Quick, local meals

Monday, August 04, 2008

London broil grilled rare, grilled zucchini and eggplant tossed with basil, rosemary and thyme from the garden, and a fresh corn salad made an excellent, quick local meal.

The corn salad, made with corn purchased at the Roxborough Farmer’s Market, is a low effort way to use leftover corn on the cob. Just slice it off the ears, combine with tomato, basil and onion and toss with a vinaigrette.

London Broil, Meadow Run Farm, 70 miles
zucchini, Red Earth Farm-75 miles
eggplant, Red Earth Farm-75 miles
corn, Lancaster County- 75 miles
tomatoes- Red Earth Farm- 75 miles
onion, Red Earth Farm- 75 miles
basil, rosemary, thyme, my garden- 0 miles

Not local: olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.

A cutlet to spare

Sunday, August 03, 2008

I’ve been trying to eat more vegetarian meals lately.  One thing that becomes obvious when you’re writing about your food intake is just exactly how much meat you’re eating!  And it’s not that I have problems with eating meat - but I feel like maybe I just eat a little too much for my own good.  There are both health and environmental reasons for eating less meat, both of which I am conscious.  And really, it’s so easy to take advantage of the huge amounts of gorgeous locally grown produce in season right now.

Even though I’ve been reducing my meat consumption, it’s not like I’m ever going to be a vegetarian.  I happen to think cows and ducks are pretty tasty, and I have no moral qualms about eating them (veal and foie gras are OK with me, too, for the record).  Since I try to stick to locally grown meat that is ethically and sustainably grown, I worry less about the moral and environmental reasons.  And again, I really like meat.  But this is not a love song about beef, chicken, or lamb - it’s a love song to the vegetarian meal I ate last night.

I made some breaded eggplant cutlets a few weeks ago that I prepped and froze.  Usually I buy up eggplants at some point and make tons of them for over the Winter - they’re great to have on hand for a quick dinner, and they’re easy to make.  I think the most important part is the prep: slice up the eggplant, salt it, and press it a colander for an hour.  The salt draws out the moisture and gives it a meatier, more dense texture.  Dip the eggplant into a bit of egg white, dredge in breadcrumbs, and then bake at 450 degress for about 10 minutes.  Let the cutlets cool and then layer them on wax paper, pop them in a properly labeled freezer bag and freeze them.  Reheating is a snap: bake at 350 degrees for about 10 or 15 minutes.  You can make sandwiches, eggplant parmesan, whatever - all on the fly.

Last night I heated them up and just threw a couple slices of salted heirloom tomatoes on top, and served with sauteed swiss chard with parmesan and new potato and parsley salad.  It was a great dinner, and I didn’t miss the meat at all.

I was also pretty excited about the potato and parsley salad.  Last week’s CSA share included all these super tiny, marble-sized Yukon Gold potatoes, and a few weeks ago I pulled about a dozen of the same potatoes out of my garden (interestingly, I did not grow potatoes this year - they were just leftovers from last year’s potato experiment that went horribly wrong).  So it was just thrilling to find something to do with such tiny potatoes, and it was a great use of the huge amounts of parsley growing like crazy in my garden.

Where it all came from:

eggplant, Lancaster Farm Fresh - 100 miles
egg, Natural Acres - 100 miles
breadcrumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
tomatoes, Urban Girls - 29 miles
potatoes, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles and my garden - 0 miles
parsley, my garden - 0 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
swiss chard, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles and my garden - 0 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles

not local: olive oil, salt, and pepper

Using up all that squash

This Summer has been one of the busiest for me I can ever remember...so much so that it’s putting a damper on the amount of time I have to cook and preserve.  Part of this is a lack of variety in my CSA share, but here it is August and I haven’t frozen anything for the Winter saved for a bit of spinach and swiss chard.  Last year by this time I had vast amounts of corn, beets, beans, and roasted peppers frozen, as well as lots of tomato sauce canned up.  Hope springs eternal that I’ll be able to catch up by the end of the month.

Even though this Summer seems to be passing by at the speed of light, I was able to cook at least a couple of local meals this past week.

