Meat CSA and CSA 14

We got our first meat box today... and it might be our last :(

The website never specified exactly how it was kept cold till it arrived, but I was spoiled by the images of Omaha Steaks presentation in my head (in a Styrofoam box with dry ice). I assumed that being beef, chicken and milk, it would be very cold in the transport process. The box was cardboard... and the meat was kept cold by two icepacks (6 by 4 inch icepacks if I had to guess). Probably fine... but a bit scary.

The chicken was on the small side, but I had been prepared for that by reading how they artificially plump the chicken many times in the supermarket. But I wasn't prepared for how small the eggs were... or that a few of them were broken in transport.

I, thankfully, did not deal with getting the beef out of the bag, Blake did, but he described how it was a very red mess all over the counter. I am not even sure what cuts of beef we got (I plan on trying to find it online). There are two small, thick chunks with a big bone in them, and one rectangular block looking piece. Its a lot of beef, but who knows how to cook it.

Anyways... overall, it was disappointing. I guess I shouldn't have expected as much as I did out of the small farm, but I did.

We aren't sure what to do quite yet... but the fact is that with this small of a chicken, it won't last 3 weeks, we don't know exactly what to do with the beef, we are nervous about the cooling method for transport, and it doesn't even pencil out financially.

If we buy the same stuff at the store, its bigger, and we know what cuts we are getting, and we can decide how much to buy each week, and keep our costs down that way. Price per pound might be similar... but paying even the same amount for meat that has been transported with questionable methods, that we don't even know what we're getting?

Eh... like I said, disappointing experiment.

We were hoping that the CSA box made up for it.



It was okay... but we needed a stellar box to get us out of our disappointment with the meat, and this box wasn't it.

First off, we didn't see a trade box this week. It might have been a bag of grapefruit near the boxes, but it might not, so we didn't trade anything. If there had been the regular trade box, we would have gotten rid of the basil and the radishes... but there wasn't... so we have them still.

I liked the radishes best as hashbrowns, so that's what they will become, and the basil will be put to work in a pesto (combined with some of our own).

We got lettuce, lime, avocados, tomatoes and cilantro, which will go into a taco salad.

We got more oranges and grapefruit, which are great, and will be thoroughly enjoyed.

We got two bags of sprouts, a bunch of little cucumbers, and two zucchini.

Nothing bad (well... there are radishes...but otherwise...) but nothing that really got us saying oh, wow, yay, look at what we got! (like a new fruit or kale or something would have done).

I suppose life is full of disappointments. Could be worse. I guess the biggest thing with the meat box is that we had decided to buy it even though it cost a bit more, because it sounded so much better, but discovered that it really wasn't worth the extra money.