This week’s newsletter discussed some controversy that was stirred up by the mention of fish fertilizer in last week’s newsletter.  They got several e-mails from vegans who were distressed over the use of fish in the production of their vegetables.

The farm our CSA bag comes from is a certified organic farm and has to adhere to very strict standards to maintain their certification.  The use of fish fertilizer is within those standards.

Personally, I’m not a vegan, and I use fish fertilizer in my own garden.  What it means to me is that the farm is making use of a byproduct that might be otherwise discarded to fertilize the crops.  As an added bonus, the fish fertilizer works as a pest deterent.

To me, using something that would be otherwise considered waste to increase and protect the production of organic food is a very green practice.   And of course I am glad that they are using fish and not synthetic chemicals, but I can see how this may not be in alignment with vegan guidelines.

If you are a vegan, and this is something of concern to you, you may want to check with your food sources to see what types of fertilizers are used.  I’d love to hear all of your thoughts about this.

This week in the bag, we had a lot of food.  Here’s what we got:

• Zucchini - Already made some gluten-free muffins.  Already ate many many muffins.  They have zucchini in them, they’re like a miracle food, right? We still have a lot of zucchini left.  I’ll probably bring some of the zucchini with me to writing group this week to see if there are any takers.
• Yellow Squash - I’m not a huge fan, but it I saute it with a little olive oil and red wine vinegar, I don’t mind it on salads.
• Assorted Lettuce - They hadn’t picked the lettuce at the time of writing the newsletter, so they weren’t sure what was going in.  I think we got Red Oak Leave, Romaine and Magenta Summer Crisp again.  On Sunday, we had ENORMOUS salads for dinner, with sauteed veggies (including Hungarian Wax Peppers from my garden).  My husband weighed his salad before he ate it and it came in at three pounds!  I love pigging out on salad.  Sometimes it just feels good to stuff your face, and a big bowl of veggies is a great way to do it, because you don’t feel that “what did I just eat” remorse later.
• Green Beans - Snacking, sharing, side dishes.
• Swiss Chard - I’ll probably make some variation on the Chipotle Chard recipe from a few weeks ago.  It was really good.
• Green and Red Onions - These are so good.  I end up putting them in almost every thing.

This week’s recipe was for zucchini squares, but it wasn’t gluten-free.  That was a savory dish, but I have my eye on this recipe, because I have a wicked sweet tooth.