This past Monday was a day off from work for me.  I tend to have breakfast every day, but it’s usually something like a bagel I pick up on the way to work.  Since I found myself at home with quite a few squash, I decided to make scrambled eggs with shredded yellow squash, collard pesto, parmesan cheese, and chives.  It was pretty delicious, and a very nice way to prepare myself to see the new X-Files movie (which was slightly disappointing - the movie, not the scrambled eggs).

eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
chives, my garden - 0 miles
pesto - 0 -100 miles

My second meal also featured summer squash (can you sense a pattern here)?  I broke out my mandoline to slice up yellow squash thinly, and then breaded and baked the slices.  I served these up with a bit of parmesan and some lacinato kale.

egg white, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
lacinato kale, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles

I still have more yellow squash and zucchini to use.  It looks like maybe there will be some zucchini ribbons in my future.

CSA Report: Red Earth Farm

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I’ve been slacking on the CSA reports the past few weeks. I’ve spent too much time trying to eat it all with a minimal amount of cooking. I’ve been eating

Walla Walla onions
Red Tropea onions
Cipollini onions
red potatoes
zucchini
cucumbers
summer squash mix
Lacinato Kale
Swiss chard
Red summer crisp lettuce
snap peas
broccoli
beets

and probably a few more things I can’t remember right now.

One of the best hot weather local meals we’ve eaten was grilled Porterhouse steaks with a side of tzatziki potato salad. This potato salad recipe, adapted from the Joy of Cooking, was found when I was searching for an authentic tzatziki recipe. I couldn’t resist- I had all of the ingredients and almost all of them (potatoes, cucumbers, dill, mint and yogurt) were local.

Tzatziki Potato Salad

2 cups plain yogurt or Greek yogurt (Pequea Valley)
2 cucumbers - peeled, seeded and diced (Red Earth Farm)
2 tsp salt divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
fresh ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill (I substituted fennel from Red Earth Farm)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint (my garden)
3 cloves garlic, peeled

2 lbs red potatoes (Red Earth Farm)

For Tzatziki

Drain the yogurt in a colander lined with coffee filters for an hour at room temperature or overnight in the refrigerator. Skip this step if using Greek yogurt which is already thickened.

Toss cucumbers with 1 tsp salt in a colander and drain for an hour or overnight in the refrigerator. Squeeze as much water out of the cucumbers as possible and dry completely with paper towels.

Mash garlic and salt into a paste.

Add olive oil, lemon juice, dill, mint, garlic paste and fresh ground pepper to thickened yogurt mixture. Refrigerate for an hour.

For potatoes:

Cover two pounds of scrubbed red potatoes with cold salted water. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender but firm. Drain and let cool completely. Cut into bite size pieces. Toss with tzatziki. Serve cold or at cool room temperature.

Busy, busy

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Last week was busy, but I was still able to sneak in some seasonal and local eating!  Even better, the meals qualify for the One Local Summer challenge!

Last Sunday I ate up some things I bought at Clark Park market and Headhouse Square market - honey-glazed pork with swiss chard gratin and stuffed zucchini blossoms. I was particularly excited about the zucchini blossoms - not just because I don’t get to eat them too often, but because they served as a vehicle for the garlic scape pesto I recently made.  Hooray!

You know, many of the recipes I’ve seen for zucchini blossoms involve deep-frying.  On a hot, humid day, the last thing I want to eat is something deep-fried.  After looking around for ideas, I finally found a recipe for zucchini blossoms that just calls for a quick saute.  In addition to the garlic scape pesto, I stuffed the flowers with a tiny bit of homemade mozzarella before cooking them and they were really yummy little bites!

Where it all came from:
pork, Lancaster Farm Fresh - 100 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
swiss chard, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
milk, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
zucchini blossoms, Culton Organics - 86 miles
mozzarella, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy milk - 100 miles
pesto

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper

Another meal from last week involved bison burgers.  I’ve never used ground bison before, but googling for bison burger recipes assured me that no special handling was required.  The same thing went into them that goes into regular burgers: egg and a bit of bread crumbs, salt and pepper.  Served up on Wild Flour bakery’s insanely good challah rolls, they were excellent!  To accompany the burgers, I made a salad of cannellini beans, grape tomatoes, basil, and olive oil.

