CSA : J&P Organics

My husband and I belong to the best CSA program - although it's our first CSA that we've joined, so we have no comparison. But it's great! We get our produce each week from J&P Organics. I've received many questions from friends and family asking how we went about choosing this particular farm. To be honest, they have a partnership of sorts with Stanford, so a drop-off location for the CSA boxes is on campus (I believe that's the extent of their "partnership" - just a location). Convenience sometimes makes the decision for you, doesn't it? However, we truly enjoy our produce and fully support J&P Organics.

Some of our produce from J&P Organics

We receive an email from J&P over the weekend telling us what they're offering for the upcoming week. It's a week-by-week basis - no contract like many other farms require. If we want to order a box for that week, we simply pay online and our produce is ready to be picked up on Tuesday. 

We do our grocery shopping at 8:00 AM on Sunday mornings (no crowds!), so knowing what fruits and veggies we'll have for that week makes menu planning and grocery shopping a breeze. I plan meals that incorporate the particular vegetables, and we make sure no vegetable goes to waste! 


I get rather excited when I find a recipe that includes almost all the various types of vegetables that we have for that week - it's so fun to make a meal using mostly food from our CSA box. Things like curry, stir-fry and soups tend to feature a lot of vegetables, so these types of dishes are made at least once a week. 


But at times there are vegetables that aren't so versatile. Sunchokes? Yeah, we had those two weeks in a row back in the fall. Beets? My husband LOVES them, so he was excited. Leeks, also - not a super uncommon vegetable but definitely not a kitchen staple. I see these unique vegetables as a challenge. I'm forced to think outside the box. To search for recipes that I would normally glance over. 


Also, it's saving us A LOT of money. We pay $23 each week, and we receive a TON of produce. If we were to put that $23 toward produce from the grocery store, we would only be able to buy half of what we get from J&P. It's such a great deal.


Alright, so it turns out that I was going to share a recipe with you (Chickpea Bajane), but it seems my excitement for our CSA program took over!