Celebrating Local: What to do with your Produce Bags

Planning Your Meals

• Start by making a list of the ingredients you have on hand from your produce bag. SMC sends out a weekly produce listing every week. Sign up for our weekly newsletter here!
• Make a list of the meals for the week you plan to cook.
• For each meal, choose a fresh vegetable that will be the focus of the meal and find a recipe that features it. You can add other vegetables if it the recipe calls for it or it just makes sense – vegetable soup is an awesome way to use lots of produce – but in general, don’t try to fit the entire contents of your produce bag into a single meal. 
• Use Pinterest to organize seasonal recipes. SMC compiles recipes and ideas on their Pinterest page.
• If you don’t have enough of a single ingredient to make an entire dish, consider including it in a salad. A pint of tart cherries won’t make a pie, but they can work nicely on a salad!
• Use the weekend to prepare meals for weeknights you know it won’t be possible to cook. Make a huge pot of soup that can be reheated, or grill chicken or steak for topping salads.
• Don’t just think about dinner! Include veggies in packed lunches, and offer them as snacks. Add veggies to omelets or frittatas at breakfast, or slice up fruit and add to yogurt and oatmeal.

Storage Tips

Properly store produce so it doesn’t go bad before you can cook it. Farm fresh produce lasts a lot longer than the stuff you buy at the grocery store, assuming it’s stored correctly. If you can’t eat it, preserve it! Slice it, blanch it, freeze it, and put it away for winter. To make storage easier for berries and chopped fruits, be sure to quick freeze them before storing them in the plastic bags. Storing the fruit with sugar will extend its quality while frozen. 

How to Freeze Fruit

• Wash and sort fruit carefully and discard parts that are of poor quality. Prepare fruit as you will use it.
• Check the University of Minnesota's chart for freezing fruit to see if an anti-browning treatment is suggested. Use ascorbic acid preparation as recommended in the chart or in the manufacturer's instructions.
• Use dry sugar, or sugar syrup in suggested portions. Dissolve the sugar needed in cold water. Stir. Allow to stand until sugar is completely dissolved. Do not heat. Sugar syrup  will keep up to 2 days in the refrigerator. If you are preparing a sugarless pack of fruit that browns, be sure to treat with ascorbic acid or other anti-browning agents.
• Pack into plastic freezer bags, freezer containers, or freezer jars. Allow ½ inches of space for expansion. Pack fruits that tend to darken in rigid containers under the syrup by placing crumpled wax paper between the lid and fruit.

South Mountain Creamery is proud to partner with Gude Brothers in Middletown, MD to bring you the freshest, local produce straight to your door. Learn more about our produce and home delivery at www.southmountaincreamery.com