Vegetables of Doom
Egads! It’s Monday, and there are a ton of vegetables left to eat before a whole new crop arrives tomorrow from my CSA. What happened? Well, I went away for a few days on yet another vacation and didn’t take any of the produce with me.
Mrs. Fussy did a valiant job at home whipping up a handful of purple basil into purple “pesto”. Although it would have been just a bit better if she remembered to add two garlic scapes instead of actual garlic. Still, the vegetables are my responsibility, so anything she does to help me use them up is a happy bonus. And the Fussys did also eat the snow peas, broccoli, zucchini, lettuce, and cucumber while I was gone.
Last night I found myself making a whole separate meal just for me, to make sure the delicious turnip greens didn’t go to waste. Now all I have to do is make it through 1.5 bunches of kale (that includes half of last week’s too), a head of cabbage, two garlic scapes, a bunch of green onions, a bit of parsley, and some cilantro.
Luckily, I’ve got a plan.
First let me lay out the fundamental problem here. Of those things in the list above, Mrs. Fussy will only eat three of them. The cabbage, green onions and cilantro are all me. And while the kids will happily munch down on kale chips just as fast as I can make them, I was recently reminded what an incredible pain in the ass/labor of love they are for a perfectionist like me.
The answer: raw vegetable salads.
For me, I’m going to make another batch of slaw. The last one was Korean-inspired with gochujang, toasted sesame oil, peanut oil, rice vinegar, ginger and garlic scapes. Since this one will include cilantro, I’m thinking about some kind of Thai-themed slaw with fish sauce. I should be able to use the green onions too, and maybe I’ll take a scape as well.
That just leaves the kale, parsley and one last scape. So I’m going to try my hand for the first time at a raw, massaged kale salad. They are all the rage these days, and seem pretty flexible. If I can’t use all the green onions in my slaw, I might toss some more onto my portion of the kale salad.
It’s unlikely of course that the children will go for either of these. Luckily for them, their gramma sent me back from Providence with two dozen of their favorite meatballs from Venda Ravioli. She also instructed me to make sure they each ate one meatball a day.
I don’t have to make a whole meatball meal. My job is to just make sure each child has a hot meatball on the side. We’ll see how long that lasts. But the kids eyes lit up at the very thought, and they each enjoyed their first meatballs last night.
Little Miss Fussy even ate her glazed turnips, which I can’t say went really well with meatballs. But I guess she was just inspired.
Tuesday, more vegetables come. And I’m hoping this week I do a little bit better at managing them all. Luckily, I’m not going anywhere for a while.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
Two comments. First, you have said that you hate salad, yet you are on a manic salad tear. Which leads to my second comment: should getting and preparing fresh vegetables be stressful? Because you make it sound stressful as hell.
That was my thought as well: it seems awfully stressful to feel obligated to eat everything that comes from the CSA. That’s a lot of vegetables, and you know, sometimes I just don’t feel like a lot of vegetables. I couldn’t eat a head of cabbage in a week if you put a gun to my head; I could prepare it somehow, and pawn it off at a party as coleslaw or galumpkis, but on my own, no way.
I also thought about your professed dislike for salads. I made a snap pea/radish/mint/ricotta salida salad this weekend, and I thought, “I’ll bet Daniel B. would like this sort of salad, even though he doesn’t care for salads.” Because maybe you just don’t care for lettuce-y salads.
Personally, I hate lettuce salad. Your salad sounds divine!
I’m loathe to ask a question… they end up on the dreaded Ask the Profussor post, but here goes…
How much does this boatload of vegetables cost you? Are they priced so reasonably that it is crazy NOT to buy them? I agree with the other posters… it is causing you stress and it also seems like not every vegetable is on your family’s radar. It might be more reasonable to buy the vegetables your family likes and will finish from a supermarket or a farmer’s market then to be forced into a giant box from this CSA.
I’ve heard these comments about CSA’s from others – not being able to use them all – why not freeze either the leftovers, or plan when they are fresh what to freeze, then have them for the non-CSA months –
On lazy dinner nights, I use the csa cabbage for our version of quick fish tacos: frozen fish sticks, sliced mango, cabbage, tortilla, mayo, and maybe salsa if we have it.
My daughter won’t eat a dish with multiple ingredients, so I plate the fish sticks, mango, and tortilla separately for her…which means I don’t have to make a completely different meal just for her.
Not exactly gourmet, but it gets the job done.