Where to put all that lettuce?

This is the first year that we've joined Round the Bend Farm for their summer CSA program. It is also the first year that we've decided to go for the full monty and book ourselves to receive a full share of local veggies every week. My bestest girlfriend who is receiving a half share from the same farm asked us how we managed a full box?

Short answer: We eat a lot of salad.

Long answer: Our family is growing up and our eldest son has let go of all his bad toddler eating habits and become a great appreciator of food, vegetables included! So to encourage the whole family to eat more vegetables, we've committed ourselves to doing our best with a humungous green crate of veggies weekly. Whatever isn't eaten immediately gets frozen for use in the wintertime when I really appreciate having meal-portioned, local, picked fresh and frozen greens in the deep freeze.

That being said, we do get a lot of veggies and our eating habits have definitely shifted for the better as we struggle endeavor to make use of as much as possible each week. But sometimes simply storing the vegetables until we can eat them becomes the challenge.

Like last week when we received not one, not three, not five, but six gigantic heads of lettuce. That's one of the smaller heads of lettuce sitting in one side of my double sink. 

Yup, six of those would not have fit into the fridge. Especially since that was not the only vegetable we got. And since we need to keep eight to twelve litres of milk on hand for my Holstein calves [ahem] children. Also we're Chinese, so I need to keep at least thirty-eight different condiments and sauces in my fridge at all times. So yeah, fridge space is at a premium in this house. Thankfully the 2-3 dozen eggs that we need to have every week are fresh enough to not sit on the counter...

But thanks to Sue and her newsletters from the farm, I've been converted to breaking up the lettuce and storing the washed leaves in a tightly sealed container or zip-top bag. Thanks Sue for the great tip! And to any naysayers who say that it could not possibly fit into a single ziptop bag... Stack the leaves as neatly as possible and voila!

I managed to cram even the largest head of lettuce into a single bag with a little smooshing and amazingly, the lettuce stays fresher and crispier than when I try to simply bag the whole head. Of course, this sometimes results in the ever-filling bag of lettuce or the bag of lettuce that doesn't seem to get any emptier no matter how many meals it provides but who doesn't love the horn/ziptop of plenty?

Coming up next: Getting the kids to help us eat all that lettuce :)