herb mixes. Lots of salads and soups.

Suzie's Farm: Week 5, "Thanksgiving" box

I picked up my "Thanksgiving" box (it was labeled as such) this weekend from the Poway market. Unfortunately, since it was already Saturday, I didn't get to use the items for Thanksgiving. Some of the items like the herb bouquet would have been nice to have. The Thanksgiving box contained:

• butternut squash, in place of the pumpkin (1 lb 12.5 oz)
• spring raab, 1 bunch (11 oz)
• broccoli (8.5 oz)
• bag of arugula (8.25 oz)
• bag of chopped spinach (6.25 oz)
• purple beans (13.5 oz)
• sugar snap peas (13.5 oz)
• 2 medium acorn squash (2 lb 5.25 oz)
• 2 large brown onions (1 lb 10.25 oz)
• bag of pear tomatoes (14 oz)
• wheatberry sprouts (6 oz container)
• herb mix (rosemary, thyme, sage) (1.25 oz)

The enclosed note from the farm raves about the "pumpkin pie" pumpkin we were supposed to get in the box, but it looks like they ran out and replaced it with a butternut squash. That was disappointing since I was looking forward to trying the pumpkin. No fruit again, but that's okay because I am loving all the greens this week.

Box Mix-up

There was no Suzie's Farm Week 4 box posted because I accidentally forgot to pick my box up last week. I had changed my pick-up location to Poway, then gone on vacation for a week, and promptly forgotten that it was still set to Poway. I thought I was picking it up at Hillcrest and fully intended on going there on Sunday. On Saturday afternoon, my error dawned on me and I hurriedly called the farm, leaving them a message and asking whether I could pick it up on Sunday. No answer. I even went to the HFM on Sunday to ask if there was anything they could do. The worker in the booth recommended I sent them an email. I did this when I got home and received a reply on Monday stating that I was out of luck. :(

I know this is my own fault for not picking up the box, but I this was still upsetting and annoying.

Suzie's Farm: Week 3

Since I wasn't able to make it to the Hillcrest Farmer's Market this morning, I arranged to have my box picked up at the Poway Farmer's Market. I like that the Suzie's Farm CSA website allows you to easily switch the location. I had never been to the Poway market before and although it is smaller than Hillcrest, there is still a good number of fruit and veggie booths and not a lot of craft ones (a plus!).

This week's box contained:

• red russian kale (5.25 oz)
• cabbage cone (1 lb 5.5 oz)
• basket of serrano and cherry bomb peppers (6 oz)
• more zucchini (2 lb 7.5 oz)
• 2 bunches onion purplette (4.5 oz)
• 1 bunch parsley (2.25 oz)
• 2 golden treasure peppers (4.5 oz)
• 2 red bell peppers (5.75 oz)
• 1 red kabocha squash (1 lb 13.25 oz)
• 1 bunch radish (8.5 oz)
• pea shoots (4 oz)
• cannellini beans (shelled weight = 4.75 oz)

I'm not sure if I'm not trying as hard to use my produce (possible - I haven't been cooking as much this week) or if Suzie's Farm is giving me more food than the Inland Empire CSA (possible - I was getting their "small" box), but I have a lot of leftover produce from last week. I still have the zucchini (with more zucchini this week!), 1/2 of the onion purplette (I'm finding it hard to figure out what to do with these), radish greens, and some peppers.

I am enjoying the selection so far (with the exception of maybe the 3 weeks of onion purplette and zucchini), and also that most of the box is VEGETABLES! The only other complaint is what to do with all the "hot" peppers. As a person who doesn't eat hot peppers, I have had a basket of them every week. I usually use serrano peppers in salsa, but I don't know if I can use a whole basket of them. And the cherry bombs? Are those hot?? I haven't seen those before. Maybe Maddie the crazy hot-pepper eating dog wants to try one?

Suzie's Farm: Week 2

Sorry, it's been a really busy week so no picture this week or weighted values, but I can at least provide the list of items in this week's box:

Suzie's Farm - Week 2 box contents:

• acorn squash, 2 small
• 1 bunch mint
• 6 small zucchini
• 2 large brown onions
• bag of small tomatoes
• two small heads of fennel
• mixed sweet peppers (golden treasure, red pimiento)
• head of lettuce
• basket of habeneros
• red russian kale
• bunch of radishes
• 2 bunches of onion purplette

I used a lot of last week's items to make chili for Halloween.  I'm still working through the fennel and acorn squash.  And the habeneros?  I took those into work and didn't dare try them myself.  I was coughing just chopping jalapenos the other day.

Suzie's Farm: Week 1

This week I begin a trial run in the next CSA I'm trying as part of the CSA Smackdown:

Suzie's Farm

Suzie's Farm doesn't offer a "trial" period so the shortest subscription you can purchase is 6 weeks. Since there is no trial period, there is also no pesky "new joining/registration" fee that some others have.

Reading some reviews on Yelp, I saw that there were some complaints about the boxes containing too many vegetables and not enough fruit, but for me, this is probably a good thing. :) They also do not allow any substitution of items as Inland Empire did. However, their prices are cheaper. I was on a small box at the Inland Empire CSA for almost $35/box and the small box at Susie's is $18/box. Since the regular size box was only $25 (still less than Inland Empire's small box), I went ahead and signed up for the large box. It was $150 for 6 weeks ($25/box).

I picked up my first box yesterday at the Hillcrest Farmer's Market. The boxes are all in the back of a big truck and they expect you to bring your own bags, transfer the produce to your bags, and break down your box. I checked off my name and put all of the produce into my 2 bags. They were pretty heavy bags when I was done! One nice thing I noticed is that there is a printed list of everything in the box so I know exactly what I'm getting. Another nice thing is that a couple of recipes related to the box contents were also included:

Here is what week 1's box contained:

• 4 cucumber (2 lb 6.75 oz)
• 3 green peppers (11.25 oz)
• tomatoes (1 lb 3.5 oz)
• 2 brown onions (1 lb 14 oz)
• sweet pepper mix (7.25 oz)
• 1 butternut squash (1 lb 7.5 oz)
• 1 bunch mint (1.5 oz)
• 2 small heads of butter lettuce (9.25 oz)
• 1 bunch celery (10.5 oz)
• purple onions with the greens on (11.75 oz)
• 8 zucchinis (1 lb 11 oz)
• basket of jalapenos (8 oz)
• 1 green melon (don't know what kind) (7 lb .5 oz)
• dragon beans (8 oz)

The interesting items in the bunch were the dragon beans:

What am I going to do with these?

Otherwise, I'm thinking this box screams CHILI.