Farm Fresh Delivery is a service offered in Indianapolis and Cincinnati that delivers to your door, fresh, organic produce that has been grown locally. There are similar services offered across the country, so I’d recommend that you search Google to see if there is one in your area. This site, Greenling, seems to have a directory.

I have been thinking of signing up for Farm Fresh Delivery on and off for several years now, ever since a blog reader left me a comment mentioning it. Several times in the past few years I would go to their web site, browse around, think about ordering, and then drop the idea because I wasn’t sure if I could afford it or if I’d use all the produce before it rotted.

This year I finally gave them my credit card information after I did some budget analysis. You have to place a minimum $35 order, and you have the option of receiving deliveries every other week. That means I’d be spending about $70 a month on produce. I’ve been tracking my expenses carefully lately, and when I looked at my grocery budget, I figured that I probably spend at least $70 a month on produce anyway, so why not get it delivered directly to my door? Organic foods are supposed to taste better anyway, and I’d be supporting local farmers, so I can feel good about it.

The real tipping point though was the home delivery. I’ve gotten sick of going to the grocery every 4 or 5 days just to buy fresh produce, so the idea of having the food arrive on my doorstep is really appealing. I’m also the kind of person who likes the idea of organic foods and supporting local farmers and eating “real” foods and not processed “fake” foods, but I don’t want to have to go out of my way to do it. I don’t want to visit a farmer’s market every weekend. So, this is a nice compromise. There is also the option to add other food items to your cart, such as coffee, honey, milk, baked goods and more, which I might take advantage of later.

Opening my crate was so much fun! It was like someone had sent me presents: green, leafy, organic, edible presents. I enjoyed peeking into the brown bags to discover what was in the crate this week, and then trying to match the items to the list on the invoice. It took me awhile to identify the beets, which I initially mistook for turnips. The food items change weekly depending on what is in season, so hopefully I’ll get better at playing Name That Vegetable.

I also hope receiving this crate of veggies will encourage me to make new dishes, and to eat more vegetables. I’m good about eating fruits, since they are sugary and delicious, but veggies have never had much appeal to me. Hopefully I will keep up with the deliveries and eat everything before it goes bad. I’ll let you guys know how it goes!

Yesterday, I put on my apple pickin’ hat, my apple pickin’ boots and my apple pickin’ shades and went to pick some pumpkins. Okay, I’m just screwing with you, I actually picked some apples. To be precise, PastaQueen picked a peck of apples at the Anderson Orchards near Mooresville. (I also want to note that I still have both of my legs, although the photo above makes it look like I only have one. I swear I have not become so desperate to lose weight that I have cut off a limb.)

Anderson Orchards is located southwest of Indianapolis. It’s tucked away a few miles off of I-70 and accessible via twisty country roads. My friend Jenny gathered a group of her friends and we traveled to the orchards on a bright and cool sunny day, perfect weather for picking. We parked in a gravel parking lot in front of the orchard and walked to the gravel road that runs through the middle of the orchard.

A man there was handing out plastic bags that were labeled “1 peck” and “1/2 bushel.” He gave us a good piece of advice, which was, “The bags are heavier coming back.” This is why they allowed people to drive their cars back through the orchard, but our group was content to walk. He told us it was ok to sample an apple off of a tree, and also told us, “No apple fights!” I am assuming someone at some time had an apple fight, and they probably made applesauce of someone’s face.

Each row of trees had a sign in front of it labeling the type of apples growing there. I hadn’t heard of half these breeds, but they were all fairly tasty. I liked the Scarlet Beauty apples, or as we called them the “Scarlet Booty” apples. As a tall person, I clearly had an apple picking advantage because I was able to pluck fruit off the higher limbs that had been neglected by shorter people.

When we had collected our bounty, we walked back down the gravel road and had to pass through the apple border control. Cars were made to open their trunks to ensure they weren’t thieving. I paid $7.00 for my peck of apples. I weighed them when I got home and learned I’d gathered 10 pounds of apples, meaning they cost me $0.70 a pound. This is a pretty good price, even after you factor in the gas money I spent getting there. Of course, I now have 10 pounds of apples sitting my kitchen, so I am looking for creative recipes to use before they spoil.

Before we left the orchard, we went into the store where they were selling picked apples, grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, pumpkin rolls (mmmm, pumpkin rolls), candy corn, fudge (mmmm, fudge), apple butter, popcorn, candy apples and basically anything you can make with apples. I would like credit for not buying any of these delicious concoctions, and settling only for some cider and an apple turnover for lunch. For my dietary diligence, I was rewarded by a swarm of bees and wasps trying to eat my turnover. I was literally batting them away with my fork, accidentally sending them into Lisa’s face who was sitting across from me. The pests had no interest in the apple cobbler or apple slushies or biscuits and apple butter my friends had ordered. They only wanted my turnover, which was basically a piece of apple pie enclosed in a crust pocket and drizzled with icing.

