Watermelon, feta, and butter lettuce salad with walnuts and white balsamic. 

I love my CSA box. 

And not the flippant, I-love-that-new-haircut kind of love, but the deep, abiding love I usually reserve for certain family members, a good book, and duck confit. As I pulled veggies out of my box this week (it's always so exciting, like a personal culinary grab bag), I thought "hooray, okra," followed immediately by "wait, who am I?" I never, never in a million years thought I would like okra. Like, I'm more likely to start crowd surfing at noisy concerts (NOPE) than work my way through a delicious pile of okra, but this CSA has made me a convert for life (toss in oil and roast at 425 until nicely browned). 

On any given week, I can expect tomatoes, peppers, potatoes or sweet potatoes, beans, okra, salad greens, a melon, and usually an extra surprise veggie or two thrown in (kohlrabi, where have you been all my life?). All local, seasonal, sustainability and traditionally farmed by Mennonites. Shut the front door. 

Roasted okra, cucumbers, and colorful peppers from our box.

We've only a few weeks left to the growing season, and I'm already mourning the loss - dreading limp grocery store lettuce, overpriced potatoes, and the boring, uniform peppers. My grocery bill goes down substantially over the spring and summer months, we eat healthier, and since it's changing all the time, it never gets boring. 

It's worth noting that not all CSA programs are created equal. We get ours through Heritage Harvest Farms, and it's always been excellent, but if you get a CSA from a smaller farm, it can mean an entire box of okra and corn for weeks, nothing but squash the next - whatever is in season! When you have a group of farms working together like at HHF, you get a much wider variety of crops. 

Does anyone else have experience with a CSA box that you loved (or hated)? What are some of your favorite fall and winter vegetables and recipes?