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My Favorite Tools For Making The Most of My CSA

Published on June 5, 2015 By Emily. Updated on June 5, 2015

Today was a day I’ve been looking forward to for a long time: our first pick up for the summer season for our CSA at Mighty Food Farm.  I can’t wait to share all the goodness we picked up today…stay tuned for that in tomorrow’s post (or check out the sneak peek on Instagram and Facebook). 

Brian and I have had a CSA membership for several years now and hardly a day goes by that I’m not working with some sort of fresh vegetable.  Though my vegetable “usage” is largely tied to the pounds of produce I pick up on a weekly basis, the list of kitchen tools below will be useful to anyone who finds themself eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, whether they’re from a CSA share, a farmer’s market or the supermarket.

My Favorite Tools for Making the Most of My CSA

Cutting boards – Fresh vegetables generally require some chopping.  I’m a big fan of large, flexible cutting boards, which I’ve purchased from both IKEA (shown above) and Amazon.

A Good Knife – One of the best wedding presents Brian and I received was a Global Santoku knife.  It gets a lot of use.  If you’re budget isn’t quite that high, I’m also a big fan of the set of J.A. Henckels knives we own.

A Good Peeler – I’ll be honest; a good peeler can be hard to find.  We’ve gone through a few over the past few years.  Nevertheless, a peeler is pretty handy for things like winter squash, turnips and the like.  (If you have a peeler you love, tell me about it in the comments!)

A Salad Dressing Cruet – If you have a CSA share, This is totally not a requirement; Brian made our salad dressing every night for years in a 1 cup Pyrex measuring cup.  Last summer, however, we opted to buy a container specifically for salad dressing.  It’s easy to make multiple servings of dressing in (it even has measurement lines on the side as guides!), shake and pour from, saving us a bit of time.

An Immersion Blender – The immersion blender gets less use in the summer, but during the winter the blender is one of my favorite things for turning root vegetables into delicious soup.

A Salad Spinner – This is one area where I feel like supermarket vegetables are especially different from CSA or farmer’s market vegetables.  Fresh from the farm vegetables can be really dirty and dirt generally does not make for a delicious salad.  I love our OXO salad spinner, which has been going strong for about 6 years. 

What are your favorite tools for making the most of your fruits and vegetables?

This post contains affiliate links.  Thanks for your continued support of Relishments!

Related Posts

Three in One (CSA Menu Plan #55)
Fall Planning (CSA Menu Plan #123)
TAKE TWO (CSA Menu Plan #15)
Still Summer (CSA Menu Plan #112)
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Filed Under: products Tagged With: CSA

« Spicy Mustard Vinaigrette Potato Salad
Back In the Game (CSA Menu Plan #26) »

Comments

  1. lisa valinsky says

    June 5, 2015 at 9:17 pm

    I’m a big fan of the Oxo Good Grips Swivel Peeler! It works great!

  2. Lucy says

    June 7, 2015 at 12:48 pm

    I have a Swiss metal peeler like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Zena-Swiss-11002-Vegetable-Peeler/dp/B002XMEHZ2/ref=pd_bxgy_79_text_y – I got it many years ago at Topsfield Fair and it is pretty great for peeling large veggies.

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I don't have answers, but I'm trying to take care of myself and my biological and school families. I'm saying "I love you" a lot to my children and my students. I'm closely following and sharing the work of @everytown while contacting my state and federal representatives and the president. I'm going for walks and getting fresh air and trying not to overload on news. I'm sharing good resources in my stories as I see them.
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 @thelazygenius' second book, The Lazy Genius Kitchen, is finally here and I'm so excited! I don't purchase many books, but I pre-ordered this last July because I knew it would be right up my alley and then I pre-ordered a second copy because I knew that I'd want to give one away.

Author Kendra Adachi has been one of my favorite voices in recent years. Her principles (shared through her first book, The Lazy Genius Podcast and her Instagram) have helped me focus my priorities and give myself more grace. 

This book is NOT a cookbook (it has just 2 recipes), it is a kitchen guide - to help you "have what you need, use what you have, and enjoy it like never before". It is beautiful (full color!) and thoughtful.

I'm very excited to send this book to one of you.

TO ENTER: Leave a comment below with one of your greatest kitchen struggles. 
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