Eat like a farmer

Right about now is the point in the season when some folks start feeling like they're "falling behind" on keeping up with the vegetables. Many people join a CSA with goals to up their cooking games and try a new recipe every week. And even longtime CSA folks tend to earmark the farm vegetables as "special ingredients" instead of basic staples, wait for the perfect special recipe to use them, and end up with the dreaded vegetable stackup (or worse, waste). Moreover, this local-farm CSA thing is not the same as standard market shopping, since there is no way to meal plan when you don't even know what you're getting until the night before! But regardless of the reason--self-imposed goals or CSA-imposed vegetables--this decidedly different cooking experience can get overwhelming.

However, having a larger quantity of vegetables around than you would ordinarily purchase isn't necessarily the same thing as too many vegetables--it just takes a different strategy to eat them than you would normally employ. Now, I've had some practice at eating vegetables, and so I thought I would offer a few tips: First, don't treat these vegetables as special. They aren't. They're just fresh, good-tasting, regular-old vegetables, and you have my permission to eat them up without any special preparation or special occasion. And second, although we love to send you new recipes, a focus on recipes can lead to a backlog of vegetables not yet assigned to the perfect meal plan. So here is my tried-and-true farmer-approved method for eating ridiculous quantities of vegetables: CUT THEM UP AND EAT THEM.

Yup. That's right. The busier the season gets, the simpler a farmer's meals get. Any cookable vegetables (like zucchini and cabbage) plus salt, oil, and a protein (meat or beans) will likely taste great. Any raw vegetables will also taste great together, like cucumbers, onions, and tomatoes. By all means, try that delicious new recipe, but if you feel like you're falling behind...just eat them up.

In fact, to help you breathe easier, I'll share with you my summer cooking process:
1. Pick a base: rice, tortilla, pizza crust, corn chips, pasta, etc.
2. Saute the cookables: squash, onion, garlic, some greens like chard/kale/cabbage, + beans/meat. Literally cut up as many vegetables as will fit in the pan (do not skip this step). Be sure to include something acidic, like a tomato or some lemon juice, and cook until well done and just starting to brown and stick, adding a little water when necessary.
3. Pile that onto the base and add some fat (cheese, sour cream, etc).
4. Voila, you've got stir fry, quesadillas, pizza, loaded (and I mean loaded) nachos, or pasta. Just put as much vegetable on as you can stand--tis the season for vegetable luxury!
5. If it fits your dish, cut up the raw vegetables (tomato, cucumber, onion, + raw corn cut from the cob), along with salt and olive oil to make a fresh salsa. Or experiment with fresh salads -- canned beans, rice, or tuna all combine with a fat (sour cream, olive oil, etc.) and any raw vegetables in various proportions to yield various dishes.

This method will work for everything else we've seen so far. It may not be as exciting or nuanced as seeking out that special recipe, but if you are looking to go through a quantity of vegetables, I recommend process over recipe:
1. Cut Vegetables;
2. Eat Them Up.