Going Local and going Organic

Although I've always liked the idea of being able to eat organic my wallet never agreed, and although committing to shop only locally grown produce is great in theory, it's not always so easy to figure out what comes from where when you're in the grocery store, not to mention the fact that I've grown up in a life where if you would like to have strawberries on a snowy February afternoon....No Problem!  they just flew in from Mexico!.....and how often is that imported vegetable or fruit actually cheaper then then the Ontario grown one sitting right beside it!?  It's crazy!....or at the very least a little nuts.  

 Recently T and I got a little flyer/brochure thing in the mail, normally I would recycle things like this without even looking at it but for what ever reason it caught my eye and I read it cover to cover.  The company is called MamaEarth Organics, it's a Toronto based company which promotes Healthy living by making fair priced certified organic local (whenever possible) produce easily accessible to those living in the GTA.....sort of like a farmers market  that makes house calls.  They deliver once a week and prices vary from $27-$55.  The baskets are different every week and you are able customize it to your tastes for a small fee (some of the bigger more expensive baskets allow you to customize for free)  Today I received my first basket!  I'm so excited about this service.....I actually went online to price everything out at a regular grocery store and excluding any crazy sale prices things were comparable, and yet they are locally grown certified organic and they were delivered right to my door!  They have about 10-15 different baskets to choose from and I debated going for the the family basket which is free to customize vs the 100% all local basket, for now I've decided to go with the all local basket, it's a little smaller and I really like the idea of supporting our local farmers.

 
So here's the haul, I popped the lid off my Tupperware bin and was met with:

5 Mackintosh Apples
2 lbs of Russet potatoes
1 bunch of still live cilantro (packaged with the soil so it's not a race against the clock to use it!)
1 head of hydroponically grown lettuce
2 lbs of yellow onions
110g of Shiitake mushrooms
1 large butternut squash
2 lbs golden beets

I'm most excited about the Golden beets because I never would have picked them out myself and now it's giving me a fun project....come up with a killer beet recipe....soup is the obvious so I'll try and come up with something more unique first and use beet soup as my back up!   I'll keep you posted!