I think the most frequent question I get about our CSA share is if we use it all and how we use it all. I seem to be getting the question even more this year so I thought I’d try to share my answers with everyone. The first thing is that when you are in a CSA you start to learn what produce needs to be used quickly and what can languish in the fridge for a little while. For example, in what we got this week we’ll need to use the basil and chard especially quick, before the weekend really. On the other hand, the potatoes, garlic, and onion will be fine in the fridge for a few weeks. Things like the beets, eggplant, and squash fall somewhere in the middle. Knowing how quickly your veggies will be inedible helps you plan your meals accordingly.
When there is an abundance of some things I usually freeze some for use in the winter. We have a separate chest freezer that we use for additional cold storage. Like this week we got a whole bunch of okra. The only way we’ve found that we like okra is in gumbo. We’ve had gumbo every week for the last few weeks and we’ll have it again this week but we have enough okra that I’ll be making extra gumbo to store in the freezer for sometime when I can’t cook. When the tomatoes really start coming in I oven roast them and freeze them and some ingredients I just chop and freeze like fennel, celery, and herbs. My best advice is to freeze these types of ingredients in usable amounts — 1/4 cup for the veggies and a tablespoon or two for the herbs — that way you don’t have to defrost 2 cups of chopped chives to get the little bit you need to garnish your soup.
A lot of recipes, especially older recipes, call for ingredients that are in season at the same time. We’ll be having ratatouille this week because it’s a meal made with eggplant, peppers, onions, squash, garlic, and tomatoes. In fact when I picked up our share this week it just about shouted ratatouille to me. Finding dishes that use a whole bunch of ingredients from a CSA share is actually easier than you might think.
Another quick way to use up some veggies is to sauté up whatever you’re trying to use in some olive oil with onions or shallots if you have them and use it to top pasta, rice, or pizza. We love halved cherry tomatoes with corn, summer squash with red onions, green beans with garlic. This is a great way to use up the odds and ends the day before your next CSA share arrives.
Probably our last resort is to give food away or compost it. I have a neighbor who loves beets. We have yet to prepare them in a way that is palatable to anyone in the house — though we did like them at the solstice dinner — so this weeks beets will probably be a gift to her. She’ll love them and I’ll be happy they don’t go to waste. Sometimes our chard ends up in the compost bin. I really try to avoid this but we just don’t like chard that much. If I’m thinking ahead I chop it, blanch it, and freeze it for use in a lasagna later but often it’s too far gone before I’m ready to deal with it.
So there you go, that’s how we eat through our CSA share each week. Believe it or not we head to the farmer’s market every Saturday morning too. Admittedly, we buy mostly fruit, cheese, and meat on Saturdays but we do get more veggies too. Each week our share is a bit like a puzzle and we just have to figure out which pieces to put together for the best meals all week.
