If I had a penny for every time I heard “I don’t have time to go to the farmers’ market”, well you know the saying. True, though they are rampant here in SoCal, they’re on during specific times that may not be convenient for everyone and if you live in more rural areas you may not have access to them at all. I get it. But I’m still pushing for LOCAL ORGANIC food, no matter how you can get it. A lot of supermarkets nowadays are carrying some organic produce so it’s defo becoming more accessible to Joe Public. This, very conveniently brings me to the latest craze in this movement, CSA’s (Community Supported Agriculture) and box schemes (as it’s called across the pond). It’s the most convenient way to get fresh, local and seasonal organic food delivered from farm to your doorstep. Literally.

We recently signed up for our CSA box program from Farm Fresh to You, a 240-acre farm located in the Bay Area as well as in the Imperial Valley (closer to Los Angeles). They also work with local area farms to ensure year round variety. I’ve been told we are receiving produce within 24-48 hours of being picked. Can’t beat that, especially since I don’t have to leave the house to get it!

Another beauty about shopping this way is that you’re more apt to try new foods. Since you’re getting seasonal food you’re bound to end up with ingredients you’ve never used before, which broadens your horizons and taste buds. In our first box we received lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, a variety of sweet peppers, grapes, cherry tomatoes, oranges and apples. I’m telling you, the grapes were the best I’ve ever had and overall the quality was great. Though I use a lot of red bell peppers in my cooking, sweet peppers are not so common for me to use. That’s what I mean about trying new things–it forces you to think outside the box, so to speak.
(Check back on Saturday for a recipe–I made a delicious roasted sweet pepper hummus for m’lady.)

I bet you’re thinking it’s got to be expensive, right? First off, let me say your health is worth every penny. Secondly, it’s not bad! Every other week we receive a small mixed box of fruit & veg which costs us $23, though we do tend to plow through it in less than a week. We’re considering trying the regular box, which is $31.50 or switching to weekly deliveries. Do you think that’s expensive? I can easily blow 20+ quid at the farmers’ markets per week, what about you? Think about how much you spend a week at the grocery on produce, whether it’s organic or not. Then think about how “fresh” your produce from the grocery really is. Some food travels hundreds of miles before you get it and goes through many stops along the way, with every stop getting a piece of the “money pie.”

(Image and great article: Consult Mark Blog. Click photo to read article.)

In an article published by The New York Times, some shoppers are even becoming shareholders in local farms cutting out the middlemen completely. Hmmm…maybe I should look into that! But for now I will stick to shopping at my farmers’ markets and with the box schemes.

Have I peaked your interest? Here are some links I’ve put together to help you find an organic box delivery in your area.

USA:
Local Harvest helps you find local organic farms, farmers’ markets, Co-op’s, CSA’s and more.
Ireland:
Sustainable Ireland Box Schemes
Absolutely Organic
Bord Bia find local farmers’ markets
England, Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland:
Soil Association find local CSA’s
SmarterFitter a great blog post highlighting fruit & veg boxes. Here’s my favorite part about their post referring to why it’s worth it:

• We get to eat ultra-fresh food, with all the flavor and vitamin benefits
• We get exposed to new vegetables and new ways of cooking
• Our food doesn’t come packed in a whole bunch of extra earth-polluting plastic like it does at the supermarket
• We get to support local farmers
• We get to feel good about the food we eat and where it comes from

Couldn’t agree more!

Are you a member of a CSA? How do you feel about it? Recommend your favorite to our readers!

And if you live in California, here’s a coupon for new customers (use promotion code #6164) for $5.00 off  your first delivery from Farm Fresh to You. Don’t forget to mention me! Cheers!

I saw this idea in a recent Cooking Light magazine and I must admit, it intrigued me. What?–Chefs can’t get inspired by another’s recipe? Bollix!
I loved the fact that it used ingredients perfect for this time of year and it used something I don’t usually cook with, blackberries. This is seasonal cooking at its best guys.
The original recipe was Grilled Pork with Blackberry Sage Sauce but I decided to take it a step further, transforming the fresh blackberries into a marinade instead. I’m telling you, I was bang on!

As you know, pork has had some bad raps in the past but you can easily work it into your healthy diet with out worrying. The tenderloin is the leanest cut of pork. A 3-ounce serving contains 120 calories and 2.98 grams of total fat, which is as lean as a skinless chicken breast. I will stress that buying organic or grass-fed meat is the way to go here. (More of my research on this to come.) Don’t be afraid of this recipe. It probably looks complicated but it really is super easy.

RECIPE:
Serves 4

1 lb Organic or grass fed pork loin
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth (for roasting)

PORK MARINADE:
1 lb blackberries
2 shallots – minced
1 tbsp fresh sage – chopped
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp agave (vary this amount depending on how sweet or tart the blackberries are)
1 tbsp lemon zest
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat medium saute pan on medium heat. Add 1 tbsp olive oil and saute shallots for 1 minute, stirring. Add everything except broth and simmer for 2/3 minutes until berries start to break down.

Add broth and simmer for 5-6 minutes. Pass the marinade through a sieve retaining the liquid. Discard the contents of the sieve. Let liquid cool completely before adding pork loin to marinate.

Marinate pork from 2 to 6 hours, refrigerated. You could marinade it over night if you wish.

