Michael and I have been kicking around the idea of joining a CSA for years now. Sadly we’ve never gotten around to it. Until now. 🙂 What sparked our sudden desire for crazy fresh produce? A friend of mine from college started a cooking blog. As I was looking at the tasty pictures, I noticed that she belonged to Farmhouse Delivery. Huh. Note to self: check that out.
So I took a look at their website and I liked what I saw. One of the things that had been holding us back in the past was the thought that we didn’t think we could eat all of the food in a given week. Farmhouse has an option for biweekly delivery, plus, we don’t eat out nearly as often as we used to. I also really liked that they pull from several local farms so that you get more variety. The fact that they deliver sure didn’t hurt. We took the plunge and signed up.
On Tuesday, we had our first delivery. I was all set to tip our driver, but I think that they must employ ninjas to deliver the food. Our Ninja, who barks like mad whenever someone is within 30 feet of the house, never made a peep. Whoops. I guess we’ll add the tip to our bill next time. 🙂
I was super impresses with the contents of our box. We got peaches, blueberries, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, radishes (or beets, not sure) and two types of eggplant. It was a ton of food! Way more than we were expecting. I love it when something exceeds my expectations. I was actually inspired to try and cook something. Those of you who know me will know how rare this compulsion is. 🙂
I decided to tackle the eggplant because Michael doesn’t like eggplant anyway. Nothing like low expectations to increase the odds of success. I looked up a few recipes online, but they all called for random ingredients that we didn’t have so I decided to wing it and make egggplant lasagna. Never mind that I’ve never made lasagna before in my life. How hard could it be? It’s just noodles, cheese and sauce, right? Plus, we had lasagna noodles in the pantry.
Now Michael is generally the cook in our family, but I wanted to cook for him as a treat. Sadly, this involved him having to make a run to HEB with Kate after work. I was prepared to make lasagna with only mozzarella cheese, but our lack of tomato sauce was killing me. Michael was a really good sport though and even picked up all of the different cheeses that go in lasagna.
I followed the recipe on the box with the addition of sautéed eggplant on one half of the pan. I was not prepared for how much lasagna this would be. I think we might be eating lasagna for the next 2 weeks. It turned out really tasty though! Even the half with the eggplant. Apparently baking foods is really no different from baking bread. Who knew.
I paired it with a salad and some marinated cucumbers. And before you ask, why yes that is an octopus plate. Kate loves to help set the table so we all eat off of kids plates now. Don’t judge me.
As for the cucumber, I really need to start reading what the contents of the box are. I totally thought it was a zucchini until I cut into it and I was planning on adding it to the lasagna. It’s cool though; I love cucumber. We didn’t have any regular vinegar, so I marinated it in some sushi vinegar. Delicious.
All in all, I think it was a success. Next time, I’m only making half a lasagna though.