Farmer's Market Bounty: Plan of Attack
Does your farmer's market haul often end up rotting in your crisper drawer? It happens to the best of us. I just hate myself when I have to scrape once majestic, now moldy Swiss chard from the bottom of my fridge. It's a waste of money and beautiful food. I now try to attack my produce right away- at least half of it will be processed and/or cooked the same day it comes home. The rest of it within the next 2 days.
I used to try to come up with creative new ways to cook items. Now I just go for the most efficient ways to get this nutritious stuff into my family's eager mouths. So if you ever feel overwhelmed with what to do with your fresh produce, I'd like to walk you through how a chef (at least this chef) attacks the issue. Hopefully hearing some of my strategies will help you reduce waste and eat more fruits & veggies as well!
My haul from the Elmhurst Farmer's Market this week:
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blueberries
2 quarts strawberries
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch broccoli
2 bunches red spring onions
2 zucchini squash
2 yellow squash
1 bunch kale
1 bunch spring lettuces
1 bunch Swiss chard
4 quarts fava beans
The blueberries, raspberries, and 1 quart of strawberries will be eaten fresh by my family within the next 48 hours, so all I have to do is rinse those. The 2nd qt of strawberries I immediately rinse, de-stem, cut in half, and throw in a Tupperware container with 2 Tbsp of sugar. This will help them keep a little longer in the fridge and we can eat them for shortcake or with meringue later in the week.
I immediately trim and peel the carrots, slicing half of them into matchsticks and the other half into half-moons and place in Tupperware in the fridge. These are ready to be eaten as is, or thrown in a pan with some butter, salt & pepper, & fresh herbs for a quick veggie side dish. I wash and trim the broccoli, chopping the stems and leaves and putting them in their own container. Those I'll add to mac & cheese or into a quick lunch pasta or soup, or I will make a pureed broccoli soup out of them in my crock pot. The broccoli tops I cut into bite-size pieces and these too are now ready for a quick steam or saute for yet another easy dinner side dish.
Next I make roasted vegetables with 1 bunch of red spring onion, the two zucchinis, and the two yellow squash (recipe to follow in later post). At the same time in the oven, I make kale chips with all of the kale I purchased.
I chop and wash the spring lettuces in my salad spinner. Once dry I just throw the spinner in my fridge and I can pull out my ready-to-go salad greens over the nest 3-4 days. If you don't have room for the whole salad spinner in your fridge, a large Ziploc bag works as well.
The fava beans I'm going to throw whole on the grill the next time I fire it up (recipe to follow in later post), leaving only the Swiss chard and 1 bunch of red onions for me to deal with... I think I'll do my crock pot recipe for Pasta Fagiole with those tomorrow!
All that prep and cooking took about an hour after getting home from the market, and my haul is all ready to be used and eaten, not wasted.
I used to try to come up with creative new ways to cook items. Now I just go for the most efficient ways to get this nutritious stuff into my family's eager mouths. So if you ever feel overwhelmed with what to do with your fresh produce, I'd like to walk you through how a chef (at least this chef) attacks the issue. Hopefully hearing some of my strategies will help you reduce waste and eat more fruits & veggies as well!
My haul from the Elmhurst Farmer's Market this week:
1 pint raspberries
1 pint blueberries
2 quarts strawberries
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch broccoli
2 bunches red spring onions
2 zucchini squash
2 yellow squash
1 bunch kale
1 bunch spring lettuces
1 bunch Swiss chard
4 quarts fava beans
The blueberries, raspberries, and 1 quart of strawberries will be eaten fresh by my family within the next 48 hours, so all I have to do is rinse those. The 2nd qt of strawberries I immediately rinse, de-stem, cut in half, and throw in a Tupperware container with 2 Tbsp of sugar. This will help them keep a little longer in the fridge and we can eat them for shortcake or with meringue later in the week.
I immediately trim and peel the carrots, slicing half of them into matchsticks and the other half into half-moons and place in Tupperware in the fridge. These are ready to be eaten as is, or thrown in a pan with some butter, salt & pepper, & fresh herbs for a quick veggie side dish. I wash and trim the broccoli, chopping the stems and leaves and putting them in their own container. Those I'll add to mac & cheese or into a quick lunch pasta or soup, or I will make a pureed broccoli soup out of them in my crock pot. The broccoli tops I cut into bite-size pieces and these too are now ready for a quick steam or saute for yet another easy dinner side dish.
Next I make roasted vegetables with 1 bunch of red spring onion, the two zucchinis, and the two yellow squash (recipe to follow in later post). At the same time in the oven, I make kale chips with all of the kale I purchased.
I chop and wash the spring lettuces in my salad spinner. Once dry I just throw the spinner in my fridge and I can pull out my ready-to-go salad greens over the nest 3-4 days. If you don't have room for the whole salad spinner in your fridge, a large Ziploc bag works as well.
The fava beans I'm going to throw whole on the grill the next time I fire it up (recipe to follow in later post), leaving only the Swiss chard and 1 bunch of red onions for me to deal with... I think I'll do my crock pot recipe for Pasta Fagiole with those tomorrow!
All that prep and cooking took about an hour after getting home from the market, and my haul is all ready to be used and eaten, not wasted.
Have you used those wonderful green plastic bags that preserve produce? My parents visited us here in Berlin recently and brought us some, and it's really reduced the amount of sadness brought on by finding what we bring home from the Turkish market gone bad within a day or so. Now we can keep vegetables for at least a week.
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I have not! I was waiting for someone I trusted to tell me they were not useless, over-priced, gimmicky crap- which is what I assume almost every heavily advertised kitchen/cooking gadget is. Now that you have vouched for them I will buy them immediately and probably blog about them, too. How many times can you re-use them before having to replace? Now I can buy twice as much at the Farmer's Market!!!
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We've washed & reused them a lot, and they've shown no signs of becoming less effective. I presume at some point they stop working, but not right away. I forget the explanation for how they work -- they either supply some chemical that is lost when produce ages, or they absorb it, or....I dunno. But they work.
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AWESOME post- I can't wait to try the kale crisps! I think my kids would like them, and I love arugula, so we all will enjoy. SO healthy too, I never know what to do with kale!
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