cooking hotline: how to optimize your CSA
a CSA can feel overwhelming, but it's the perfect way to build creativity in the kitchen
Hi all,
For the next installment of my cooking hotline series, I’ll be answering a question on how to most efficiently work through your CSA. But first, a primer:
A CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, is a system in which consumers often purchase shares or subscriptions in advance and receive regular deliveries of locally grown produce directly from farmers. This model promotes a closer connection between consumers and local farmers, supports sustainable agriculture, and often provides fresher, more seasonal produce.
I’ve participated in weekly CSAs for many years, both in New York and Boston, and they're an incredible way to enjoy fresh, sustainably grown produce, support farmers, and get creative in the kitchen. The produce is often very high quality, and because you pay for a whole season, the cost can be cheaper than going to a farmer’s market.
That said, CSAs can take some getting used to because they’re a completely different model than shopping at the grocery store. Most CSAs don’t allow you to pick the type of produce OR the amount of produce. One week, you might end up with 5 pounds of zucchini; another week, you might come across a vegetable you’ve never cooked before. Produce can go bad quickly, so proper storage is a necessity.
They genuinely test your agility and creativity in the kitchen, and as such, I’ve had many discussions with friends over the years on how best to work through them. Here are a few of the main questions I’ll be discussing today:
How do I most efficiently store and cook my CSA produce? I received a vegetable I’ve never cooked with before - what do I do? Sometimes, I get way too many vegetables, and I feel overwhelmed! Is there any sort of flexible framework you use to quickly come up with recipes using your produce to ultimately reduce waste?
And PS, if you need some recipe inspiration for the weekend, try this recipe for shrikhand (an Indian sweetened yogurt dessert) or whole-roasted branzino (yes, it’s worth turning your oven on for!)
How to Choose the Right CSA
Being smart and efficient with your produce starts with choosing the right type of CSA. It’s essential to assess how much produce you can feasibly get through the week, taking into account the following factors:
How many members of your household will you be cooking for?
How often do you cook? How often do you eat out?
Do you cook with vegetables at every meal?
Are you out of town a lot during the summer?
What’s your budget?
I like to choose an option that allows extra breathing room for takeout, cooking with friends, and my own recipe development during the week. If I end up with so much produce that I have to cook every single meal, I start feeling overwhelmed.
Because it’s just me and my husband, we’ve done well with Siena Farm’s weekly small share. It’s about half the amount of a full share, so it’s perfect for the two of us during a standard week.
In the past, we’ve done a “flex” share, where we picked up a full share every other week, but you have to store your produce well (more on that below) to ensure it lasts the whole two weeks. That said, a small share isn’t always an option at all farms, so flex is still a great alternative for smaller households.
How to Store Produce Properly
According to this Wirecutter article, the three main conditions for proper storage are temperature, ethylene gas, and airflow:
Temperature: Certain produce prefers room temperature while others prefer to be chilled.
Ethylene Gas: Some produce, like apples and bananas, generate ethylene gas, while others, like lettuce and cucumbers, are sensitive to that gas, so they ripen much faster in their presence. As a result, you’ll want to store ethylene-sensitive vegetables separately from ethylene producers.
Airflow: Some produce needs a lot of airflow to stay fresh.
You can see a full chart of storage recommendations from Wirecutter here (it’s a great printable!). For herb storage, refer to this Food and Wine article.
How to Identify an Unknown Vegetable
This has happened to me a non-zero number of times, so I wanted to share how I quickly identify any unknown produce in my farm share.
Step 1: Open up Google search in your phone browser and tap the camera button in the search bar (that’s Google Lens, their image recognition technology).
Step 2: It’ll prompt you to take a picture of the vegetable before providing you with the results. Here, it listed Chinese cabbage and Napa cabbage as possible options! You can do a bit more digging and compare the images to determine which vegetable it is.
How to Minimize Waste
Have a game plan: Once I receive my box, I research recipe ideas for the week. Google is your friend here; for example, if I receive kohlrabi, I’ll search “kohlrabi recipe ideas” and write down my favorite options. I also like using the Spillt app, so I can search for “kohlrabi,” browse and save the recipes I like. Knowing I have a collection of options for the week helps me get excited and minimizes the likelihood of waste.
Prep your snacking fruits and veggies: I’ve noticed that if I pre-wash and slice my fruits ahead of time, I’m more likely to finish them. The fact that they’re ready to go in the fridge makes them super easy to grab and go. This also works well with snackable veggies, like celery, carrots, or radishes.
Use all the edible parts: Carrot tops, radish greens, beet greens — they’re all edible! Depending on the vegetable, they can be great as a sauce (think: chimichurri, salsa verde, or pesto) or sauteed simply with some garlic and lemon.
Share with your friends: Life happens, and occasionally, you may be unable to get through your whole box. In those cases, I highly recommend contacting friends or neighbors and asking them if they’d like anything!
Message me (!): Not sure how to use a vegetable? Feel free to message me via my cooking hotline! I absolutely love dreaming up ideas.
How to Be Creative With Your CSA
I love receiving a weekly CSA because it allows me to incorporate fresh, high-quality vegetables into my cooking! As such, I’ve created a “chart” to share how I come up with my meals for the week.
The CSA Chart
How to use this chart: I start by determining whether I’d like to eat the vegetable raw or cooked (if you’ve never had it before, you can Google the best ways to eat it to get a better sense of this!). Some of these are obvious cooking methods, but I like having everything in one place to quickly scan through all the options.
For example, we received a large bunch of carrots with the greens attached, so I wondered what I could do with the greens. I wanted to preserve their raw, earthy, grassy flavor, so I ended up pulsing them in the food processor until finely chopped and adding some garlic, vinegar, and oil for a “carrot top chimichurri,” which I enjoyed as a sandwich spread and a topping for grilled meats.
A Sample Week
Looking for more examples? See below for a sample week of vegetables and how we used them.
Fava beans: We blanched, peeled, and sauteed these with sesame and butter.
Cucumbers: We added these to daily salads and blended the remaining ones to make a cucumber agua fresca.
Summer squash: I made a zucchini risotto and shaved the rest to top a pizza.
Kohlrabi: I sliced some thin into matchsticks in a salad with fresh cherries and cucumbers, then pan-seared the rest with soy sauce, maple syrup, and vinegar.
Garlic scapes: I made a garlic scape pesto, which was great for pasta, pizza, and boiled potatoes.
Napa cabbage: I made a napa cabbage salad with cucumbers, mint, and sliced plums.
Broccolini: I subbed these for regular broccoli in this broccoli dill pickle soup recipe, which also used some of our potatoes and squash.
That’s all for this week! Thanks again for sending in these questions. Have a question yourself? Submit them to my cooking hotline!
-Karishma