Cookie Cutter Lunch- Star

This cookie cutter sandwich was a PB&H (as usual, it's his fave) with carrots, celery, zucchini, & strawberries from our CSA basket. It's amazing how a cookie cutter an entice him to actually eat his lunch.

Cookie Cutter Lunch

I like the idea of making fun lunches but I am really not into spending a lot of time making them. I see lots of mommy's who are way into it, and that's awesome. I just can't get myself to do it (at least regularly). So this is my idea of fun lunches. I use some of a billions of cookie cutters that I have and cut out shapes in his food. I think this will be my thing from now on. Cookie Cutter Lunches. Z can look forward to fun shapes daily and maybe I'll even be more creative at times.

This took my 5 min and that's how I like it.

I sliced a pear into small slices then cut out Zorro's name with the cookie cutters. I chopped up a whole carrot, gave Z some ranch dressing and then Mac & Cheese.

The pear and carrot were from out CSA basket.

The ranch and Mac are both organic from Whole Foods.

Don't Be Jealous!

I made this for breakfast

Homemade crepes with vanilla custard, strawberries (from our CSA),
chocolate sauce and whipped cream. DELISH!

Train Train

I wasn't feelin' the cooking love today but I wanted to give Zorro something semi fun.

He was all into trains today so I set up some of his trains at the table and cut out his sandwhich with a cookie cutter in a train shape and give him a side of apples from our CSA basket. Wasn't fancy but it worked, he ate it all.

Thanksgiving The CSA Way!

We had many Thanksgiving invites this year and they sounded stress free and DELISH! But after weeks of running around and fighting sickness as well, we were just all too happy to stay home and do NOTHING! So that was the plan...that is, until our CSA basket came this week. Yams, green beans, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, lettuce, garlic... it was sounding so much like a Thanksgiving feast to me... just add turkey!
Well, "sounding like a feast" was really about all it was doing at first. I thought about it though...Did I really want to cook all that by myself for our little family of 3 and do so essentially from scratch? I mean I've only ever made a Thanksgiving dinner one time, four years ago and that was a HUGE feat for me. When I did it then I used all canned and frozen foods too. NOTHING was fresh. But I've come a long way in four years...from Cup O Noodle and PB&J's to homemade doughs and scratch meals regularly. I could do it! Besides... I would be cooking all that produce anyway...

SO I DID IT! Actually, we did it. My husband, who is brilliant at cooking cold cereal and microwave meals chopped, steamed, baked, basted, washed, boiled and helped cook a fabulous, nearly scratch Thanksgiving Day Meal like the best of 'em!
Here's what our CSA T-Day Meal looked like:

CANDIED SWEET POTATOES
Betty Crocker

6	medium sweet potatoes or yams (2 pounds)
1/3	cup packed brown sugar
3	tablespoons butter or margarine
3	tablespoons water
1/2	teaspoon salt

1.	Scrub sweet potatoes, but do not peel. Place potatoes in 3-quart saucepan. Add enough water just to cover. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 20 to 25 minutes or until tender. Drain; cool slightly. Slip off skins. Cut into 1/2-inch slices.
2.	Heat remaining ingredients in 10-inch skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, until smooth and bubbly. Add potatoes. Gently stir until glazed and hot.

FRENCH'S GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE

Ingredients: 1 (10 3/4 oz.) can CAMPBELL'S® Cream of Mushroom Soup 3/4 cup milk 1/8 tsp. black pepper 2 (9 oz. each) pkgs. frozen cut green beans, thawed* - we cut up and steamed out CSA green beans SO YUMMY AND FRESH! 1 1/3 cups FRENCH'S® Original or Cheddar French Fried Onions - *we used one of our onions and lightly sauteed them then baked the dish with them on it

Directions:

1.MIX soup, milk and pepper in a 1 1/2 -qt. baking dish. Stir in beans and 2/3 cup French Fried Onions. 2.BAKE at 350°F for 30 min. or until hot. 3.STIR. Top with remaining 2/3 cup onions. Bake 5 min. until onions are golden.

Tips 1.Tip: You may substitute 2 cans (14 1/2 oz. each) cut green beans, drained or 4 cups fresh, cooked cut green beans. 2.Look for FRENCH'S® French Fried Onions in the canned vegetable aisle!

TURKEY
We used a bone in turkey breast, salted it liberally, used half of a bulb of garlic and tucked the peeled cloved into parts of the turkey and throughout dish, then covered with honey.
we added 1 1/2 onions quarterd and spread through dish with 4 stalks of celery and 3 carrots
The result was a very moist lightly sweetened turkey and gravy! YUMMY!

STUFFING
OK, I cheated...I used Stove Top BUT I did add 2 celery stalks and a carrot and half of an onion then topped with fresh parsley.

We stopped at that but we will also be making GARLIC MASHED POTATOES & SALADS when our other leftovers run out!

It was a very successful Thanksgiving for us! My, how I've grown in 4 years! And to think...we would have missed out on this if we hadn't been a part of a CSA. I am THANKFUL for our CSA!

More CSA...

I wrote this blog for Belly Sprout but since it has a little more info on CSA's I figured I would post it here as well.