When I returned home, I looked up a peck on Wikipedia, since the only thing I knew about it was that Peter Piper had picked one back in the day. Wikipedia said a peck is equivalent to two gallons. There are four pecks in a bushel, and all this odd naming is a reminder of why most countries have switched to the metric system.

For your reference, this is what a peck of apples looks like:

The comic is from http://xkcd.com/ who has a cool license on sharing and hotlinking, so I’m not even thieving his work (which kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?).

Personally, I would move the orange higher up on the tastiness scale, and bananas are definitely tastier than green apples, which should be moved below the tasty-axis. They’re just too tart for my tastebuds. I would also move pears above blueberries. I love blueberries in smoothies or in pancakes or oatmeal, but on their own I prefer the sweetness of pears. While grapefruits can be difficult, if you have the right utensils, they become easier to manage, so I would add a picture of a grapefruit plus a grapefruit spoon higher up on the easy-axis. Coconuts didn’t even make the graph because according to the mouseover text “Coconuts are so far down to the left they couldn’t be fit on the chart. Ever spent half an hour trying to open a coconut with a rock? Fuck coconuts.” (He cursed, not me. Fucking potty mouths.)

If I had any artistic skill, I would sketch in all the fruits I’ve tried recently. Oh wait, I do have some artistic skill. (Sometimes I forget.) I guess I won’t do it because I’m lazy.

Seckel pears

Food is so much cuter when it’s miniaturized. That’s why I buy baby carrots instead of their full-sized cousins. When I saw an eight pack of pears each the size of a baby’s fist, I snatched them up. These itty-bitty pears are also known as sugar pears, and after I bit into one it was clear why. They’re very sweet. Their small size makes them great for portion control too. I ate one or two at a time when I just wanted a small snack. I’d buy them again, but I got them at the late, great Sunflower Market, so I’ll have to find another sugar pear dealer before that happens. I’ll comfort myself in the mean time with this site made by some people who are really bananas about pears.

Red Pummelo

The red pummelo could also be used as a medicine ball during my “Strength and Endurance” class at the YMCA. It’s huge! I placed a bottle cap next to it in this photo so you can get a sense of scale. I cut it in half and was surprised at how thick the skin was. I bit into the flesh of the fruit and felt a bit disappointed that it tasted like a grapefruit. Then I took another bite and realized this was much sweeter than a grapefruit. Then I took another bite and decided I would never buy a grapefruit again if I could get a red pummelo instead. I also suddenly regretted not buying the grapefruit spoons I saw on clearance at Target the week before. I talked myself out of the purchase when I tried to think of the last time I’d eaten a grapefruit and couldn’t remember. According to this site the modern grapefruit was developed from the pummelo. I haven’t seen this in the store since I bought it a couple weeks ago, so I might just be stuck with grapefruits for now. Come to think of it, why are grapefruits called grapefruits? They don’t taste or look like grapes.

Kumquats

I love to say the word “kumquat.” Kumquat! I think it’s the “kwa” sound in the second syllable and how it’s followed by that snappy “t.” The kumquat is a cute little fruit too, though the label on the box features a somewhat demented illustration anthropomorphizing it:

As the label says, you eat the whole thing, peel and all. The peel has a somewhat sweet taste and the flesh is tart. It was fun popping kumquats in my mouth, but they weren’t that extraordinary. I wouldn’t turn them down, but I won’t feel unjustly robbed of their presence in the off season. It’s so much fun to say the word “kumquat” that I doubt any taste experience could compare.

It’s a bit larger than the size of my fist and I think the name starts with a “ch” sound. Now, one may ask, why don’t you just check your receipt for the name of the item? Well…I went through the self-checkout lane. I tried looking up the mystery item in the system, but it was so exotic that it wasn’t there. So, I pretended it was a squash. I suppose this is almost stealing, even though I paid for it. I just didn’t pay the right amount for it. Sorry, Meijer! I didn’t want to go back to the produce section to get the right PLU code and I knew the cashier probably wouldn’t know what it was either. They can barely identify parsnips.

So please, name this fruit. You won’t win anything except for bragging rights as an expert fruit-ologist and my undying gratitude.

So, as I was saying, there is a recipe in the South Beach Cookbook for an almond apple souffle. I just did that part for the apples and replaced the almond extract with cinnamon sprinkles. It was soooo good. I even dolloped some whip cream on top. My one concern is that the apples probably have less fiber because they are peeled. Next time I might try making them with peel in tact and see what happens. Recipe follows:

Core and peel 3 medium sized baking apples (or 2 large Red Delicious as I did). Combine with 1/4 cup water in a 2qt sauce pan. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and mix in 3 tbsp of Splenda (or sugar substitute of your choice). Sprinkle on cinnamon and enjoy!