Where it all came from:
bison, Backyard Bison
egg, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
challah rolls, Wild Flour - 23 miles
cannellini beans, Margerum’s - 20 miles
grape tomatoes, Paradise Organics - 49 miles
basil, my garden - 0 miles

not local: olive oil, salt and pepper

Landisdale Farm CSA, week six

In this week’s CSA share from Landisdale Farm we have:

Four yellow summer squash
One pint of cherries
Potatoes (look to be Yellow Finns or some other yellowish potatoes)
Green beans
Two heads of lettuce
Two bunches of collards
Parsley

I’m also growing collard greens in the garden this year, so I guess now is as good a time as any to learn some new ideas for using them.  I’ll be honest: when I think of collard greens, I think of cooked-within-an-inch-of-their-lives collards with smoked pork neck bones.  In other words, your standard “mess of greens”.  And do love good vinegary greens, but there have to be other things to use them for.

After doing a bit of research, I managed to find some amazing ideas for using collards, my favorite of which is collard green and olive pesto.  Apparently, the recipe makes a heap of pesto.  It’s just different enough that it might also make nice holiday gifts when canned.  Sources say that it’s excellent on pasta or for dipping bread with some nice locally made yogurt. 

Other interesting ideas for using collards:

• Collard potato salad
• Creamed collards
• Collard dal

The Perfect BLT

Monday, July 07, 2008

For me, summer’s about the BLT. Not a lot of cooking involved and the better the tomato, the better it tastes.
This one has the last of the oak leaf lettuce from the garden (seeds from Seed Savers Exchange), tomato from Fitler Square farmers market, country French loaf from Versailles bakery (also Fitler Square—they have fantastic and unbelievably reasonably priced pastries as well), and cottage bacon from the Meadow Run Farm Buying Club.

Cottage bacon?? I’d never heard of it before, either.
It’s like a cross between Canadian bacon and regular bacon—nice and meaty, tastes terrific. (Apologies for the poor photo—makes us all appreciate food stylists now, doesn’t it.)

A tale of two meals

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Aside from my holiday blueberry pancakes, I made two other meals this past week that qualify for One Local Summer - meatloaf with fava beans sauted in garlic, honey-roasted carrots, and leftover kale and spelt berries, and chicken with herb roasted potatoes, green beans, and peas. 

The green beans were the real star of this meal - yes, they were very fresh, but I also cooked them in the duck fat I rendered a few weeks ago.  Delicious!

Where it all came from:
chicken, Pennypack Farm - 31 miles
herbs, my garden - 0 miles
potatoes, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
green beans, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
rendered duck fat, from a duck breast from Griggstown Quail Farm, 56 miles
peas, Paradise Organics - 49 miles

not local: salt, pepper, olive oil

Like many of us, I can’t think of fava beans without thinking of Silence of the Lambs.  That movie probably did more for the name recognition of fava beans than anything else in the world!  I picked up the fava beans and peas from Fair Food last week and shelled them on the train home.  The meatloaf was a catch-all for what I had laying around the house - the last of last year’s roasted peppers, garlic scapes, onions.  I do love meatloaf - there’s pretty much nothing more comforting!

Where it all came from:

ground beef
eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
bread crumbs, made from Le Bus bread - 15 miles
roasted peppers, frozen from last year’s CSA - 100 miles
garlic scapes, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
catsup, homemade - 0 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
honey, honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
fava beans, Paradise Organics - 49 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
fennel, my garden - 0 miles
leftover kale and spelt berries

Not local: olive oil, salt, pepper

My kingdom for a gherkin

July is a fantastic month to visit farmer’s markets.  There’s just so much available - tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini are coming into season, there’s tons of fruit, and everything is just beautiful.  A visit to the Headhouse Square Market this morning was too much to resist - and even though I had have a big CSA box full of gorgeous produce and fruit and I was able to get pretty much everything on my grocery list yesterday at Clark Park, I had to buy a few more things that I didn’t really need.