You just can't get any better than fresh harvested local organic produce! And by purchasing farm direct and paying seasonally you are helping these smaller farms stay in business and sway the market towards buying more local or more organic as well as supporting our local economy. BUT BEST OF ALL is the AMAZING prices we are paying for our baskets!!!

As a quick example from our baskets, let me give you an idea just how much we are saving. For a large basket are getting about 40 lbs of produce for $38 per basket that's $.95 per pound! for organic produce. Unheard of, really!

Now you may possibly be thinking well the produce I get a Whole Foods (or wherever you shop) is so much prettier! Well YA! It's been sorted to meet supermarket "beauty standards" and washed and labled and shipped and refrigerated. This is another way we are helping our farmers. Did you know that thousands if not millions of pounds of fresh completely edible but not so pretty produce gets tossed out because it doesn't meet the beauty standards? And did you know that farms LOSE all that money they would have made if we didn't expect pretty produce? Essentially we are talking about getting the same stuff as the markets only it doesn't pass the "pretty test." Hey, I'll take a melon for less than half the price that's just as edible but not as pretty!

Some might be worried about the fact that the fruit looks a little worse for wear or the beets look inedible. I want to assure you that ALL the food that you get from the farm should be completely fresh picked that day or the day before. The black stuff on the beets is completely fine, as per the farm: "They aren't super pretty today, but please don't judge them by their skin. They are perfect on the inside. Just boil, cool and then peel off the skin. As it gets hotter and hotter, the greens start to suffer, but the beets are still awesome."

Just remember you are getting FARM FRESH produce not factory direct.

Beautiful Fresh Produce

How can you not want to eat THIS?!?

These are the first baskets from the Community Supported Agriculture program we started at Belly Sprout. The farm we receive from is South Coast Farms.

Community Supported Agriculture

I wrote this article to inform people about CSA's who were interested in my group of friends. Because I believe in supporting local organic farmers, I partnered with a natural mothering store called Belly Sprout together we support our local organic farm as a pick up location for over 30 families in the area.

Something I fell upon while doing searches on local organic farms was a farming program called Community Supported Agriculture or CSA. The CSA program is an excellent and very convenient way to eat organically** and locally. In short, a CSA is a subscription to a local farm. You prepay for a set amount of time, generally seasonally, then you receive a weekly or bi-weekly "basket" of in season fruits and veggies and whatever else they may offer. The basket sizes vary per farm. Most preset weights and sometimes you can choose your "subscription" weight. You can pick up your subscription at the farms usually and most offer convenient drop-off locations.

Here are some Pros and Cons to joining a CSA .

Pros:

FRESH FRESH FRESH fruits and veggies- The produce is generally picked within a few days of pickup, unlike a lot of the produce found in stores that's been shipped and/or trucked to its location.

LOCAL- It's purchased from a local farm where you can probably visit. You know it's from a reliable and trustworthy source. Local also means that it retains its vitamins and minerals and it's grown in the climate where you live which I have read is the best way to eat for your health –think macrobiotics. And a great, no EXCELLENT bonus is that you are supporting your local farmers and lessening energy use from trucking and shipping and possibly forcing stores to buy locally as well.

It's convenient! – The produce is already picked out for you. No shopping, no comparing price or quality, etc… it's all done and pick up locations are all over depending on where you CSA delivers to.

YOU get to be creative with your cooking- You get what's in season and ripe at the moment and you might get a lot of it. That might mean you get a lot of basil one week and none another. That's when you make lots of homemade pesto and freeze it for later or dry some. Or do whatever you can with it whatever you have a ton of…chop and freeze onions and carrots and celery etc. I do that and it's saves TONS of time when cooking! Other ideas: Canning! Or cooking in bulk and freezing are great time savers for later on. This is also good to have the produce when it's not available or in season.

Cons:

You do not get to pick your produce. -You get what's in season and ripe at the moment and you might get a lot of it. – See Pros above. Note that you will not get a basket full of one type of produce. You will always get a variety.

Might need to make a grocery store run- since you only get what's in season and available, you might have to go to the store to get produce for a particular recipe or meal etc. Solution: try to plan ahead and buy your produce when you are going to the store for other items. Or get even more creative and substitute!

You pay in advance- this can be a pro or a con but if the thought of spending a lump sum of money for your produce all at once isn’t sounding great try putting aside what it would cost per week or month for a season then sign up with that money and do it again while you’re receiving them.

I hope I have convinced you that this is a WONDERFUL option. If CSA still scares you or you're uncertain about it, find a like minded friend who is interested in testing the waters with you and do half or thirds. See what it's all about. You'll save $ this way you won't get too much. You'll be able to find out effectively if it works for your or not.

One last note: most farms offer more than just produce. South Coast Farms offers Grass Fed Beef and honey, even organic flowers. Others offer poultry, nuts and eggs. Find out what they offer, you can pay and have them add it to your basket sometimes (obviously not the meat- but a lot of the time delivery is cheap or free with purchase of meats).

Find Community Supported Agriculture programs near you: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

** Obviously not all farms are organic. Make sure your farm is 100% certified organic if that is what you ae looking for. There are other terms such as "transitioning" and "natural" etc. What sets CERTIFIED ORGANIC apart is that it's very difficult and expensive to become certified. Buying from these farms supports the effort they have made to make SURE you are not getting ANY pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other harmful things in your food. For more info on what farms offer the link above will help you.