Local April: Week 4
We made it! Week 4. Honestly, this has been great and I have LOVED not having to step into a huge chain grocery store for a month. Here’s what we have going on for week 4. I once again planned out our meals taking into consideration: what came in our CSA box; what we had left in the fridge; and what we had in the pantry. I also supplemented with a regional farm online order system known as Veggie Go through the Three River Farmers Alliance. They source exclusively from farms in New England - everything from greens to meat. The order window opens each Monday and closes on Wednesday. The goodies arrived on Sunday!
Here’s what we got in the CSA box (Veggie Go info below):
Apples (Brookdale Farm, NH; 7 total)
Chives (Siena Farms, MA; 1 bunch)
Red Beets (Pete’s Greens, VT; 8 total)
Carrots (Siena Farms, MA; 7 total)
White + Purple Daikon (Siena Farms, MA; 4 total)
Gold Potatoes (Sparrow Arc Farm, VT; 13 total)
Shiitake Mushrooms (Siena Farms, MA; 1 box)
Rustic Cornmeal (Penn Yan, NY; 1 package)
Onions (Hepworth Farms, NY; 2 total)
Ancient Grains Loaf (Iggy’s Bread, MA)
Celeriac (Siena Farms, MA; 1 )
Spinach (Siena Farms, MA; 3 small bunches)
Kale Shoots (Siena Farms, MA; 1 bunch)
Scroll down for what else I ended up buying and to see what we made! (Pictured below: CSA box goodies; goat cheese; and other Three River Farmers Alliance delivery items).
For this week, I supplemented with some local meat, cheese, and produce from Three River Farmers Alliance. Here’s what we got:
Fresh Feta Cheese (Huckins Farm, 10 ounce tub)
Tomatillo Salsa (Kitchen Garden Farm, 11 ounces)
Bone-In Chicken Thighs (Lilac Hedge Farm, 1-2 pounds)
Spicy Chicken Sausage (Lilac Hedge Farm, 1 pound)
Winter Gem Salad Mix (Queen’s Greens, 8 ounce bag)
Cilantro (Stout Oak Farm, 2 ounces)
Sunshine Micro Blend (Stout Oak Farm, 2 ounces)
Chevre, Plain (Blue Ledge Farm, 4.5 ounce tub)
Tortillas (Vida Tortilla, NH grown and made, 1 bag)
Breakfasts for the week (varied by day):
Hard boiled egg + apple (a few days of this).
Oats with milk and applesauce (a few days of this).
Lunches for the week:
Remaining turkey and spinach burgers from last week (From “It’s All Good” cookbook - this recipe is the closest I could find online) + a side salad with roasted beets and feta.
BBQ chicken with salad.
Snack: applesauce muffins (still working my way through all that applesauce I made weeks ago!). Recipe is a riff on applesauce cake from “Now and Again” cookbook by Julia Turshen. Lots of recipes online if you’re curious.
Dinners for the week:
Sunday: Appetizer - crispy air fryer tofu bites; Dinner -Leftover food from the weekend away.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: giant layered enchilada bake with the leftover beans from last week + some potatoes, some random frozen veg from the freezer, all the remaining spinach from last week; tomatillo salsa; and lots of Cabot cheddar cheese.
Thursday: savory polenta bowls with tofu, mushrooms, miso-maple turnips. A riff on this recipe (which was recommended in the weekly CSA email!).
Friday: leftovers from the night before + fried egg on each bowl.
Saturday: Pasta (making from scratch) with pesto (from last week’s delivery) and grilled spicy chicken sausages (from this week’s delivery).
Curious how much all this cost? See below! (Pictured below: the massive enchilada bake; tofu sliced up;
GRAND TOTAL for the week (on a per person basis) — $73.63, which comes out to about $3.06 per meal (got about 24 meal plates out of this).
And that’s a wrap! Will I continue to incorporate elements of local purchasing? Absolutely. I have truly never been happier to not have to schlep to a huge grocery store on the weekends. I’ve loved tapping into creativity and seeing what I can come up with. In terms of pricing, I think there are ways I could get it down even lower — BUT, it’s about on par with what we used to spend on weekly trips to the big grocery stores (if not even a little less).
Another huge benefit of this experiment has been the satisfaction of knowing almost exactly where everything came from — and knowing that it was from within about 200 miles. I love that we are able to support small regional farms and still eat absolutely delicious, healthy meals. In terms of time, it does take a little more planning. For me, it’s a fun thing. But for so many others this time and access to up-front funds for a CSA are still far out of reach.
I hope we can all strive for a food system one day that everyone can access, and one that allows small farms to continue to thrive.