Remove pork from fridge 1 hour before cooking.

Preheat oven to 420F.

To cook: either sear on a hot grill or in a hot saute pan. I used the grill to get some added flavor from the charcoal and brilliant grill marks. Sear all sides until nicely browned, 4 min. each side approx. Place seared pork on a foiled oven tray. Add the chicken broth to the tray and pop in the oven for 20 minutes approx or until internal temp. of 165F. (You probably know this is one on my favourite tricks to keep lean meat moist.) Once cooked, remove and let rest for 10 minutes loosely foiled before carving. This will let the meat relax and the juices redistribute back into the meat.

NOTE: Resting meat after roasting is an important technique and ensures the meat stays juicy.

TIP: I add the broth to the pork while roasting to create some steam in the oven and helps keep the meat moist. I use this technique when cooking lean proteins like pork, chicken or turkey.

SERVE WITH
I paired my berried pork with glazed baby carrots. DID YOU KNOW? For the best anti-cancer boost you should cook carrots whole? A new study from scientists at Newcastle University found that the anti-cancer properties of carrots are enhanced 25 percent if they are cooked whole rather than chopped up beforehand AND they taste better when cooked this way. It happens to be my favourite way to cook (and eat) carrots so this is great news.

GLAZED BABY CARROTS:

8-10 oz baby carrots
Trim the green tips from the carrots. Place them in a mixing bowl with 1 tsp agave/honey, 1 tsp ground cumin, S&P, drizzle olive oil. Toss together and lay in a single layer on foiled oven tray. Lay a sheet of foil over and pop in oven for about 10 minutes. Easy and delicious.

All recipes are made with the finest quality farmers market whole foods, natural and non-processed ingredients as much as possible.

I posted a video a few days ago of the trailer for the movie FOOD, Inc.,which basically outlines where our food comes from. The movie’s been out for a month or so but I only just got around to seeing it last night. Man, this is an eye opener.

A lot of people might assume that our food comes from actual farms but unfortunately the fact of the matter is that a lot of it is mass produced in factories by under paid illegal immigrants. Myself and the missus went to see it and she, being a veggie, well you can imagine her delight when they started showing chickens and cattle being abused. They’re not the only ones–the workers are also being abused. It was an ugly truth. There was so much info in this movie that it would be hard to relay all of it to you guys but to give you just a taste here’s what resonated with me:

• There’s an average of 47,000 items in any supermarket and the entire lot is controlled/produced by just 4 or 5 companies. Imagine having that much control over what we, the consumer, can buy. Now, just picture all those different brands and selection of products available in your local and just know that 4 or 5 companies control ALL those items. Even ‘green brands’ have gone big corporate: Tom’s of Maine? Now owned by Colgate-Palmolive. Naked Juice is Pepsi. Odwalla is Coca-Cola. Kashi is Kellogg’s. You get the picture.

• The common ingredient and most farmed product here (which is in a lot of these items) is corn. These food companies have been very clever in utilizing corn in a number of supermarket items from Twinkies to sweets (candy) to ketchup to batteries to diapers. It’s obviously a very versatile crop and has made these companies a bucket load of cash. Money is the name of the game.

• They are now growing chickens in a third of the time they used to take and twice as big. The conditions under which these chickens are farmed are deplorable and the TYSON brand is a huge culprit, forcing farmers to raise chickens in complete darkness and with the coops filled to the gills. They are also engineering chickens with bigger breasts because people prefer more white meat. Those chicks sound like they could be from LA! (Sorry there lads, just a bit of humour.) But seriously, you wouldn’t believe how scientific our food has become.

• On to beef.  There are so many problems with the beef industry I don’t know where to begin. Think about it, how is it possible that say McDonald’s can offer a dollar menu with a ‘juicy burger’ on its list but we can’t even by broccoli for a buck? Think that’s proper and safe meat they’re selling? Think again. E-Coli is a huge thing these days, mostly in part due to the way the animals are mistreated (think feces) and the fact that they’re serving them CORN for food = parasites. So to remedy this FOOD, Inc. spoke with a company called IBP (have a look and see who just happens to own IBP) that has found a solution. They make a meat filler for the burger meat and in order to eliminate any chance of contracting E-coli they rinse the filler in………..ammonia. So the next time you order your burger and fries from a fast food chain be confident in the fact that you may not get E-Coli but you have just eaten a mouthful of ammonia. Umm tasty!

• Then there’s soybeans and diabetes….I’m telling you, so much info was covered in this documentary.

I don’t want to come off all preachy about this movie but people really need to become more aware and more informed about what they’re eating and to get everyone talking about how we can create change for our food. The first thing the Missus and I talked about after the movie was, “Now What?–What more can we do?”  First off, we’ll be researching these large companies and will boycotting them (will keep you posted) and of course we’ll continue to support our local farmers. Here are some other tips from the FOOD, Inc. site to help people change how we eat (and think). The Eat Well Guide is a handy resource which lists local farmers markets, farms, restaurants and Community Supported Agricultural programs in your area (US and Canada), all of which offer organic and sustainable foods, including meats. For Ireland I found this map for fresh food.

I’d really like people to make up their own minds and go see it. If you’ve already seen it I’d like to hear from you guys and/or if you’ve seen any of the other movies that also discuss this topic.

Keep me posted.

Cheers!