February 15th, 2012 by Margie

February 15, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

I hope you all had a nice Valentine’s yesterday…I find the best way to enjoy holidays is to have little expectations.  This leaves me open to life’s small gifts in the day and not loaded with ideas that might disappoint me.  My holiday was quiet and simple but a tasty vegan chocolate cake from Sevananda did get delivered to me so between that and a big bowl of shredded bok choy, cilantro and noodles, life was good!  We have more bok choy this week but this time it is from Woodland Gardens in Athens.  They also have harvested arugula for us.

Steve Miller has brought us green onions, brussel sprout greens and the fresh tasty parsley for this week’s herb.  The onions are not quite as firm and green as they have been.  These will still be great for cooking but the freeze this week got to the crop.  We won’t see them for a while.  Always remember if you are busy like me, it’s great to just throw your parsley or cilantro in the chopper with some olive oil, lemon or lime and other spices and store in the fridge.  I use it during the week on everything that way and the leaves don’t go limp in the vegetable drawer.  We also have great treats from our neighboring farmers this week.  Uncle Matt’s in Florida has brought us tangerines!  I only wish I had some strawberries left from last week – tangerines, strawberries and yogurt is my favorite fruit salad.  We also each have a head of cauliflower and a head of broccoli. The broccoli is a bit stemmy but remember these can be great sautéed right along with the flowers.

Below is your list of goodies:

Brussel Sprout leaves – Steve Miller Farm

Green onions – Steve Miller Farm

Parsley – Steve Miller Farm

Tangerines – Uncle Matt’s Family Farm

Broccoli –

Cauliflower -

Bok Choy – Woodland Gardens

Arugula – Woodland Gardens

Since our groundhog told us we were still in for winter, I guess we can be ready for more cold days to affect our crops.  These next few weeks we will see a few items from different farmers as we work with all the organic growers around us to get through to see our first spring crops.  For now, stay warm, eat well, and show love to the ones around you daily rather than waiting for a holiday.  I show my love with veggie lasagnas!    As always, remember I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Gratefully,

Margie Thorpe

February 9th, 2012 by Becky Striepe

Margie has some super tasty-looking recipes for a big, romantic Valentine’s Day meal that will use lots of the fresh veggies from our baskets! What better way to show your sweetie you care than to include some of these veggies that our farmers grew with so much love and care, right?

This tasty menu would even be pretty easy to veganize! Just leave out the cheese, go for olive oil instead of butter, and you should be good to go! Check out the recipes here:
Read the rest of this entry »

cut flowers, flowers, local food, Valentine's day, Valentine's day flowers

February 8th, 2012 by Margie

February 8, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

This week we are focused on the annual holiday of sweethearts – Yes, next Tuesday is Valentine’s Day and for the occasion we found beautiful organic strawberries from Florida.  It will be two more months before we start to enjoy berries from our own GA farms but this is prime time with our neighbors in Florida.  There are a couple of recipes posted this week to help you think of a menu for the loved ones in your life, one is a great salad using strawberries.  There is always the ever-delicious dessert of strawberries dipped in a bit of melted dark chocolate!  Oh my!

Woodland Gardens in Athens has given us the beautiful containers of microgreens.  If this is your first time enjoying these, I think you will be in for a surprise.  I love using them on sandwiches and have a weakness for egg salad with microgreens but they can be eaten with almost anything.  Sometimes you can taste or see the tiny baby chard in the greens.  These are packed with nutrients at this stage!  We have cilantro from Woodland as well.  I know it is two weeks in a row of cilantro but we got the bok choy this week and I could not see us cooking with bok choy and green onions and not having the cilantro or commonly called “Chinese parsley” to throw in the mix.  I have also posted a recipe to bake a stuffed acorn squash and this can be completely vegetarian so check it out.

Below is your list of goodies:

Brussel Sprout leaves – Steve Miller Farm

Green onions – Steve Miller Farm

Arugula – Steve Miller Farm

Strawberries – Wish Farms, Plant City

Acorn Squash – Bryson Family Farm

Bok Choy – Organic Country Farm

Micro-greens – Woodland Gardens

Cilantro – Woodland Gardens

I like to think that everyday could be a sweetheart’s day if I choose to pay homage to someone I love just a little bit each day.  My dogs got some extra special love this morning before leaving the house.  You can bet that the baskets will be getting all my love this afternoon!  I hope you like your local harvest for this week and if you find an extra special way to treat any of the items, always remember to share your ideas with us on the website or our facebook site.  For now, enjoy this beautiful weather and remember I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Gratefully,

Margie Thorpe

February 1st, 2012 by Becky Striepe

Meet Brian, who’s going to be helping out as our farm manager this month!

Margie is taking evening classes this month, as she gets her home ready for a foster child who’s coming to live with her! The fabulous Brian is stepping in to help make sure we still get our lovely baskets of fresh veggies. He rode out to Serenbe and to Steve Miller’s farm today, and starting next week he’ll be picking up our veggies for us while Margie’s in class. As you can see in the photo above, Brian loves those veggies!

Margie often finds little leftovers in the empty baskets she brings us. Sometimes, it’s a stray turnip or maybe some leaves that escaped a bundle of greens. Other times, there are more interesting leftovers in the baskets…. Read the rest of this entry »

Atlanta CSA, CSA, Georgia CSA, Georgia farms, local food, local vegetables

February 1st, 2012 by Margie

February 1st, 2012

Dear Vegetable Husband Customer,

It is February 1^st and I am running the air-conditioning to pick up our food.  Weird!  This wacky Georgia weather has speeded the growing process so that many of our winter crops have already grown and gone to seed.  Today you will notice that your collards from Serenbe are the entire plant harvested for us, rather than just the leaves.  This means they are ready to plow under and plant a spring crop.  Normally the collards are around much longer.  We also have the broccoli leaves again.  Try to notice how they differ from your collard leaves.  I love both but I can almost eat the broccoli leaves raw shredded as salad!

The sweet potatoes are from Steve Miller Farm.  He also harvested the delicate green onions for us again.  With the green onions and this week’s cilantro, I am seeing a taco night in my near future.  I wonder if I could make sunchoke and onion tacos?  As you might guess, we still have to borrow an item or two from a neighboring state farm.  This week we have celery and navel oranges from two wonderful organic growers in Florida.  The oranges are sweet and large.  I hope you enjoy.  Last week I was disappointed by the grape tomatoes I had.  Let me know if yours were better.  For now, I will look for other choices for us.  Remember early spring strawberries are right around the corner!

Below is your list of goodies:

Sunchokes – Serenbe Farm

Collards – Serenbe Farm

Green Onions – Steve Miller’s Farm

Celery – Bryson Farm

Sweet potatoes – Steve Miller’s Farm

Broccoli Greens with flowers – Steve Miller’s Farm

Red Navel Oranges – Uncle Matt’s Farm

Cilantro – Steve Miller’s Farm

We are working hard to add some great new treats to our veggie experience in 2012.  You will see announcements in the next couple of weeks in your letter as well as on the website so keep reading.  We want to make it even easier for all of us to keep eating seasonally, and enjoying the process.  Part of that is knowing what to do with the food and having the items on hand to use along with the vegetables.  Would a pantry list for each season help you?  How about a menu-list each month with recipes?  Let’s keep chatting and I will keep you posted but please remember, I am always happy to TALK FOOD!

Margie Thorpe