Vegetable Exit Strategies - Scrambled Eggs With Greens.

Your next veggie basket delivery is coming up, and you've still got a few veggies left in the fridge?

You don't want to waste those precious greens, herbs or roots!

Now's the time to use vegetable exit strategy!

Subscribing to organic baskets and transforming your diet to eat fresh, in-season food generally doesn't come completely naturally! It can take 1, 2 or even 3 years to become really comfortable with all the new vegetables, and develop the kitchen skills to use them in tasty dishes and avoid waste.

In this series of short articles, I'm going to share with you some of my favourite vegetable exit strategies: tips for improvising succulent dishes with the vegetables of the moment, making room in your fridge for the new harvest and avoiding waste!

Scrambled Eggs With Greens.

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to use up an abundance of leafy greens, herbs, surplus scallions or garlic scapes, or if you want to concoct something succulent with the leaves from your bunches of beets, turnips or radishes, scrambled eggs will be one of your techniques of choice!

The technique is super-simple. Choose an abundant quantity of leafy vegetables, wash them and cut them into small pieces.

Plentiful could mean..:

• a whole bunch of Swiss chard or all the leaves from a bunch of beets

• a bunch of kale + a bag of arugula + a bunch of cilantro

• leaves from a bunch of turnips + leaves from a bunch of radishes + 1 bag of spinach

• a good 4 to 6 cups of greens

Then prepare a vegetable from the onion family for flavouring. Cut into small pieces and sauté in butter or sunflower oil over medium heat. This could mean

• a whole bunch of green shallots

• 6 to 12 garlic scapes

• all the leaves from a bundle of fresh onions (when they're nice)

• a large, freshly harvested onion.

• in short, 1 to 1.5 cups of onions.

Once your onions have cooked for about 2-3 minutes, you'll add the other ingredients.

For variety, you can add sausages, ham, any kind of meat, tofu, mushrooms, asparagus, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, and so on. It all depends on the season and what's in your fridge! Cook a good cup of these ingredients for 2-4 minutes.

Then add the chopped foliage and sauté for another 2-4 minutes.

Then add 6 eggs and mix everything together while it cooks for 2-4 minutes, seasoning with a little salt and pepper to taste. If you have a big family, you can add more. If you're just a couple, it's okay to make a big batch and have leftovers - it makes a great lunch the next day!

If you have herbs, don't hesitate to add a lot towards the end of cooking! Why not a whole bunch of cilantro, leaves and stems, or a bunch of dill or basil? Don't hesitate to use more than you think you should, it adds flavor and it's much better to use them than to let them rot in the corner of the fridge because you keep forgetting about them and you're afraid of using too much ;-)

At the end I like to add grated cheese: cheddar, mozarella, havarti, brick, etc.. It doesn't matter, just use what you have on hand.

To serve now:

• you can take these scrambled eggs and serve them in a baguette cut in 2 with mayonnaise and lettuce

• or on a bagel with pea shoots and mustard.

• Eat them with corn chips, cilantro and a fresh cherry tomato salsa,

• or use them as a protein in your wraps rolled with wheat tortillas, lettuce and shredded carrots.

Here I've prepared these scrambled eggs with 1 pack of beet greens + a bit of Swiss chard, 1 bunch of shallots, 1 bunch of cilantro, leftover mushrooms, sausage, cheese. Served on a toasted bagel with raw radishes.

Don't hesitate to mix flavors and even make unusual combinations. The worst that can happen is that you'll learn something.

Scrambled eggs are a great way to increase your vegetable intake and use the vegetables in your organic basket to their full potential! There are no rules, just go with the flow!

Want more zero-waste tips for your vegetables? Share your ideas and kitchen rescues in the comments below!

Bon appétit!

Frédéric