When we first joined Farm Fresh to You (FFTY) about 6 or 7 years ago, I was completely new to the world of CSAs (community supported agriculture), farm boxes, or any produce delivery. I had heard of the concept for years but I had my doubts about the cost and being able to use all the produce, so I never committed. Then in 2010, we found ourselves starting our new lives post-kidney transplant, with Joe finally being able to eat all of the fruit and vegetables that had been on the restricted list for so long. Suddenly our health seemed something worth spending our limited grocery budget on, so I signed up.
Our first delivery was a revelation. The organic, local produce was more delicious than any I had ever procured from the grocery store. From that first order, I was hooked, and regular produce delivery has been a standard in my kitchen ever since (after couple years with FFTY, I switched to a hyper-local service that recently went out of business; I am am now back with FFTY and very happy with them). I don’t just love it because of better flavor, however. I also really enjoy being “forced” to try new things (hello, fennel!) that I would never have chosen on my own (even from those tempting displays at farmer’s markets) and eating seasonally.
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*I’ll be honest, sometimes I still wonder
what to do with all of the kale! |
I certainly knew of the concept of eating seasonally before my first produce delivery, but I had never given it much thought (other than deciding at least a dozen years ago that I wouldn’t buy any more grocery store tomatoes in any season; they are all terrible). Before that, I chose my vegetables based on what was on sale. Which, to be honest, was pretty much broccoli, cabbage, carrots, and onions all year. Eating seasonally used to our natural state of course, but industrialization and refrigerated trucking has enabled Americans to eat tomatoes, cherries, and asparagus all year long, for the entirety of my generation’s memory. What we have gained in [false] choice and convenience, we have lost in flavor, texture, and true variety, not to mention the waste of resources involved in shipping grapes from Chile in February.
OK, enough about why. Let’s get down to how. I know a common roadblock to joining a CSA is using up everything before it goes bad and what to do with all that kale*.
Over the years I have refined my process of using up everything that gets delivered. My personal breakthrough was shifting from the idea that “I need to remember to cook this before it spoils!” to using the produce as the foundation for each week’s menu. In other words, I build my meals around the vegetables that arrive instead of fitting them into planned dinners, similar to my method for working with food restrictions.
Let me explain how that works. For each delivery, I make a list of what I am getting and then sit down with a couple of cookbooks and my computer (actually, last week I used my new subscription to Eat Your Books for the first time -- OMG, how have I lived without this service in my life?!). Then I make a second list of recipes that feature and/or use up each item on the delivery list, checking off the vegetables as they are accounted for. I keep those two lists on my fridge, and cross recipes off as I make them, and vegetables off as I use them. This way, nothing gets forgotten and moldy at the back of my fridge. I like my menu planning flexible, so sometimes I include multiple choices for vegetables. This helps when I get home late from work or change my mind mid-week about what I am in the mood for.
I also have a few general “rules” for handling my produce bounty:
Whenever I get any kind of lettuce, I wash and tear it up for salads ASAP. I store it in the fridge in my salad spinner. This means we eat salads much more frequently (more willingly!) since the lettuce is ready to go. And the salad spinner keeps it fresh for a week.
Mushrooms always go into a paper bag immediately for storage. They rot in plastic, but the worst that happens if stored too long in paper is that they dry out--still edible.
Plan to use tender, more perishable items first. For instance, butternut squash can wait around until I get to it, but corn must be eaten now.
Some items, say, gorgeous summer tomatoes, seem to demand the perfect recipe that will showcase them in all their glory. However, since I try to never let perfect be the enemy of good, sometimes life demands that I just need to cook something with the simplest method or back pocket recipe rather than searching for a showstopper or taking the time to go shopping for special ingredients. So, I give myself permission to make something “boring”. As long as we eat it, we are doing well. There are no rewards for using the most interesting or special recipes.
Similarly, certain items trigger certain cravings for me (whenever potatoes and green beans arrive in the same box, I must make Nicoise salad, and that’s OK, however many times that happens during potato-and-green-bean-season). That’s the beauty of eating seasonally: there’s no chance to get tired of things because the season and box contents will inevitably change. Another example: When leeks arrive, I feel compelled to make potato leek soup. So even if I never make anything else with leeks, I am happy. Leeks won’t be in season forever. Oh, and the first fennel of the year begs to be made into a fantastic tuna salad with Meyer lemons. By the way, this is one of those recipes that I never would have made, or even noticed, if I hadn’t been faced with fennel I had no idea what to do with.
