DIY Tips & Recipes When You Have Too Many Vegetables

Now What? I Have Too Many Vegetables!

We’ve all been there either through over buying vegetables at the store, the farmer’s market, or because we suddenly have a bumper crop of vegetables to harvest from our garden. Since you bought them or grew them you don’t want to just throw them in the compost. So, we share some innovative DIY tips today when your refrigerator or garden has more vegetables than you can use in a week.

Typically, the vegetables that seem to get ripe at the same time and you could have in abundance is tomatoes, zucchini, and cucumbers. Most of your leafy greens is you pick them as you need them you want end up with an oversupply all at once.

Our vegetable solutions for a bounty of vegetables range from simple and easy to an afternoon’s work, but all are money savers. If you want simple and fast solutions to being overrun with vegetables, here are a few:

• Freeze your extra veggies, you can even freeze the avocado pulp
• Make your extra vegetables into soup
• Share your extra veggies
• Donate your extra veggies to a non-profit organization

Creative Uses for Too Many Zucchini

It seems even when you have been moderate about how much zucchini seeds you have sown that you end up with an abundance of zucchini all at one time. We have some easy and creative ideas to whittle down how much zucchini you have on hand fast:

• Shred your zucchini and add it to your favorite spaghetti or lasagna recipe
• Add some diced or shredded zucchini to one of your salads, a tricky way to add more greens
• Make zucchini bread or muffins
• Add shredded zucchini to beef or turkey burgers
• Add chopped zucchini to your favorite soup recipe
• Make zucchini fries in your air fryer

Tasty Zucchini Boats

Ingredients:

• 4 medium zucchinis
• 1 onion diced
• 1.5 pounds of ground turkey, beef, or tofu
• 1 cup of diced red peppers
• 1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms of your choice
• 1/2 cup of diced green peppers
• 1 cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese with some extra for toppings
• 4 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Red pepper flakes (optional)

Directions:

1. Start with trimming off the ends of the 4 medium zucchini and cut them in half lengthwise
2. Scoop out the pulp, leaving at least 3/8″ shell
3. Chop the pulp and put aside
4. In a medium hot skillet brown and cook your meat or tofu, zucchini pulp, onion, mushrooms, and peppers until the meat or tofu is cooked and the onions and peppers are soft
5. Remove from the stove, drain, and put into a medium bowl adding the salt, pepper, half of the cheese, and Italian seasoning mix
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
7. Scoop the mixture into your zucchini shells, top with the other half of the grated cheese and place in a greased baking dish, and cook for 30 minutes, you may cover with foil if the tops are getting two brown for the last 10 minutes
8. Remove from the oven and let stand for a couple of minutes before serving

This dish is a great way to get kids to eat more vegetables because it tastes so good!

More Cucumbers than Your Family Can Eat!

I was just in my next-door neighbor’s garden yesterday and she looked down and was astounded with how many cucumbers seemingly burst forth overnight! The best way to store cucumbers is to wrap them individually in a paper towel and place them in a zip-lock bag in the refrigerator till you are ready to use them. There are some great ways to use cucumbers and not just in salads, so we hope this list gets your imagination thinking of new and innovative ways to use your cucumber bounty. Here are some of ours:

• Find a refrigerator pickle recipe and have fun making pickles, this way you don’t need to know how to can and all that messy stuff
• Create your favorite green smoothie and add cucumber
• Make a cucumber sandwich, try thinly sliced cucumbers, cottage cheese and feta cheese whipped with your favorite seasoning and enjoy on your favorite bread
• Make a mocktail with cucumbers as an ingredient
• Cucumbers are a great addition to just about any berry smoothie
• Make cucumber-infused water, super hydrating on a hot day
• Make a Greek yogurt dip from cucumbers
• Add cucumbers to your favorite salsa recipe
• Add cucumbers to your favorite stir-fry dish
• Yes, you can freeze cucumbers, just prep them the way you want to use them and put them in a freezer bag
• Make cucumber chips in your air fryer or oven, see the recipe below

Air Fryer Cucumber Chips

These are fast treats to cook up in an air fryer and a great way to get kids to eat their veggies.

