life hack: vegetables edition
- Lucy
- Jan 26, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 28, 2020
k, so you've bought vegetables because you feel like at this point of being an adult you should have some nutrients in your diet but those veggies have like a 0.2 day shelf life and go bad before you commit yourself to eat it all
bonus: it's -20C outside and you're definitely skipping grocery shopping this week and surviving on canned soup and noodles
I have 3 ways I've figure out how to minimize my guilty composting ritual of having to throw out entire bags of vegetables that you thought you'd eat.
[1] Pickled/fermented vegetables
My fave examples: kimchi, pickles, pickled radish + carrots
These go amazing as side dishes to rice, or on noodle bowls, and CONCEPT, I put kimchi and pickled radish/carrots in my sandwiches for a fusion twist
Kimchi: k so ngl I don't make kimchi because unless you live in a diverse city it's hard to get the ingredients for these. It's also like a day-long process to make this so I usually actually just BUY kimchi. I personally buy kimchi from this lady at the farmer's market who grows a bunch of asian garlic and makes her own kimchi
Pickled radish + carrots: This is actually really easy !!! And maybe takes 30 mins tops the first time. Carrots are also like a few dollars for a bag and vinegar is like $2 for a whole litre here. The ingredients are relatively cheap too!
[2] Frozen veggies
If you're Gordon Ramsay, don't @ me, make this year the year we normalize buying frozen veggies because sometimes life is busy and hard and difficult and mostly you're just trying to keep your head on
tl;dr it's okay,,,
Goes great on noodle bowls tbh, and sometimes I even just microwave it according to the recipe. Look, at the end of a day when my code doesn't run or running 8 participants it's a-okay to just have a 5-min prep meal.
[3] Growing vegetable scraps
I put this third because I think sometimes people over-advertise what you CAN grow and what you can't
KEEP IN MIND I HAVE KILLED MANY PLANTS IN MY LIFETIME because you can see, if I'm not responsible to buy vegetables on the regular I sure ain't watering them on the regular. bonus: I have absolutely definitely killed a plant that was supposed to be a "steel plant".
Green onion: 100% of my green onions have survived. They can grow in just water (just change in frequently or it'll just rot) for a while; or you could get potting mix from the dollar store and grow it there. They grow REALLY fast, at least for me. For 5-6 stalks, I grow enough to put in an omelette like maybe 1-2x a week.
Garlic: 120% grow rate. 120% because sometimes they're in the fridge with no sun or water and they grow anyways, which is kind of rude of them. So I end planting them and eating the shoots, which, full disclaimer, I have no idea if you can ??? There is no proof online that the shoots that grow from the garlic = garlic scape, and, people really shit on growing garlic shoots because the shoots are supposedly bitter. 1) I don't taste the bitterness, 2) it tastes like garlic to me and 3) I have not yet died from it. Disclaimer: that being said I don't want you to die from it so please just pretend I never wrote this long-winded paragraph oops
Peppers: 62% grow rate. I have grown some from seeds at least 3x, and they have always grown, but never to fruition. Mostly, this is a long term relationship and usually in that long term relationship I have a 2 week period where I forget they're there and they shrivel up. I'm sure you can do better tho.
Pumpkin: 34% grow rate. I grew some from seeds once and they make these cute long thicc stalks but die very quickly if you try to grow them in a smol pot indoors. 2/10, would not recommend unless you know what you're doing.
Carrots: 50% grow rate. It doesn't regrow the carrot so you can't eat it but it's a cute plant ngl. I had one shrivel up and just dry out like spongebob from that one episode he visits Sandy the Squirrel though so that was kinda sad.
Celery: 0% grow rate. Mostly just dried up and died. Probably wasn't doing it correctly. Not fool proof.
Avocado: is a fruit. Also, 0% grow rate. Every time I save the pit and look up the instructions I end up just composting the pit because the steps needed to grow an avocado? WAYY too complicated for me. Go you if you managed to make this work.
Basil/Cilantro/other herbs: Never tried but want to ???
Anyways if you have any other suggestions it would be HIGHLY APPRECIATED I hate wasting vegetables.
Ellen's suggestion (updated 2020-Jan-28)
this is not in any way new or exciting but PIZZA
pizza is my go to way of using veggie scraps
make some dough and keep it in the freezer or just use like
store bought naan or anything similar
chuck on all the old veggies
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