Too Many Veggies? We've Got You Covered

By Lee Pierce, CalmUnity Farms

The beautiful days of late summer and early fall have finally arrived in the Southern Tier and with the weather comes the bounty. Plump tomatoes, verdant runner beans, and the heady aroma of marigolds. But all that bounty comes with the perennial question: omg, what do I even DO with all of this?

If you are growing produce yourself or are a member of a CSA (community supported agriculture), then it can be overwhelming to look at a basket of pattypan squash when you just ate zucchini boats last week. But the thought of throwing it into the compost makes you more than a little ill. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Read on to learn our best tips and recipes dealing with produce overwhelm.

NOTE: this article won’t contain full recipes. You can find them online. We’re here to point you in the direction of some new ideas but the fun part of cooking with local produce is experimenting, so spend some time looking around for twists on our suggestions!

FIRST OF ALL, DON’T PANIC

Before we dive into recipes, let’s be honest: you aren’t going to save every tomato. Don’t feel guilty about not getting to everything you grew or purchased. Maybe this was the year you discovered you don’t really like basil. Great, don’t plant it next year! Or you over-ordered for your CSA. Lesson learned for next season. Be rid of the guilt and focus on what you can process. 

It’s okay to let your produce return to the earth in the form of compost. For little stuff, like stray cherry tomatoes, let them nourish your garden beds for next year rather than waste hours picking them out of the ground ivy. Everything else goes into the compost heap. 

Slightly damaged but still delicious! Blemished produce from the farm gets picked, rinsed, and processed for tomato paste that tastes so much better than store bought at a fractio of the price. (photo courtesy of CalmUnity Farms)

Freezing unprocessed food is also a terrific option. You don’t need to process everything right now. Tomatoes can be rinsed, quartered, and put into compostable freezer bags for making paste and sauce over the winter. When we harvest here at the farm, we bring a bucket of rainwater into the field with us. Whatever we pick goes right in the bucket and gets rinsed on the spot. This step saves so much time and clutter in the kitchen.

But sometimes you just want to get cooking. Here are our favorite tips for processing produce..

GREEN TOMATO CHUTNEY

This is definitely our abundant crop right now. Problem number one is too many cherry tomatoes. But never fear. Green tomato chutney to the rescue!. Delicious, only a handful of ingredients, and you can put it in the crockpot on low and forget about it. The aroma in the kitchen is a bonus. What we love most about this chutney is that it uses under-ripe tomatoes of any kind. (Smaller tomatoes can get tossed right in. Larger tomatoes should be halved or quartered). Other than the delicious chutney, which we love to eat on top of open faced grilled cheese sandwiches, is the incentive to pick tomatoes before they’re red. That way, we don’t have to harvest every single day because whether they’re red or green, we’ve got a plan.

TOMATO PASTE

While we’re on the subject of tomatoes, we would be remiss not to tell you about homemade tomato paste. If there is one thing that is truly more delicious than store bought, it’s tomato paste. A rich, flavorful, deep red filled with nourishing goodness. Once we had our first batch, we decided we’d pretty much make every red tomato that made it to the kitchen into paste. In the winter, when we’re in the mood for pizza or pasta, we buy canned fresh tomatoes and use our homemade paste. It’s the best decision we ever made.

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Paste is a little bit time consuming. So don’t be afraid to store those red tomatoes until the winter when you have time to process them and let them sit in the oven all day, warming up the house. It may require some trial and error, but we promise it’s worth it (and it will save you a chunk of change, since quality tomato paste is expensive–for good reason).

HERB BUTTER

By this time of year, most of the herbs in the garden have bolted (sending up stalks with seeds). The leaves are likely tough and bitter and probably shouldn’t be eaten. But there are plenty of exceptions. Plants with woodier stems (sage, oregano, thyme) are still rocking in our beds and there’s more than we can use by a long shot. That’s where garlic butter comes in. We buy bulk rolled butter from the market, melt it down, and toss in huge handfuls of fresh herbed (rinsed and roughly chopped). After it cools completely, we roll it back up in the wrapper from the bulk butter. Herb butter is also a great place to use up various odds and ends, like stray green onions or random shallots you uncovered from last year.

It lasts forever in the fridge but you’ll use it up surprisingly fast. We put it on and in everything. You can also add chopped fresh herbs to your tomato paste before you jar it, but be sure to label what’s in them. Or stick to the classic sauce herbs–parsley, oregano, thyme, and basil–and leave the rosemary and sage for other things. If you want to get fancy, you can make all kinds of compound butter concoctions. They make absolutely amazing presents packaged in a mini glass mason jar with a ribbon. Just be sure to put them in the refrigerator–in our experience herb butter does NOT jar or can very well.

SUMMER SQUASH CASSEROLE

Zucchini, yellow, and pattypan squash are everywhere right now. And for good reason. They grow easily, the yield large fruits, and they’re versatile. But people also might be tired of grilled squash as a side dish every night (some of that herb butter might help though!). We have a few suggestions.

CalmUnity Farms worker-owners Lee Pierce (she/they) and Sam Somostrada (he/him) bringing fresh local produce to families through the USDA’s Farm 2 Preschool program. (photo courtesy of CalmUnity Farms)

First, we love this squash curry soup. It’s a great winter dish that you can make with the hunks of squash you’ve stored in the freezer. It reheats like a dream and it’s just the sort of comfort food that would be delicious with a hunk of bread on a snowy day.

If you’re feeling a little more ambitious, try squash fritters. Use the recipes as a guide, but make them your own. If you don’t like cheese, don’t add cheese. Some recipes call for beer, but it’s not necessary. We almost always add some shredded potato even if the recipe doesn’t call for it. And never skimp on the herbs. A huge handful of fresh herbs makes a big difference. And be sure the fritters are smooshed, the thickness of a typical hamburder. When the fritter patties are too fat, we find the middle is a little undercooked.

Obviously there are a million other recipes for using up the bounty that comes with early fall in upstate New York but we hope this handful of ideas gives you some direction. And if you find yourself knee deep in a vegetable that you don’t really enjoy, it’s okay to throw it in the compost. You’ve learned a valuable lesson: next year, don’t plant it next year!

About the Author: Lee Pierce (she, they), is a worker-owner at CalmUnity Farms, an equity cooperative farm in Elmira, NY that uses permaculture principles to design sustainable systems that nourish local communities. Learn more at calmunityfarms.coop.