CSA and Strawberry Sauce

I’ve signed with Food Connect, a community shared agriculture (CSA) enterprise that provides mostly organic seasonal fruit and vegetables that is sourced from local farmers around Brisbane.

I heard about Food Connect a few years back and liked the concept of eating food that has been grown locally with a minimum distance to travel to reach my plate. At the time I wasn’t in a position to do anything about it. However recently things changed and I signed up and received my first box earlier this week.

There were all sorts of concerns running through my mind before I signed up. Would there be too much in the box? Would there be enough choice? The feast/famine mentality was certainly there. Wouldn’t I be better off buying as I need so I could get exactly what I want? This question really resonated with me as I pondered how I could test and blog about recipes when I was receiving seasonal food. Clearly I’ve been spoilt over the years by the ready availability that mass transport allows.

It turns out that my concerns were unfounded. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the variety of vegetables that I’ve received. There are vegetables that I have stir fried, some that I can steam and some that contribute very nicely to my salad at lunch-time. The fruit that I received can and has contributed to my breakfast or else added to my salad or made up into a nice dressing as I mention below.

This is all really helpful as with the arrival of summer I am no longer producing very much on my patios which led to my thinking that this was the right time to participate in this system.

In preparation for the arrival of my first box, I checked through my Thermomix cookbooks to see what I might like to try. And I found a couple of variations of a strawberry sauce – strawberries with lemon juice and sugar (Everyday) or with juice and zest of an orange along with honey (Quick Dessert Syrup in the Gluten Free Wheat Free Cooking book). I decided to simplify a bit further and blended a punnet of strawberries with the juice of an orange. To be honest, I bought an orange in order to try this sauce which I’m fine with as I’ve accepted that I might need to supplement what I receive from Food Connect occasionally.

It turned out so nicely that I was then inspired to make some waffles to go with it, and then the rest decorated my salad the next day. I’m not normally drawn to strawberries but this sauce really hit the spot – twice.

Raw Chilli Sauce and Caribbean Pineapple Salsa

The Rawlicious recipe book had fallen open in my bag while I was buying some fruit and vegetables recently. The lady at the checkout blanched a little when she saw the title “Raw Chilli Sauce”. Perhaps that was a warning. While I have never really liked hot curries, always tending towards the milder ones in restaurants, this recipe was sure to test me.

And test me it did, along with the recipe Caribbean Pineapple Salsa.

Being a novice at buying chillies, I checked with the greengrocer to make sure that what I was selecting was mild. He mentioned that the green chillies were milder again than the red ones, but I decided to remain true to the recipe.

I also needed to buy some pineapple as it was included in both recipes. By good luck rather than design, I chose a golden pineapple and not all of the pineapple that I cut up ended in the sauce as it was so sweet. I rarely buy pineapples but am already rethinking this position.

The chilli sauce packed quite a punch but it turned out okay. I used a little on my salad along with some mandarin jam to help me acclimatize to the new taste sensation. It must have been okay because I happily finished off the last of the combined chilli and mandarin sauce at the end of the meal.

I used half a chilli in the salsa, and even then it still packed a punch but will go very nicely on my salads. Just for something different, last night I combined some of the salsa with some leftover ramen soup and I felt like I’d created a whole new dish.