This is the time of year when it’s easy too be seduced by vegetables.
Such bounty, so enticing. The shine of an eggplant’s skin. The earthy scent of unscrubbed carrots. The crack of a fresh onion as a knife splits it open on a cutting board. The sweet explosion of a raw pepper’s bright flavor made even sweeter by the sauté pan.
But oh, the burden of excess! This summer, make a vow: Use it all.
When farmers markets and roadside stands overflow in high summer, it’s hard to draw the line. It’s an effort of iron will to not fill your bag to bursting – enough fresh produce for yourself, your family, the deep freeze, the neighbors, the cubicle mates.
Then you go to put away the gargantuan haul, and find that half of last week’s veggies are still in the fridge.
Maybe they’re still good. No, they don’t smell right. And that Swiss chard is from two or three weeks ago. And what’s that … thing, lurking in the very back of the crisper?
Eeww.
Suddenly the smug satisfaction of supporting small local farmers evaporates, vanquished by the funk of good intentions gone to mold.
Sound familiar?
There’s a method to tame this hedonistic madness. I developed it in desperation one year when I had bought a full organic farm share. I paid about $600 up front and got vegetables and herbs for four on each Friday from May through October.
My solution: Strategize, or be suffocated by string beans and spuds.
The “Snack-Salad-Sauté” system has one goal: Let nothing go unused. It concentrates preparation chores into one marathon session and focuses on consuming the most perishable and fragile items first.
Set aside two or three hours on the day you pick up your farm share. When you’re finished, you’ll have a fridge full of ready-to-eat healthy food.
Buy it, then clean and prep it
Almost anything you buy, grow, or get in a farm share can be cleaned and prepped using this blitzkrieg philosophy. The whole family can help. Little ones can tote scraps out to the compost bin; middle-school kids can peel, scrub and chop.
Cabbage. Coleslaw is a whole new dish with right-out- of-the-field cabbage. Try a balsamic dressing on half green, half red cabbage with raisins to add sweetness.
Kohlrabi. Julienne it to add to slaw, or cube it to add crunch to potato salad. Or just chunk it up to serve with dips.
Tomatoes. Wash, slice, containerize to serve as a cold side alongside sweet corn.
Smaller melons. They make a wonderful summer cool-down if they’re cut up and ready to eat. Halve, seed, wedge, cube and containerize them right when you get them home. If you do this with watermelon, you might have more than you can fit in the fridge, so hold off until the other fruit’s gone – or prep it all and give some away.
Peaches, plums, apricots. If you’re eating these out of hand, you don’t need to prepare them, but if you’re not, get them ready to freeze or bake into compotes or cobblers. Peaches actually do reasonably well just washed (cut out bad parts), wrapped in cling wrap, then Press ‘n’ Seal, and tossed into the freezer as they are.
Berries. A quick rinse if necessary, then toss onto a cookie sheet and into a flat surface in the freezer. Next day, gather them up like gumballs, bag and return to the polar zone.
Herbs. Need I say that this is the time to make your pesto – or herb butter? Try Thai basil and lime or parsley and garlic butters.
Apples, pears. The heck with peeling; core and chop, then saute in butter, vanilla and a little brown sugar, or top with granola and butter and bake.
Winter squashes. Fire up the oven, jab them with a knife to vent and have them roasting while you prep the other things. Or halve, seed, chop and steam.
Exhausted? Remember that this method inflicts only one mammoth cleanup – instead of a mess every day.
Veggies go better with these staples
To make the most of your haul, you’ll need some staples:
Good wine vinegar, red or white, in a flavor you like. Raspberry vinegar’s nice.
Really good olive oil-I like Aptera from Greece and Olivar de la Luna from Spain; then more olive oil of fair quality (Spectrum is fine) or grapeseed oil or other healthy oil for sautéing.
Butter.
Fragrant seasonings, preferably fresh. My all-purpose dried blend for when I haven’t got fresh herbs is Morton & Bassett’s Herbes de Provence (sold at major grocery stores) but feel free to pick your own. Just make sure it’s fragrant, or you might as well be adding dust to your fresh farm-grown veggies.
Ziploc bags and freezer and refrigerator containers.
A lemon or lime-or a couple of both come in handy.
Chicken or vegetable broth-A quart or two is likely to be useful.
-Susan Clotfelter