These West Indian Gherkins were available at two different stands, Culton Organics and Yoder’s Heirlooms (I think).  They were just too tempting to pass up, so about a dozen of them came home with me.  West Indian Gherkins are a completely foreign cucumber variety to most of us.  These tinies beauties must be picked before they reach about 1.5 inches long or else they will likely be bitter.  And they are super crisp and very sweet. 

There’s pretty much only one thing you can do with a West Indian Gherkin: pickle it.  I plan to use this recipe.

Sing the blues away

Saturday, July 05, 2008

To celebrate Independence Day yesterday, I did something I rarely do: cooked breakfast.  Oh, I eat breakfast almost every day - but it’s usually something like a bagel, something I buy pre-made and purchase to eat at my desk at work.  But it was a holiday and I had the day off.  A special treat is always a good idea!

Using the blueberries I picked last weekend at Linvilla, I made blueberry pancakes.  They were quite delicious, and I even have a few leftovers in the ‘fridge for another day.

2 eggs, separated
1.5 cups flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 pinches of teasooon salt
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup blueberries

Beat egg whites until stiff; set aside.

In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together egg yolks, milk, and melted butter; add to dry ingredients and mix well.  Stir in blueberries..

Heat up a nonstock griddle or skillet.  When hot, drop batter onto the griddle and cook pancakes on both sides until golden brown.

Here’s where it all came from:
eggs, Natural Acres - 100 miles
flour, Daisy Flour - 60 miles
milk, Dutch Way Dairy - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
blueberries, Linvilla - 15 miles

not local: baking powder, salt

Clamming up

Sunday, June 29, 2008

I’ve been on a tear lately to find local seafood.  It just shouldn’t be this difficult.  The 100 mile radius from Philadelphia includes the Jersey shore, Delaware Bay, and parts of the Chesapeake Bay.  And within those waters, we (should) have access to tons of seafood - from clams and oysters to scallops and squid to lobster and bluefish.  Yet I have walked into about half a dozen seafood shops and a few grocery stores, and I can only reliably find Jersey bluefish.

This past weekend I found myself in a Genuardi’s (the one on Baltimore Pike not far from the Springfield Mall) to buy an iced tea, so I wandered into the seafood department. “What do you have that’s caught in Jersey?” I asked.  The woman behind the counter thought for moment and said, “Well, I think probably the bluefish and flounder.  We get boxes labeled ‘East Coast’ and we know from migratory patterns that it’s probably from New Jersey.  I would guess I’m 90% sure the bluefish and flounder are from Jersey.” I guess I should be excited the seafood workers at grocery stores pay attention to migratory patterns of fish, but it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the chain doesn’t get fish with exact labeling.  It goes beyond me just wanting to know - what if there was a problem with a particular fishing ground?  It would make it really difficult to recall fish without having a concrete location for the fish.

One of the One Local Summer regional coordinators recently found Jersey scallops at Whole Foods.  I have yet to hit a Whole Foods to check out their seafood selection (I plan to this week), but that’s some potentially good news.  I’m really shocked I haven’t been able to find more Jersey seafood in grocery stores - earlier this year the NJ Department of Agriculture expanded a branding and marketing initiative to label Jersey seafood.

There are only two shops I’ve found (and note that I have not visited every single seafood market in Philadelphia and the surrounding burbs) that reliably have Jersey bluefish - that’s a tiny seafood market on Calcon Hook Road in Sharon Hill and Hill’s in Media.  I do have some good leads on some other places to check out.  One is Haddonfield Shellfish (170 Grove Street in Haddonfield, NJ).  I’m told they have a good selection of Jersey-caught fish.  The other is Ippolito’s in South Philly.  Rumor has it that they occasionally have Cape May salt oysters, as well as other Jersey fish.

Coincidentally, Cape May salt oysters are on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, as are Delaware Bay oysters.

The other option is mail order.  I still haven’t figured out how I feel about this.  I mean, yes, one would be ordering local seafood from a local harvester - and having them delivered via mail is probably more environmentally sound than if I drove to, let’s say, Cape May to pick them up myself.  Places where you can order local seafood for delivery include Atlantic Capes Fisheries and The Lobster House.

