How to use up a vegetable box
Posted by kathryn in Vegetables, Easier eating and Fruit
Just recently I’ve started subscribing to a weekly fruit and vegetable box. It’s a CSA scheme, where you don’t get any choice. Instead, each Monday a box of in-season fruit and vegetables, grown within 5 hours of Sydney, is delivered.
I’m loving it. The produce is fresh, each week I’m getting something new and there have even been some surprises in the box – produce I’ve never tasted.
But making the best use of a vegetable box, is a challenge which requires a slightly different approach to meal planning. Rather than starting from a recipe and then compiling a shopping list, it’s the produce which directs your cooking.
The danger is you can end up either wasting fruit and vegetables or buying a lot of extra produce to supplement your box. Thinking about this, over the last few weeks, here’s how I approach getting the most out of my fruit and vegetable delivery.
1. Use the greens first
Some vegetables are long lasters. While others wilt and start looking tired within only a couple of days. Therefore it’s important to take care with the order in which you use the vegetables. My basic rule of thumb is:
- Use the greenery first. Spinach, watercress, mixed salad leaves, Asian greens, fresh herbs, anything with a soft green leaf will start to look quite sorry after a couple of days. So use these up first.
- Potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin, onions, garlic, leeks, even beetroot and sometimes carrots will all survive a week. Some will be good for longer than that. So I plan to use these vegetables at the end of the week.
- Use your judgement with the rest. The longevity of everything else lies somewhere between these two extremes. Use your own judgement about the produce you have. If something is starting to lose it’s freshness then use it up.
- The same is true for fruit. At the moment I’m making sure I use the ripe stonefruit first, while I’m leaving apples until later in the week.
- There’s a useful chart at the end of this post showing the fastest to slowest spoilers.
2. Talk to other people
I know a number of people who are also getting fruit and vegetable boxes. Talking to them about how they use the produce and what they’ve been cooking, has been immensely useful.
I’ve also had some useful recipe suggestions from people on Twitter. It was through a discussion about kale that @cheapdatesydney pointed me to this mashed potato with kale and olive oil recipe. While @crazybrave suggested I used my Chinese broccoli in a caramelised tofu recipe.
Find other people who are also subscribing to a vegie box and learn from them.
3. Google is your friend
I’ve also been making wide use of Google. A search engine can help you find background information and recipes for a particular food item. For example, this week’s delivery included water spinach, which I’ve never eaten before. Google led me to this recipe for water spinach with ginger.
A search engine can also help you find ways of using up large amounts of one food, or produce which is going bad. In the first week I ended up with some over-ripe stonefruit. Rather than throwing it out, I Googled “how to use over-ripe fruit” and came up with this recipe for oven poaching with cinnamon.
4. Be flexible
One of the dangers with getting a vegie box is you can end up buying a whole lot of other ingredients, to make up specific recipes and meals. Which of course means your weekly grocery bill rises. To prevent this I find it helps to be flexible with your cooking. I try to take the attitude of making do with what I have, rather than buying a whole lot of new ingredients.
An example – the original caramelised tofu recipe I listed above is made with Brussels sprouts. I made mine with Chinese broccoli and it worked just fine.
5. Roast, soup or stew the leftovers
At the end of the week there’s usually something leftover – a bit of pumpkin, a few leaves, some extra fruit. If that’s the case then I’ll try to cook it up in some way. Over the last few weeks I’ve:
- Roasted the last bits of pumpkin, with spices and then used this as a spread on toast and to make a risotto.
- Blitzed half a bunch of leftover basil with pine nuts and olive oil to make a dairy-free pesto – which I’ve used on toast, in pasta and as part of a filling for jacket potatoes.
- Used leftover apples in a crumble.
- Made the remnants of watercress into a soup and put this in the freezer.
I’m loving my weekly fruit and vegetable box and the way it’s making me think more deeply about what I’m eating and cooking. It feels like a surprise present and opening the box and rifleing through is becoming a weekly pleasure. Plus I’m eating produce grown within a five hour radius of where I live – the Australian version of “local”.
What are your tips for using up a vegie box?
02 March, 2010
Comments
I think google is great for coming up with recipes from what I have lying around. Yes, i often use it for cocktails, but also for baking :)
I should have also mentioned I use the taste.com.au site quite a lot. They’re advanced search functions lets you search on ingredients, recipe styles, occasions and so on.
I love the veggie box concept Kathryn. I can’t say I have heard of it yet – Queenslanders are always behind the times. However Mediterranean Europe has been doing this since time began. Buying the freshest veggies and then deciding what to do with when they get home.
