Here are some tips for enjoying many months worth of seasonal vegetables:

• Store your veggies for freshness and visibility in your fridge. Click here for more storage tips.

• Current member tip! Triage and use veggies by first to spoil (e.g. fragile lettuce and spinach first, saving longer lasting things like taters and winter squash for last). 

• Current Member tip! Eat as many vegetables as possible as soon as you get your share home. The vegetables are not so precious as to wait for the perfect meal and risk losing them to the compost pile.

• Eat at home. Cook from scratch.

• Find a few quick recipes that are easy to prepare and try to keep key ingredients on hand such as pasta, rice, oil, butter, and salad dressing.

• Current member tip! Master the Basic Frittata — 6-8 eggs, 1/4 cup of dairy, any combination of sauteed veggies you have, a protein if you want it, a little cheese, and bake in a 350 oven for 15-30-ish minutes (check and eat when center if firm-ish, but not hard — depends on size of pan, heat of oven, how many eggs you use). Some ovens may cook faster, some cook slower. Once I mastered my basic recipe and knew how long it would take in my oven, I was set. In any week and with any veggies, I could always make this work if I was out of other ideas. I start by sauteing my veggies, pour over the mixture of eggs and dairy, top with cheese and protein if using, and then pop into the oven. One pan — my 10-inch or 12-inch fry pan is all that gets dirty.

• Current member tip! Clean, process the veggies as soon as you get them. If they are ready to use when you want them you’re more likely to eat them. Cut up things that can be eaten raw right when you get home and put it in a container in the fridge – for easy snacking and lunch packing.

• Think about setting up a themed weekly menu such as “Macaroni Mondays, Taco Tuesdays” etc. to use up CSA veggies in varied meals throughout the week and to make it easier to decide what to cook.

• Try new vegetables several times, prepared in multiple ways and be open to new tastes. Think smoothies, omelets, pasta sauces, soups, baked, sautéed, shredded, wraps, grilled…

• Preserve extra veggies by freezing, canning, or drying them for future use.

• Current member tip! If I can process something in a pickle brine, even if it’s not canned and just has to go in the refrigerator, I can manage to make it last for months instead of days or weeks when I’m either not cooking much or need to use up something we have a lot of that delivery.

• Going out of town and can’t get through your week’s worth of veggies? Share the bounty with your neighbors and co-workers.