I did find some topneck clams from the Chesapeake Bay at Hill’s in Media.  This really stretches the limit of the 100 mile radius, but it still counts.  I steamed them in butter, white wine, a bit of chopped onion and garlic, basil, parsley, and dill.

Where it all came from:
clams, Chesapeake Bay - 100-130 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles
wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
onion, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
basil, parsley, dill, my garden - 0 miles

Garden fresh!

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Last night I had the first major harvest out of my garden.  “Major” is relative, of course.  I picked the very pretty bunch of turnips pictured here: a small bunch of Scarlett Queen and Hakurei turnips, as well as small handfuls of spinach, swiss chard, and lacinato kale.  It was pretty exciting!

You know what they say: easy come, easy go - and my harvest is no exception.  I cooked it all up immediately for a vegetarian dinner that qualifies for One Local Summer.  The turnips were cooked up in my usual way (the addition of more traditional tasting turnips was new), and I used up all that kale from the CSA share - along with the greens from my garden - in a casserole of cheese, greens, and spelt.  The casserole is a really excellent way to use up any greens you have:

1 c. spelt berries
2 lbs of assorted greens
6 large garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
parmesan cheese
fresh mozzarella

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Boil a few cups of water and pour over spelt.  Put a plate or something over the bowl and steam for 20 minutes.

Tear up the greens into bite sized pieces, being sure to keep each variety separate.  Wash thoroughly and drain.  Put the tougher greens (kale, collards) in a large pan with about an inch of water.  Cook over medium heat for about four minutes.  Add in less tough greens (spinach, chard) and cook for a few minutes more.  Drain all greens very well.

Heat oil over medium heat and saute garlic for a few minutes.  Add greens and drained spelt; season with salt and pepper.  Grate some parmesan over the greens (how much depends on you - I like mine with a lot of cheese).

Butter a casserole dish.  Throw in about half the greens and top with a few slices of fresh mozzarella.  Throw in the rest of the greens and finish with more mozzarella.

Bake for 20 minutes.

It was pretty darn yummy, and the spelt made it really filling.

Where it all came from:
kale, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
spinach, my garden - 0 miles
swiss chard, my garden - 0 miles
lacinato kale, my garden - 0 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
mozzarella, handmade from local milk - 30 miles
parmesan, Hendricks Farm - 39 miles
spelt berries, Small Valley Milling - 120 miles
turnips, my garden - 0 miles
red onions, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

The best bird ever

Friday, June 27, 2008

I don’t know what Pennypack Farms does to their chickens, but they are nothing short of amazing.  Perhaps they can also do aerial acrobatics while alive, but when cooked the chickens are super tasty.  In fact, I would venture to say that I have never in my life had a better tasting chicken than the one I bought from Pennypack’s stand at Clark Park last weekend.  While I would like to think that maybe I had something to do with making the chicken taste good, there was nothing special about the way I cooked the chicken - I made a paste of olive oil and a handful of herbs from my garden (minced), spread it under the skin of the bird, and roasted it.  Seriously: so good.

Combined with the rest of the carrots I bought from Urban Girls (boiled up and then tossed with butter, parsley, and tarragon) and the baby yellow squash from my CSA share (grilled by my husband, Chief Grillmaster), it was a really great meal that qualifies for the One Local Summer challenge.  I didn’t notice until I put it all together on the plate that it’s a very yellow-ish orange meal, too.

I think I may need to buy another chicken tomorrow when I pick up my CSA share.  And then I can make a double batch of chicken stock with the carcasses.  Woohoo!

Where it all came from:
chicken, Pennypack Farm - 31 miles
miscellaneous herbs, my garden - 0 miles
squash, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt

Potato Salad Days

It’s when I revisit the recipes of my childhood that I understand how far the idea of fresh, local food has come.  Recipes were selected, items purchased at the grocery store, directions were followed.  That was it.  There was little concept of seasonality, of what looked good at the supermarket, or of even using fresh herbs rather than dried.

