Hi folks! Hope this is okay to post here. I also put it in r/povertykitchen but I thought slrpnk people would probably have a different perspective.
I recently got a very generous amount of groceries from the local food pantry, including a lot of fresh veggies that I wouldn’t normally buy for myself - I get frozen every time to make sure I don’t waste anything/let it go bad but honestly my diet is mostly carbs since it’s cheap. I have carrots, baby potatoes, cucumbers, a really shocking amount of onions, and some bell peppers. What’s the best way to stretch them as far as possible knowing I may not have access to more fresh veggies for a while (at least until I’m allowed to go back to the food pantry)?
My ideas so far -
- Carrot cake, slice and freeze
- Treat myself to a nice dinner with roast carrots, potatoes, and onions?
- Cucumber sandwiches
- Vegetable soup
As you can see I’m not really sure what to do with a fresh vegetable. Any ideas or should I just try to cook and eat it all as quickly as possible so it doesn’t go to waste?
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Grated carrots are great as salad with a vinaigrette and panned-cooked as a side vegetable or in addition in a sauce.
For great amount of onions you can place them unpeeled on a tray in the oven until very soft and froze them for later use, pureed in a sauce or directly mixed with your grains.You can do mashed carrots. Mixed with potatoes or on its own.
Cook stuff and freeze it. Vegetable soup, or puree to add to soups or sauces later, stews, whatever. Also you can pickle the carrots, onions and cucumbers. If you can them they will be good for a long time.
Freeze the veggies and freeze the boiled water, this way you can just add a bit if water and veggies for a fresher taste when needed
You could freeze them yourself. There’s no nutritional difference between fresh and frozen. You can find tips online for freezing onions. Cucumbers have too much water, they don’t freeze well and become mush when thawed, but neither are they very nutritious, so no real loss if you can’t finish them.
That’s why we pickle cucumbers.
A good way to use up a lot of cucumbers is to make infused water. Very refreshing in the summer!
I was gonna say blend them up with some mint and freeze them in ice cube trays and use them as quick way to infuse some water later. Or toss them into some tomato sauce for a simple soup later as well.
Also I know the ice cube tray method is popular but I also just prefer using freezer bags so you can get them thin and stack them easier and a good whack breaks them up.
I love when I get a lot of onions and peppers. I grill them up then make a wrap with them, usually the grilled veggies, cheese, cyclospora free lettuce, and ranch dressing.
I have also done the veggies on a sub roll with cheese and soy curls for a cheese “steak”.
Same with the veggies, soy curls, in a tortilla for a fajita.
Carrots make a good carrot salad, raisins, and a mayo like sauce, I think it might actually be Cole slaw sauce.
My go to way to cook carrots is in a pan with a little veggie bouillon, some honey, maybe a dash of cayenne. Cook covered until almost fork tender, uncover cook and them until the bouillon is mostly gone and thickened, add a little butter to further thicken the liquid.
They can also be boiled/steamed and mashed with potatoes, or other root veggies. Diced browned onions added to mashed potatoes add a great depth of flavor too.
Depending how small the baby potatoes are, I cook mine in a pressure cooker with copious amounts of salt (only use potatoes with the peel fully intact or they absorb too much salt), they come out really tender, and are great served with some butter.
Most if not all of this can be frozen once cooked.
As for the cucumbers, there was a dude on TikTok that had some viral videos of some great cucumber salads. I think his name was Logan or something. The videos were so popular a lot of places were experiencing cucumber shortages.
I have recipes for most of suggestion’s and Will gladly share if anything interests you.
soy curls
I’m looking up these “soy curls” and finding plenty of recipes using them as an ingredient, but none on how to make them yourself. :/
They contain 1 ingredient, soybeans. I imagine they are made into a paste, extruded, and dried.
I noticed reference to “stretching” but I’ll see if one of these videos shows how to do it. Will share back here if I find an answer
As other people mentioned the onions should last a long while if stored in a cool dry place. But if you do have a bunch going off at the same time try making a big batch of caramelized onions, then freeze them in ice cube trays. I do this every year and it’s a great addition to soups and stuff, adds great depth of flavour. Also makes a grilled cheese amazing.
You can also chop up a bunch now and freeze them, that way whenever you need some chopped onions for a dish you already have them in the freezer and it’s one less thing you have to do at the time
Huh, I never really thought of just freezing them raw. I guess I figured they would go weird with freezing, but you’re cooking them anyways so I guess that doesn’t matter. Thanks for the tip!
Carrots go weird when frozen raw. The water inside the carrot expands when it freezes and bursts the cell walls, resulting in squishy carrots when defrosted. I learned that the hard way with my first batch of homegrown carrots :( it can be countered by blanching them before freezing.
Onions and garlic however are perfectly fine to freeze raw if chopped beforehand. (They may be fine whole, I’ve just never tried it).
Could pickle them. Especially the onions. Gives them a near endless shelf life so you can use them at what ever rate you like.
Onions, peppers and cucumbers make a nice salad. Throw in some canned corn or beans, some tuna and pasta and you have a full meal.
Onions → French onion soup
… which calls for lots of onions limited only by the size of your pot – having white wine is essential and ideally beef broth as well. Of course it’s good to eat the soup straight; better w/french bread and cheese under the broiler. And from there it’s quite versatile as leftovers that can be used in other things, like pot roast.
Gnocci and soup for the freezer. I don’t know what to do with cucumbers apart from eating them fresh.
Potatoes and onions have really long shelf life and can last for months if kept in cool, dry and dark places. However you should not store them together as potatoes go bad really fast if stored near high ethylene producing food like onion, and onions get leaky quite fast from the humidity they absorb(?) from potatoes. Let them breath, and don’t keep them in locked containers, I usually just hang them with mesh bags in different locations
For carrots, bell peppers and cucumbers, I usually add little bit of water into a sealed container and it is enough to last another 3-4 weeks in the fridge
Pickling is also an option for all of them if you like it
Frozen cucumbers and bell peppers won’t have a great texture, but it’s fine for me to chuck them into soups, pourées, etc
I really like a cucumber salad, sometimes it’s got more to it like carrots and chickpeas but sometimes it’s just a cucumber sliced up with a bit of soy sauce on it.
Carrots usually last weeks in the fridge, but they’d be good in a spaghetti sauce with the onions and bell peppers too—sautee all three with any spices you like until the onions and peppers are soft, then add a can of crushed tomatoes and simmer for a bit. You could make a big batch and freeze some if you really need to use a lot of veggies.
Absolutely treat yourself to a nice dinner of roasted veggies while things are fresh too!