Ingredients:

• Sliced cucumbers, make sure they aren’t very thick
• Paper towels for drying cucumbers before coating them for cooking
• Your favorite breadcrumbs, I like to use Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
• All-purpose flour for coating
• Whisked eggs, usually figure an egg per two large cucumbers
• 3 shallow bowls, I like to use pie tins for this purpose
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Olive oil spray
• Italian seasoning if you use plain breadcrumbs or your favorite spices

Directions:

1. Slice your cucumbers, lay on paper towels, and pat to soak up the extra moisture
2. In one shallow pan or bowl combine breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and your other seasonings
3. In your other shallow pan or bowl put your flour and then in another bowl whisk your eggs
4. Slip each slice of cucumber in the flour, then egg, and finally coat with breadcrumbs on each side
5. Preheat your air fryer to 350 degrees, spray your basket with olive oil, and make sure cucumber slices are in a single layer with no overlapping
6. Cook for about 8 minutes and flip over halfway through cooking. Remove when your cucumber slices are as crispy as you like and not over-browned

These are delicious with your favorite dipping sauce or salad dressing. To store the extras, once cooled put in an air-tight freezer bag and refrigerate. They can be heated to serve again in a 350-degree oven for a couple of minutes.

Great Ideas for an Abundance of Tomatoes

Have you got a bumper crop of tomatoes all of a sudden? This has happened to all of us even when we have planted a variety of tomatoes, they can seem to get ripe all at the same time. What are some great uses for tomatoes that are simple and easy? Try some of these ideas for your over-supply of tomatoes this year:

• Share with neighbors
• Make your favorite salsa and freeze the extra
• Make Pico de Gallo
• Make your favorite spaghetti sauce and freeze the extras
• Use your extra cucumbers and tomatoes in a Greek-style tomato and cucumber salad
• Make refrigerator-pickled tomatoes or can the extras
• Make gazpacho
• Make a huge batch of tomato soup and freeze the extras
• Make your own tomato paste, this uses up a lot of tomatoes quickly and you can freeze it
• Make your own tomato juice with the spices you like and freeze
• Donate your extra tomatoes to a non-profit
• Make sun-dried tomatoes the easy way, the recipe is below

Sun-Dried Tomatoes the Easy Way

I just tried this DIY project this weekend with incredible results. This recipe is the easiest with cherry, grape, or pear tomatoes, but it produces great results with any tomatoes, there is just more cutting involved with standard-size tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes with all their beautiful colors make a stunning presentation with their purple to yellow, green to red colors.

This recipe can be cooked in either an air fryer or conventional oven. I chose to use my conventional oven since I wanted to process a lot of tomatoes at once.

Ingredients:

• As many tomatoes as you can fit on cookie sheets with sides at one time in your oven. I can fit two 13′ x 18″ in my oven, so I can process a lot of tomatoes at once. You can also do these in many batches over a few days.
• Sea salt
• Parchment paper
• Olive oil spray
• Italian Seasoning

Directions:

1. Cut cherry or grape tomatoes in half lengthwise, if using standard tomatoes cut your tomatoes so they are the size of half of a cherry
2. Heat your conventional oven or air fryer to 250 degrees
3. Lay parchment paper on your cookie sheet and lightly spray with olive oil and dust with Italian seasoning
4. Place your tomatoes cut-side up on the cookie sheet
5. Bake for 2.5 to 3.5 hours. I found that it took a little over 3.5 hours for my batch in a conventional oven. Watch them carefully so they don’t burn but are dehydrated and have very little moisture left.

You may store sun-dried tomatoes in olive in your refrigerator for up to 6 months or if you wish to store them longer you can freeze them. You can lay the dried tomatoes in a single layer on a parchment-covered cookie sheet, put them in your freezer for 2 hours, then transfer them to freezer bags, and they will keep up to 6 months.

Most of us at Shed Windows and More have vegetable gardens or grow some vegetables on our patios. So, we have had an overabundance of vegetables many times and we thought you would like some of the recipes that are our go-to when our gardens have overproduced. Enjoy your late summer harvest or the vegetables you buy at the store or Farmer’s Market. Be sure to check out our new products on our website for your fall DIY projects.