Cropshare of overabundance
In moving back west, one of the first things I did was find a place to get local vegetables. Lucky for me, I found a cropshare and got an assortment of produce every week. I learned to cook lots of new dishes and became an at-home vegetarian because of all the vegetables I'd have to eat. It was sometimes difficult to keep up with eating an entire share of vegetables before the week ended. Often, there would be two shares of vegetables and I'd have to really scramble to figure out how to eat so many cucumbers all at once. Also, there were so many insects living in my food. I had to check fairly well for spiders, lady bugs, and caterpillars. I got used to it, but also was worried about how many bugs I ate these last few months.
Regardless, I learned to not be afraid of vegetables. We grew up in a household that didn't venture too far from the frozen corn, broccoli or green bean varieties, so having to cook with kale, leek, or arugula often required some homework on pinterest. Here are some of my favorite things I learned from my cropshare of overabundant vegetables:
1. Sweet potato alfredo sauce sounds like a good idea - but is not. It's way better to broil or bake up those sweet potatoes with a cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger spice mix.
2. Homemade pesto sauce from farm basil is lovely. What is not so lovely is forgetting to check for spiders and wondering whether or not I'd had some ground up spiders in my pesto. More protein though, #amiright?
3. Quiche. It's so easy, and so yummy! I loved the cherry tomato, squash, zuchinni, cilantro one I made with little bacon in there for good measure. Fed me breakfast every morning for a week.
4. Cheesy au gratin yellow squash was a great pairing with arugula roasted beet salad. I also candied some walnuts. Beets will carmelize when roasted. I had no idea I liked beets so much.
5. Who knew that dill was such a useful herb? I used it to make a dill, onion, cheese scone and had that with a dill potato cucumber salad and a different arugula salad with a lemon balsamic vinegarette. This was amazing.
6. Just to give an idea of the amount of vegetables I'd get every week: bag of kale, bag of peppers, bag of basil, bag of onion, 2 bags of tomatoes, bag of cucumber.
7. Yellow cucumber are sometimes good and sometimes really bitter. I learned to pre-test cucumber before adding it to a recipe.
8. Quiche two consisted of kale and tomato with feta. I liked the first one better, but my brother argued that they were different but both good.
9. I got used to eating vegetables in the morning. Usually with an egg to mix in with rice and sour cream. Breakfast no longer was for sugar, but a means for getting rid of vegetables. There was a lot of sautéed kale for breakfast.
10. I don't know that there is any better vegetable that exists than garden heirloom tomatoes.
11. I never really knew how to cook peppers successfully. I made stuffed peppers at one point, but didn't really feel like it was a slam dunk.
12. Never could figure out what some of the vegetables were. I threw away a whole bag of what seemed like tomatoes but were so bitter and white inside that I felt like they probably were not a tomato.
Sometimes you win at the vegetable game, and sometimes you lose.
Regardless, I learned to not be afraid of vegetables. We grew up in a household that didn't venture too far from the frozen corn, broccoli or green bean varieties, so having to cook with kale, leek, or arugula often required some homework on pinterest. Here are some of my favorite things I learned from my cropshare of overabundant vegetables:
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| Food pictures from left to right, top to bottom for each row. |
2. Homemade pesto sauce from farm basil is lovely. What is not so lovely is forgetting to check for spiders and wondering whether or not I'd had some ground up spiders in my pesto. More protein though, #amiright?
3. Quiche. It's so easy, and so yummy! I loved the cherry tomato, squash, zuchinni, cilantro one I made with little bacon in there for good measure. Fed me breakfast every morning for a week.
4. Cheesy au gratin yellow squash was a great pairing with arugula roasted beet salad. I also candied some walnuts. Beets will carmelize when roasted. I had no idea I liked beets so much.
5. Who knew that dill was such a useful herb? I used it to make a dill, onion, cheese scone and had that with a dill potato cucumber salad and a different arugula salad with a lemon balsamic vinegarette. This was amazing.
6. Just to give an idea of the amount of vegetables I'd get every week: bag of kale, bag of peppers, bag of basil, bag of onion, 2 bags of tomatoes, bag of cucumber.
7. Yellow cucumber are sometimes good and sometimes really bitter. I learned to pre-test cucumber before adding it to a recipe.
8. Quiche two consisted of kale and tomato with feta. I liked the first one better, but my brother argued that they were different but both good.
9. I got used to eating vegetables in the morning. Usually with an egg to mix in with rice and sour cream. Breakfast no longer was for sugar, but a means for getting rid of vegetables. There was a lot of sautéed kale for breakfast.
10. I don't know that there is any better vegetable that exists than garden heirloom tomatoes.
11. I never really knew how to cook peppers successfully. I made stuffed peppers at one point, but didn't really feel like it was a slam dunk.
12. Never could figure out what some of the vegetables were. I threw away a whole bag of what seemed like tomatoes but were so bitter and white inside that I felt like they probably were not a tomato.
Sometimes you win at the vegetable game, and sometimes you lose.
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