Red Fire Farm CSA — Week 6

Well, it looks like I’m not the only one picking early tomatoes! This week’s CSA share had two nice tomatoes in it…. granted, they were greenhouse grown, but a tomato is still a tomato! And a small fennel bulb! Mmmm… shaved fennel… looking forward to it!

These were the goods today:

Week 6 Share:

1 fennel bulb
1 1/4 lbs zucchini or summer squash
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch sweet onions
1 head raddichio
1 head leaf lettuce
1 bunch basil
1 bunch cilantro
2 tomatoes
1 pepper

The aroma from the basil and cilantro had me drooling in the car on the way home and I just loved the beautiful puper color of the pepper. I’m putting the tomatoes on the counter for a few days, to encourage them to ripen a bit more.  They look pretty good though!

I can’t wait to try these onions. As simple as onions seem, every onion we have gotten from RFF so far has been amazing! Maybe it’s just that they are fresh rather than cured? I don’t know… but I do know that I cannot get enough of them. They smell incredibe.

Anyone have a good recipe for raddichio??? I’ve never really done much with it. All suggestions welcome!

Definitely one of the smallest fennel bulbs I’ve seen… which is a shame, because I love fennel! But that’s okay, I’m not complaining. More carrots and zucchini have me thinking extra hard about what to do with them. Maybe it’s time to do some baking… I never bake. I love zucchini bread though and my mom has a killer recipe. Hmmm… so many possibilities.

I grabbed a quick photo of the pickup location today… to give you an idea of how it works:

Basically, as I mentioned in my “What is a CSA” post, the first thing you do is check in with one of the volunteer’s who manages the location. Once done, you look at the white board, see what’s on today’s list and then go around, table to table, grabbing your items in the order that they appear. Some items are designated by quantity and some by weight. There is always a scale and extra plastic bags to aid you with this.

It takes all of about 5 minutes (if there’s not a wait) and you’re back on your way home with a grocery bag chock full of fresh veggies!