This summer, our family participated in a co-op with our local farm, the Hubbard Farm, which is about two miles from our house.

Each Tuesday evening, I would drive by “The Old Store” with my two little ones and pick up huge baskets full of fresh produce.  My 5-year-old would always get a small bag of candy as a treat.  We would then get home and unpack everything onto our kitchen counter.  It was a thrill to see what we got each week.

When laying out the produce and grouping them, every so often, we’d say, “what is this?”  Spaghetti squash, acorn squash and white squash were a few of the new vegetables we learned about.

The goal of this adventure was to eat more fresh foods, support our local farm and learn new things.

We also made many first-time meals as well, including: eggplant parmesan, homemade salsa, fried green tomatoes, and homemade potato chips.

Here are the informational sites and videos that helped me this summer:

• Old Store Produce (store for the Hubbard farm) home page and Facebook page
• Local Harvest (where I learned about CSA programs)
• StartCooking.com (great site to learn to cook all of those basic meals that you never knew how to cook!)
• This is my favorite salsa recipe (YouTube video)

My goal for next year is to learn how to pickle and can!