I am Finding it Very Difficult to Keep Myself from Making a Presto/Pesto Joke Here, So Instead I Will Give this Post an Unnecessarily Long Title

Is your refrigerator overflowing with greens? Big greens, small greens, curly greens, flat greens? Are you starting to wonder whether it's even possible for a person to eat this many greens? There is a solution for your problem! You can make your greens tasty all through the long CSA-less winter! PESTO IS YOUR FRIEND!

Now I know there are some skeptics out there who are thinking "Pesto? That stuff is made out of basil. I have plenty of good ways to use basil." Not so, my friend! All your lovely leafy greens can be mushed and crushed and grinded into a tasty paste! Today I used arugula and kale with walnuts, but let your imagination go wild combining greens and nuts and cheeses! Pesto making is not by any means an exact science, but somebody asked me for a recipe for this stuff so I'm going to do my best to tell you exactly what I did.

Start by peeling garlic - I used about half of a large head. Toss it in your food processor with a big pinch of red pepper flakes and a teaspoon of salt, and give it a quick pulse. When the garlic is in nice little pieces, throw in your nuts - I used about two big handfuls of walnuts. Depending on the greens you're using, you might choose the traditional pine nuts, walnuts, cashews, almonds, pistachios, or even sunflower seeds. Grind it all into a thick, nutty garlic paste. Mmmmmmmm.

And now in go the greens! I used three bundles of kale, stemmed and coarsely chopped, and a small bundle of arugula. I used to think that the tougher greens like kale needed to be cooked before putting them into pesto, but it's not true! Works just fine raw. Put a handful or two at a time into your food processor and pack it down. 

Sometimes you might need to scoop up a bunch of the already-pureed stuff and put it on top of your greens to get the kale down where the blades will find 'em and chop 'em. Keep adding greens and pulsing until it's a uniform paste, and then grate some tasty parmesan cheese and add that in too - I used about 1/4 cup. Now turn your food processor on low and slowly pour in olive oil until you reach the consistency you want.

Now you have a whole lot of pesto! Before the summer's over you'll probably have a whole lot more, and that's AWESOME! Don't just put it on your pasta - smear it on your sandwiches, spead it on your pizzas, stir it into your soups and grain salads, or do what I did tonight and just throw a little onto some fresh sauteed veggies for a quick and easy meal. You cannot go wrong with fresh corn, crisp green beans, and some delicious fresh pesto.

But even with all those way to use pesto, you'll probably have some left over. Lucky for us all, pesto freezes beautifully and can last you all winter! Freeze it in ice cube trays to make little pesto bricks that are perfect for two servings of pasta, and enjoy all winter long!

The end of last year's pesto.

And today's fresh batch!

Having a Plan

The only way to make it through these summer months with their piles and piles of vegetables is to have a plan. For me, the weeks that end with sad unused veggies in the trash are almost always the weeks that I didn't sit down the day I picked up my vegetables to figure out exactly what I was going to cook.

Every week before I hop on the bus to JP to pick up my CSA box I do a quick inventory of what's left in my refrigerator. This week it was a bundle of kale, a couple of cucumbers, and some beets. Pulling all those veggies out of the fridge is also a great time to do a little cleaning - if you clean out all those little vegetable bits and wipe the condensation off of your vegetable drawers regularly, your vegetables will stay happy and fresh longer!

Once I get home with my vegetable haul the real planning starts. This week my box was full of blueberries, peaches, kale, cucumbers, summer squash, red leaf lettuce, mesclun mix, beets, green beans, potatoes, arugula, and corn. Yum!

I try to start my weekly menu planning by prioritizing any leftover veggies from the previous week - get those out of the way quick! Then I choose a few recipes for large meals that will leave leftovers for lunch, decide what will be prepped to store for the winter, and leave a few things out for quick meals, snacking, and salads. This week I knew I wanted to make some easily freezable kale and arugula pesto, and I also decided to roast and freeze my growing pile of beets. And it's going to be another hot one, so a nice big jug of lemon cucumber water in the fridge will be welcome. So that takes care of last week's leftovers plus a little bit of this week's pile. And there are some things that obviously go into the salads and snacking piles - peaches, berries, lettuce, and mesclun mix, I'm looking at you! 

Washed and ready to go in my tummy!

Washing your lettuce right away, drying out your salad spinner and lining it with paper towels, and just throwing the whole thing full of greens into the fridge is a great way to keep your salad greens fresh and make it easy to put together a quick salad anytime. Anything like this that you can prep at the beginning of the week is one less thing you'll have to worry about later!

I know that I'll have NO PROBLEM coming up with quick and easy meals for the corn and green beans, so I decided to do my meal planning with the summer squash, potatoes, and the alarming large pile of cucumbers. There are a couple of things to keep in mind while you plan your meals - your grocery shopping and your cooking methods. Since I already know that I'll be turning on the oven to roast some beets, I might consider a recipe that needs some roasted vegetables - might as well get plenty of use out of that hot oven and hopefully only have to turn it on once this week. And since I know I'll be buying walnuts for the kale and arugula pesto, I might consider other recipes that will use walnuts. 

I settled on a couple of tasty looking grilled summer pizzas and a lemony, minty bulgur salad with lots of cucumbers in it. And since I've got it all planned out, hopefully I'll just need one trip to the grocery store and just a few solid cooking nights to get me through the week. Now lets see how much of this plan actually gets done before the next pile of veggies shows up next Saturday. Wish me luck!

salvation from rotted potatoes

my delicious csa!

I begged. I pleaded. I cajoled… and finally my parents agreed to split a half-share CSA with me. ‘Perfect!’ thought I, ‘with only a half share I will be able to ease myself in to the challenges of constant vegetable supply.’

Imagine my shock when my father dropped a massive basket full of green on my doorstep. What will I do with all these vegetables?! How will I eat them all? How do you preserve a bunch of kale the size of your head? And WHAT (for the love of all things holy) what do you do with rhubarb besides bake pie?

Fast forward to approximately 3 weeks of half-soft vegetables stuffed in the bottom drawer of my fridge (and my roommate’s enmity). In my hour of need, and at the behest of many stinky potatoes, I decided to turn to my dear friend (and wunderkind bpl teen librarian) Laura Koenig to see how she has managed her own half share for the last few years.

From our conversations, CSA and Circuses was born: A place to share ideas, adventures, recipes, and plans for fresh vegetables.

what happens when i don't plan ahead...

my first failed attempt at marinating veggies...