First post and this week's CSA

Behold the bounty that is my weekly CSA delivery! CSA stands for community-supported agriculture and basically refers to a model where local farms deliver boxes of produce on a regular basis to customers (subscribers might be a better word, I suppose). Sizes and delivery options vary by farm and plan, but I'm fortunate enough to have found a CSA that has "tiny"-sized boxes (for just one person) and drops things off to my workplace. It's as simple as paying $19/week and carrying a box of surprise fruit and veg home. Lucky me!

So, this week's haul includes apples, pears, blood oranges, kiwis, sweet onions, broccoli, and tiny red potatoes and red leaf lettuce (not pictured - guess I put it in the fridge already by the time I photographed). The challenge with this sort of thing is brainstorming how to use all of these items before next week's delivery rolls around! A happy problem, indeed, but I know from experience (by which I mean the pervasive feeling of failure that one experiences upon realizing one is sick of plums, cannot eat another plum, will not even look at another plum ... which was how I felt in 2011 during plum season) that it takes a spot of creativity to not just resort to putting butter on everything or baking (thus eating) a lot of apple cake.

Additional challenge: these days I'm working on eating fewer animal products. I'm not completely vegan and may never be, but I do endeavor to try and cook vegan food as often as I can. So, on that note, I'm going to go think up something great for dinner. I'll report back as the box of veg and fruit is put to good and grateful use.