If stuck for ideas, don’t forget you can always marinate certain veggies in olive oil, some garlic, vinegar and herbs for longer keeping in the fridge. It takes the pressure off of feeling you must use it up immediately. Great veggies to do this with are beetroot, eggplant, capsicum, zucchini, squash and asparagus. Infact they taste even better one week later. I once had some leftover eggplant that I forgot about sitting in the back of fridge. I almost tossed it but not before trying. It was the best marinated eggplant I had ever tasted! Becareful though that all the veggie is covered in oil as mould can develop. Also it is better to keep marinated veggies in an airtight container as opposed to a dish covered with cling film. Less likely to go off.
I’ve been receiving a veggie basket, too. This week, though, I’m unexpectedly going away for a couple of days and am afraid things will get wasted, especially as I don’t have a freezer. One tip: with avocados (which are in season most of the year here), tomatoes and soft fruit: once these have ripened and become tasty outside the fridge, you can simply put them into the fridge to extend their shelf life. Avocados will keep for a good 7-10 days that way and so will tomatoes and peaches. And with fresh ginger, it’s a good idea to peel it and then submerge it in mirin or sake. It keeps for ever, and the ginger-infused mirin or sake will enhance the taste of any Oriental dishes you are making.
Hi Mariana. Food Connect in Brisbane does the same sort of box scheme. jump on their website www.foodconnect.com.au for more info.
Love the post Kathryn.
yay! i am loving our veggie boxes too. it’s certainly a great way to learn more about different fruits and veggies, and how to eat them. and i find it is forcing us to eat lots of fruit and veg, which in turn has been saving us money. no need to buy takeaway when you’ve got a gorgeous pumpkin or greens sitting there waiting for you!
I didn’t get on too well with the veggie box scheme, unfortunately. Potatoes are the main crop up this way and so half of the box consisted of those. Just don’t eat that many potatoes…
In more temperate climes, I suspect I’d be a massive fan of the boxes. :)
I’ve never been brave enough to have a vegetable box (apart from a brush with the idea in a student house). I have enough trouble managing my vegetables that I choose but this is an excellent post that I will return to should I ever take the leap (and it might happen!)
My “vegie box” is my back garden. I plan meals vegies first according to what is ready to eat, and work out the other meal components from there. I find that as I get better at cooking I am more confident with substituting one vegetable for another.
I am thinking to get the boxes as well. but I miss the joy of going to the market! uhm… but my time is getting limited these days, so I am really considering it. My friend is in the business of delivering fruits/vegs in melbourne. I should check him out!
I’ve subscribed to a similar service for the last year and I love it. It can be a bit of a puzzle to figure out what to do with some veggies, especially all of the dark leafy greens (i.e. kale, chard, collards). They need to be used pretty early – I’ve found steaming them and eating with a dressing of citrus or tahini is delish. Another good way to use these is in an egg dish (scrambled, fritata, quiche). Also anything can be made into a soup. I’ve also come up with lots of ways to use carrot greens – they are good in soups, can be made into a pesto and are also good in eggs – use in any way you might use parsley (hint – just use the leafy parts, not the stems which can be very tough).
I love that it’s exposes me to produce I don’t buy in the market and others that I’ve never had before. I do get more potatoes than I would buy, but these keep for ages, are good in soups, and make a popular side dish (roasted) when you have guests. And there are lots of heirloom varieties I’ve never had appearing in my box!
Maybe I should also note that I live in the pacific northwest of the US, so we’re in the cold veggie season.
Good ideas Kathryn. Sometimes the though of trawling through recipe books for new ideas every week can be a bit daunting.
The australian working definition of local did make me chuckle!
Mariana – Food Connect actually started up in Brisbane. I first read about them in an article written by John Birmingham in The Monthly. So on this occasion, Queensland was well ahead of the pack. Great idea re marinating your vegetables to use them up.
South American Slimmer – I love your ginger idea. You then end up with two really useful and flavour packed ingredients. Brilliant. I also use your fridge strategy with stone fruit – once it’s ripe it goes straight in the fridge.
Robert – Welcome. You’ve been doing great stuff up in Queensland. I have to say I was immensely excited when I heard the scheme was coming to Sydney. Keep up the good work.
Lindsey – glad to hear you’ve been enjoying your box. I’ve found it’s saving us money too. I tend to focus on using up what’s in the fridge, rather than going out and buying new ingredients. It’s also pushing me to do new things – I haven’t made pesto for years, but have loved having it in the fridge.
