A Life In Tune

I am really missing our CSA but that will be starting up before we know it! As part of the Blogger Challenge and in honor of prepaying for our share in the CSA this summer, I thought I would share some of my favorite ways of using up veggies. I absolutely hate throwing things away. Of course, it’s always easy to make a quick salad, eat the veggies raw, or throw them in the oven and roast them, but I like to use veggies in our regular meals, too. Besides the obvious, here are a few easy ways we’ve incorporated veggies into meals we make regularly at our house.

1. Omelets

While my husband is picky about what he puts in his omelets, I feel like you can put just about anything. I’ve done tomatoes, carrots, onions, and just about any kind of greens. We found that beet tops are especially good and add a little bit of a kick to an omelet. Also, make your next omelet the easy way!

2. Stir Fry

This is super easy….just stir fry sauce, some chicken or shrimp (or neither if that’s what you prefer), and whatever veggies you have. We have done carrots, broccoli, pretty much any kind of green, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and green beans.

3. Pizza

This is kind of a new idea for us. We usually make mushroom and onion people but have experimented a little lately by just adding whatever garden veggies we have. We’ve done it with a pizza sauce and also with just a touch of olive oil on the crust. Even if you don’t have pizza dough, you can make mini pizzas on pita bread or tortillas.

4. Veggie Soup

This is probably the easiest thing to do. Just dump homemade veggie stock in a large pot with whatever veggies you have. Then, we use whatever herbs sound good. You could also put in a can or two of tomato sauce to give it more flavor. Over the summer we made a huge pot of this using fresh herbs. We froze it in meal-sized portions and it is the best vegetable soup I’ve ever had!

5. Quesadillas

This is another new way of using veggies for us. We typically do chicken and mushroom quesadillas, but have done more with other vegetables like summer squash.

6. Pastas

We are able to “sneak” in some veggies in pasta sauce. We’ve done things like carrots, onions, mushrooms, and greens, but you could probably do a lot of different things if you wanted.

7. Hash

We have made Hippie Hash a couple of times and you could probably throw just about anything in this dish. It’s super easy and really healthy!

How do you use up your veggies?