Growing up, there were two kinds of potato salad in our house.  One contained dill (dried, of course), chunks of peeled Idaho potatoes, and gobs of mayonnaise.  The other contained parsley (dried, of course), chunks of Idaho potatoes, and gobs of white vinegar.  I always preferred the latter, which we referred to as “German” potato salad.  It may have been that we had that type for most of the summer, and, thus, I have a pleasant, accompanying association of summer.  Or, it could be my aversion to most forms of mayonnaise - excepting soy-based or home-made.  Wishing to recreate my childhood potato salad with local food, I decided to take advantage of Culton Organics‘ beautiful tri-colored fingerling potatoes.

Note:  I was not surprised to find Italian versions of this (thus the use of olive oil) from the North of Italy.  There are many dishes from this area that closely resemble German or Austrian dishes.

What follows is only the outline of recipe.  The possibilities for variations are endless: rendered bacon for some salted crunch, an additional herb (lemon balm, mint, dill), bitter greens (young dandelion or radichio), anchovy fillets (mashed into the oil), or even hard-boiled egg.  Obviously, the most important thing is the quality of the potatoes; that is what you want to feature here - everything else should support that. One more thing - whatever you’re putting the salad, be sure to have everything prepped and ready to go.  I’ve found that the potatoes absorb the flavors best when they are still warm as you mix everything. 

2 lbs. fingerling potatoes, cut into bite-size pieces (the exact dimensions are not as important as uniformity, to ensure cooking)
1/2 c. chopped parsley
olive oil to taste
lemon juice to taste

Boil the potatoes in salted water until they are fork-tender.  Strain and dump into a mixing bowl.  Toss with parsley, olive oil and lemon juice.  Let sit for thirty minutes. 

Economics of a seasonal meal

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Last weekend when I was at Clark Park Farmer’s Market, I could not resist buying a bag of pretty carrots from Urban Girls.  Yes, they were pretty - but they were also inexpensive: $2.00 per bag. A bunch of non-organic carrots at the local Acme is selling for $1.99 and a bag of organic baby carrots is $2.50.  The carrots from Urban Girls were not just organic - they came trimmed and in varying colors. 

Those carrots ended up being part of a One Local Summer challenge meal this week, along with lamb from Hillacres Pride and spinach from my Landisdale CSA share.  And since I knew that the carrots were an economical buy (or, at least, comparable), I was curious about how the rest of my meal stacked up price-wise.

The lamb from Hillacres was $10.00 for a pack of four lamb loin chops (about one pound).  The lamb is heritage breed, grassfed, no hormones or antibiotics.  I would expect to pay more, and I did - a whole $1 more.  Yes, I can get lamb loin chops from Acme for $8.99/lb.  Granted, they are most certainly not heritage breed, grassfed, or hormone- and antibiotic-free.

The spinach is a little harder to figure out - I divided my total share cost by the number of months it covers, and then divided that by four (you know, four weeks to a month on average), and then divided that by the number of items in my CSA share.  It came to about $2 for my spinach, which is organic.  I don’t know what the poundage was, but it was a good sized bag.  If I bought spinach at Acme, it’s $1.99/lb for regular, non-organic spinach or $3.99/5 oz for organic baby spinach.

I’ve heard people say that eating seasonally is elitist and expensive, but you could have fooled me - I’m eating organic and supporting local farmers for, what, maybe $1 or two more than if I had purchased commercially grown, non local food at the grocery store?  And when you take into consideration that I used herbs from my garden, I probably came out ahead of the game.

The spinach was just barely cooked, the lamb was marinaded in red wine, olive oil, oregano, and honey, and the carrots were cut into strips with a vegetable peeler, sauted in butter, and sprinkled with dill, salt and pepper.

Where it all came from:
lamb, Hillacres Pride - 56 miles
red wine, Chaddsford winery - 20 miles
oregano, my garden - 0 miles
honey, Bee Natural - 59 miles
spinach, Landisdale Farm - 100 miles
carrots, Urban Girls - 29 miles
garlic, my garden - 0 miles
dill, my garden - 0 miles
butter, homemade from Dutch Way Dairy cream - 100 miles

not local: olive oil, salt, pepper