Oh Wendy – a box half-full of potatoes would be very disappointing, no matter how much you loved potatoes. Here in Sydney we have a good climate for growing a wide range of crops year round. So it makes the box scheme much more interesting.
Johanna – we purposefully selected a small box for the delivery each week. it’s slightly less than we’d use in an average week which does mean we have to top up on the weekends. But it does ensure we’re not overwhelmed with vegetables and makes the management slightly easier.
Paola – a backgarden full of vegies is even better! Making substitutions does take some confidence, but you do get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. And it’s an immensely useful cooking skill.
Anh – I work on Saturdays, when the main Sydney markets are on and find it very difficult to get there, which is part of what made the box scheme so attractive. While you don’t get to choose your produce, I do thoroughly enjoy opening my box each week and seeing the surprises inside.
design_Smith – I agree with you about carrot tops, aren’t they delicious! I tend to just mix them in with any other greens I have and I often just cook them really simply like this. And frittatas are one of my back-up dishes as well.
Sophie – I do strongly believe in the making do attitude. Dinner doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to be the best use of that particular vegetable. As long as it’s quick-ish, tasty and healthy, then I’m happy. So I actually don’t do a lot of recipe trawling, instead I put the vegies we have into the food I’d be cooking anyway. The main times I use google is when there’s something new in the box, which I haven’t used before.
Oooh. Please excuse my ignorance Robert and Kathryn. How nice to hear the concept began up here. I shall go to the website right now. Thanks for pointing this out.
Thanks! this is exactly the info I was looking for
I’m finding we have way too many greens in our box. So, by the end of the week?? Last week it was lettuce soup. Tonight (before my pick-up tomorrow morning) I’m stir frying the shredded lettuce and kale that remain with onions caramelized in butter.
Claudia, I’m not sure the phrase “too many greens” exists for me! I love ‘em. I try to use mine at the beginning of the week, when they’re still at their freshest and use them in big, big handfuls – half and whole bunches in my cooking are common. There’s a bit on using up greenery on this post. Plus the free extract from the Spring An Honest Kitchen has a greenery filled recipe. You can download it by clicking here
I have no problem using lots of veggies, it’s just the leafy greens – kale, mustard, and all sorts of lettuce in my CSA box. Bob really doesn’t like leafy salads, just chopped cucumber or cole slaw type ones. So, using up all those leaves in a week is a challenge. Last night I did the stir fry greens (with bacon and shallots) as a side, and he liked that pretty well. Hopefully, they’ll be adding more of other sorts of veg. in future.
Thanks for the post on using what you have from Food Connect! I just thought I’d pop over and ‘wave’. I have a blog where I write up what I do with my CSA veges and fruit: http://brisbaneharvest.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the link Kate, it’s interesting to see what you’re cooking. I talk to a couple of people on Twitter about different ways of using up the vegie box, so I’m going to let them know about your blog.
Oh yes and I tried to leave a comment, but don’t have any of the profile options it was asking for. But just wanted to let you know your curry looked marvellous.
Hey Kate, your blog has inspired us at Food Connect Brisbane on how to best communicate the comments in this blog and yours.
Wonderful to have you support our farmers through this really tough last couple of months.
First it was too dry for too long, then too wet and now lots of challenges with bugs, thankfully our farmers have good bugs but the nasty ones are giving the produce a really hard time.
Next month we are planning to theme it around ‘celebrate a farmer month’ were we will be asking subscribers to ring at least one farmer and toast all our farmers at many meals. We will also have farmers at City Cousins so people can say g’day and take a bit of time to have a cuppa with them.
17th April is also international day of the Family Farmer / Peasant Farmers struggle and we will be highlighting that movement (know as La Via Campesina)
arm your self with the fabulous new book by Matthew Evans called Real Food, and even the Jane Grigson classics simply called Fruit and Vegetables. The more you know about your food and how to treat each item, the easier it is to be inspired by the box and not go buying MORE food. Make and freeze stock. Make and freeze soffritto. Learn to roast vegies for soup, risotto, salads (beetroots, fennel, zucchini, pumpkin eggplant etc).
My life is a quest for flavour – and the vegie box has absolutely delivered.
www.foodconnectadelaide.com.au has reat meal planner, ideas, recipe links each week to compliment the box – fantastic ideas.
Hi there Nesta, thanks for the link to Food Connect Adelaide, I’ll have a look at that resource. Jane Grigson’s work is fabulous. I also love anything by Nigel Slater. He has a deep, deep knowledge of ingredients and a wonderful minimal-fuss cooking style.
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