Giant Puffball Mushroom

Regular readers of this blog know that we subscribed to a CSA this year. Overall, it has not been a great experience as the quantity of the food has been way short of expectations. In addition, there have not been many surprises in the form of food that you can not normally find in a supermarket.

This week was a bit of an exception. We received some slices of a Giant Puffball Mushroom. Now, if you are thinking what the heck is a giant puffball mushroom, well I was thinking the same thing. I was a little worried that the farmer was trying to kill us all. See the picture above that I found online of what one of these mushrooms looks like. Clearly it is giant.

When eaten, it tastes like a combination between mushroom and tofu with the texture of compressed marshmallows. You can slice it and cook giant slabs. I cooked my slab like a piece of beef, adding some balsalmic vinegar, rosemary, salt, and pepper. It was quite delicious and made for a very interesting meal.

CSA - week 3

The amount of vegetables we are getting in our CSA has jumped this week. It is about what I would expect at this time of the year. My biggest complaint is that the portions of each vegetable are rather small. This week in our basket we found:

- Italian herb bread

- Millet honey muffins

- Kale

- Arugula

- Radish

- Swiss Chard

- Two head of lettuce

- Bok Choy

CSA - Week 2

This week in the CSA our yield increased a bit. It is still far below what I would consider a good deal, but this is to be expected this early in the season. One really positive aspect of the vegetables we are receiving is that they are very fresh and taste much better than what you get in the market. I have been really impressed by the taste and the quality.

This week in the CSA, we received:
- radish
- beet greens
- kale
- tiny bok choy
- mullberries
- rhubarb stalks
- loaf of chibatta bread

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

Elly and I decided to subscribe to a CSA this year. For those of you not familiar with a CSA, the concept is pretty simple. You pay an upfront fee at the beginning of the summer to a farm. In return you receive a weekly basket of food that they produced for around 20 weeks over the growing season. There are various types of CSAs, such as veggie, fruit, bread, meat. Usually, the harvest is light in the beginning and at the end, and heavy in the middle. You share the risk with the farmer that if it is a bad year you get less, but if it is a good year you make out well. Our experience in past years has financially worked out really well, especially since we eat tons of vegetables.

We subscribed to a veggie and bread CSA with Frijolito Farm. This is an urban farm that is run by a small family. They are trying to minimize ecological impact by growing vegetables in the city near the consumers. It is their first year running a CSA, which makes this a little riskier. In return for $575, we will be receiving a weekly basket with vegetables and a fresh loaf of bread.

We were part of a CSA a few years ago when we lived in Pittsburgh. It is fun because you never really know when you are going to get each week. We were forced to try new vegetables and really expanded our horizons when trying to figure out how to use some uncommon items.

This past Friday we picked up our first basket. As expected, it was pretty light. It contained beet greens, radishes, mulberrys, and a loaf of Italian bread.