CSA: Visually Appealing

By Kelli Swensen, Dietetics Student, Sargent College

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When walking through the grocery store, you are bombarded with choices. For most aisles, we make a decisions based on brand preferences – are you a Skippy or Jiffy peanut butter fan? But what about the produce aisle? You don’t just go up to the stack of oranges and pick the few at the very front. Instead, you survey all the oranges with your eyes, looking for the brightest colored ones. Because the fruits and vegetables aren’t hidden behind packaging and advertisements, what the food looks like is essential. Visual appeal is one of the key characteristics of produce. Think about it: having a bowl filled with different colored fruits brightens a kitchen table; a plate that is filled with many different vegetables makes for a much better picture than one of just grains and meat. One of the easiest ways to decorate for autumn is by purchasing fall produce such a squash, pumpkins, corn, and apples. This week’s CSA is packed with produce that is as warm and comforting to look at as it is delicious to eat.

This week’s CSA contained;

3 ears Indian Corn (decoration), 1 Sugar Pumpkin, 1 bunch Parsley, 1 bunch Beets with greens, 1 Eggplant, 2lbs Potatoes, 2 Sweet Dumpling Squash, 6 Apples (Carver Hill Orchard)

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Sweet Dumpling Squash: One of the smaller types of squash, sweet dumpling squashes are perfect for stuffing and baking for individual servings. As the name suggests, the flesh is quite sweet, but the overall taste is not overbearing. Image Source

sugar-pumpkin

Sugar Pumpkin:

Also called a pie pumpkin, a sugar pumpkin is much smaller than a regular pumpkin, and, as a result, has more pumpkin “meat” to cook or bake with. Sugar pumpkins are also typically sweeter and have a stronger flavor than large pumpkins making them idea for making soups with. Image Source

Check out some of our previous autumn-flavored Sargent Choice Recipes that feature many of this week’s CSA ingredients:

Squash:

Although a recipe may specify for a particular kind of squash, feel free to get adventurous and sub in whatever variety you already have!

Pumpkin:

Eggplant:

Apples:

3 Comments

Tim - migraine relief posted on October 21, 2011 at 4:10 pm

Good tips! I try to eat healthy everyday and fresh fruit/veg with every meal.I feel a lot better and have not got the flu for many years.The problem is that fruit/veggies are quite expensive, it is a lot cheaper to eat processed foods.

Oreille posted on October 26, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Did you take the picture yourself ? Colors are so bright, this is really nice ! I guess people would eat more fruits if, as Tim said, prices were lower, but also if the visual appeal you’re talking about was better undesrtood by some people who sell food.
Desire is a major part of buying process (look at Apple… I mean, the Steve Job’s one 😉 ). We should never forget that.

distillery equipment posted on July 27, 2022 at 3:24 am

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