Eating The Vegs From Fresh City Farms

Wow my first food post since April 19th. Way to get off topic! 

A few weeks ago a friend asked me if I ever look into getting a CSA. My response was what the heck is a CSA (even though I had been reading about CSA’s over at Whit’s Amuse Bouch, but I was distracted by all the DELICIOUS BACON). So after a quick round of google I learned about CSAs. CSAs are Community Shared Agriculture, so basically you buy a share of a farm, if the farm does well you get food from the farm, if the farm has a drought you take that risk. Unfortunately most CSAs start in May, and this was mid July. But then we found Fresh City Farms.

We liked them because they were not a big investment (weekly payments not a lump sum in May),  you can start and stop any time, they deliver, and the contents are from a Urban farm within the GTA. So we signed up. 

For the past month (and then some), for 40.99 for a large box of veggies and fruit (just more than enough for two people who eat a lot of Vegs and Fruits for a week), we have been getting a wonderful surprise on Wednesday night. This may seem like a lot for veggies, but we spend at least that much at No Frills and they are not local, organic, or as delicious.

Glorious Veggies

It is like Christmas except with veggies. Even though I had an awesome vacation, and went to Morocco and did 8 million exciting things this summer…getting the veggie box is one of the highlights.

Source

With this program you need to be a bit creative because the contents of the box are dependant of the harvest, and could possibly have veggies you have never heard of (black radish, patty pan squash).But they send out an email the week before with “expected contents” and then have newsletter with the box with the list of veggies and some recipes.

A few weeks ago we got the above mentioned black radish and tried out the black radish, kale, mushroom salad recipe that Fresh City provided. It was delicious. I got leftovers for lunch..om nom nom. 

Recipe is from Fresh City Farms via Seasonal Ontario Food via Epicurious

Dressing:

-1/4 c sunflower seed oil (or olive oil)

-1/4 cup sour cream

-1 tablespoon lemon juice

-S and P

-1/4 c fresh Parsley

Salad:

-Black Radish

-Mushrooms

-Kale

Mix together the dressing. Chop mushrooms, grate radish, tear up kale. Massage kale with some olive oil to reduce the bitter flavour. Mix with mushrooms and radishes. Top with dressing

Mmm Kale and Radish

My plan is to share with you some recipes using the ingredients from Fresh city to showcase some of the veggies!

Is anyone else hoping on the CSAish train? Is it weird that I get so excited for a box of veggies?

June and July Recap

Ugh blogging fail. In the past couple months blogging (and normal life activities) has definitely been on the back burner. And since 1. I am OCD about chronologically posting, and 2. I use this blog to remember what I did here is a quick post of everything I did in June and July...ready...go.

Cute Moseby Photo to Start things off

June:
Work and More Work: Finished up the spring term of tutoring (all the students passed, YAY!) , and continued to work longish hours at my real job.

Rent: The Lower Ossington Theatre (LOT) put on a production of Rent, and my friend Katie and I got tickets on Groupon to go see it. It was such a good production, and it was one of the last days of the run, so the performers were so in to their characters. Made me miss musical theatre a lot. Perhaps I need to find a little community theatre program on my spare time (oh wait I don't have time to blog let alone have a hobby :P).

Russell Peters: Due to performance dates, the same day that I went to see Rent (in the afternoon) I went to go see Russell Peters in the evening with Mike and our friend Kareem. The show was great, and Russell Peters is so funny! He jumps from one topic to another and gets so off track, but that is what makes his show excellent. If the Notorious Tour comes out on DVD/TV totally check it out!

Family time: Mike and I had a laundry machine issue and it was broken/not replaced for about 6 weeks, which meant every Sunday we got to lug our laundry up to my Uncle and Aunt's house (THANK YOU!). Silver lining, getting to spend time with my family, and eating delicious food! (Machine is now fixed..finally!)

New Machine!

Surprise City Chase: Mike and I were planning to do City Chase in August, but due to a time conflict we decided at the last minute to do the June City Chase event. This year we were more prepared, but of course the fun of the event is you never know what to expect. We also some how ended up doing all of the physical challenges...so exhausted. We ended up finishing in exactly the same time, but a little lower in the standings. Oh well! It was an excellent day and as always, so much fun!

City Chase Finish

Birthday! It was Mike's birthday the same weekend as city chase, so after City Chase we changed and went to a nice dinner. The next day Mike, for his birthday present, got to drive a fancy car. He loved it! We had a nice bday "party" for Mike at my Aunt and Uncles and then ended up going to a drive in movie after. Fitting all that in may have been a bit ambitious for one weekend!

Oooo fancy car. 

July:
Long Weekend: The Canada long weekend was a much needed break from all the craziness that June brought. We spent Saturday at Centre Island. I loved the islands so much. It was so nice to take a quick ferry ride for a few dollars and suddenly be out of the city. Much easier than fighting cottage country traffic. Other than that it was pretty much relaxing.

New fav spot in TO

Fire Experiment: One weekend in early July, we got together at my friend's house and tried an experiment. We decided to try to see if a marshmallow on a sparkler would light on fire or cook from the inside (not to eat it though..it would have been full of chemicals). Fun fact: the sparkler burns through the marshmallow. So then we decided to see what else a sparkler would burn through (green pepper works) and that ended with us making a giant tower of marshmallows and sparklers...productive Saturday night!

GREEN PEPPER SPARKLER SPLOSION

Morocco: One of the main reasons I didn't blog this past month is I spent a week in Morocco for work! I think this deserves a bigger blog post so I will save all the details for later, but basically it is a amazing country and I am so happy I got to go to see the work there, and visit the region. I had a crazy messed up time getting home, but that is a much longer story.

Vacation: I just got back from a nice vacation home to NS/NB to visit the families, and it was amazing. So nice to have a week (and then some) to not worry about anything. Vacation is awesome! This past weekend my family came to visit me/Toronto for my Grandfather's 80th birthday party, so the past 2-3 weeks have been filled with family and food!

So after a CRAZY two plus months, and not having a normal routine for at least 6 weeks, I am definitely looking forward to getting back on track, and getting back on schedule with many things (blogging, gym, healthy eating etc.)

Hopefully I will be able to blog more regularly, but last time I said that I ended up going half way around the world!

Anyone else having a crazy busy summer? Any one else do sparkler experiments with marshmallows and peppers?