Wednesdays are the Best

Wednesdays are quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Farmshare day! I spend the couple of days before looking at the newsletter that Enterprise Farms sends out, wondering which of the items listed will be in our box that week. Today, I was hoping for garlic, cucumber, corn, and basil. Three out of four ain’t bad! We received:

Blueberries (1 pint)
Sweet Corn (4 stalks)
Baby Bok Choy (2 bunches, 17 oz)
Snap Peas (8.30 oz)
Romaine Lettuce (1 Head, 1 lb., 11.85 oz)
Garlic (1 Bulb, 2.65 oz)
Scallions (1 Bunch, 4.30 oz)
Zucchini (1, 9.7 oz)
Cucumbers (2, 1 lb., 1.55 oz)


Benn has become a master blancher, and before we had even put away our veggies, we were standing in the kitchen eating fresh, vibrantly green snap peas and homemade hummus (thank you, new food processor) that we made over the weekend. Delicious.


The blueberries and snap peas seem to disappear on their own, and on the menu for this week:

• Stir-Fry

• Cucumber, Tomato, Basil, and Feta Salad, served with Romaine

• Pasta with Garlic, Onion, and Zucchini

• Alyssa’s Corn, Black Bean, and Feta Dip, served over Romaine (or just eaten by the handful, as it's that delicious)

When Benn and I first received our share last week, we were both a little surprised at how small the box was. For some reason, we were expecting 10 lbs. of produce to look like a lot more. I don’t think we expected how difficult it would be, and how much of an effort we would need to put in, to eat everything we were given. At the end of the week, after making Zucchini Bread, Red Cabbage Coleslaw, a Roasted Potato and Scallion Frittata, Collard, Snap Peas with Hummus, and eating blueberries with our breakfast, we were left at the end of the week with a head of lettuce and some scallions that we had to get rid of. We don’t like wasting food, and despite having a meal plan, we’ve realized that we need to be even more specific than just listing “salad” next to Thursday night dinner. I’m giving us a pass for our first week, and now that we know what we’re in for, I fully expect that we will eat everything, each week (or share, if we need to!)

One element of the share that we weighed heavily was cost. Our share is $19.23 a week, which adds about $77 to our grocery bill every month. That doesn’t include other ingredients that we need to buy for recipes that we’d like to make (or the food processor that we bought last week, which has already turned out to be a great purchase). We figured that by participating in the farmshare we’d be paying a premium for vegetables, since we’re supporting a smaller, local business, and an organic one at that. Still, being the savvy consumers that we are, we wanted to know the value of our share, if we were to buy the same items at our local grocery store. Last week, we met at the market after work with a list of our items, and walked around writing down per pound prices. We even tracked down a store employee to get the price of blueberries, since they were out. But it was worth it! Our results below list the price per pound at the market, the weight we received, and what that weight would have cost:


Are you as surprised as we were?! Our share last week was worth $30.46 at the grocery store, and that’s with organic pricing for two items only (collard and arugula mix). If we wanted to buy all organic, it would have been even more! Granted, we wouldn’t have bought cabbage or collard if we were at the store choosing our own vegetables, but that’s an important part of this process for us – eating new varieties of vegetables, and learning what kale looks like and how we can cook it. So far, it’s way more fun than I thought it would be – we feel great about what we’re eating, we’re spending more quality time together, and we’re learning, which is always a good thing. I already can’t wait until next Wednesday.