We’ve been a bit crazed here, at the little one acre. That happens sometimes–this life thing! At any rate, week 4 of our CSA involved a lucky-draw–lots of zucchini, beets, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, purslane (used in an egg-salad concoction last week)–all really good stuff. We purchased an additional 2 gallons of blueberries on the side for preserving. Here’s a quick tip, if you’re going to freeze blueberries, lay them out on a cookie sheet first, freeze them on the cookie sheet, and then place into freezer bags. This keeps the blueberries from sticking to each other and makes them easier to use in smoothie or muffin recipes. I dried a quart of the berries. I have to say, dried Missouri blueberries are not worth the time. They taste interesting, but since Missouri blueberries are sort of a totally different berry, you need their rotund juiciness to carry the blueberry flavor. The blueberry flavor doesn’t concentrate dried as it does in wild blueberries.

Back to CSA4–you might be asking, why was it a lucky draw? Last week, we were only home 3 out of 7 days. The Viking’s sister had her baby; they didn’t tell us they were all sick, so we spent 3 days recovering from a virus; and on top of that, we had a double work-load with freelance projects which required actually driving into town. Besides using gas, such things also use time spent to make and plan decent meals. But because of our lucky CSA draw–zucchini and other items that can wait a bit–we have plenty of food for this week. We picked up our CSA Week 5 on Saturday–a LOT of greens, many berries, onions and potatoes. If this had happened last week, the greens would definitely have not made it. Such is the CSA–it takes planning to use everything up “perfectly.” We don’t waste much produce, but I know we try our best.