The biggest effect of the COVID-19 pandemic for me has been many fewer trips to the grocery store. My produce is now delivered to my door from Hungry Harvest on a bi-weekly schedule. So while not going to the grocery store, I’ve been buying and eating a bigger variety of fruits and vegetables than when I was shopping much more frequently. And devising ways to deal with a lot of produce at one time.

Having this influx of produce all at once has made some differences in how I store and cook produce–deli containers (from Amazon) are great for organizing stuff–leftovers and newly prepared things, too. I have gotten much better at dealing with things like collards, kale, and other “hardy” greens. They do keep really well once prepped and seasoned with bare essentials so you can add to them–and get used much faster in more ways than if you still had to do the prep work. (Scrambled eggs, frittatas, and omelettes do play a huge role in meals in this house.)

I’ll admit that working in restaurants and needing to produce lots of meals quickly has influenced my home cooking. I spend the afternoon my box arrived prepping stuff–so I have readily available things to put together a palatable meal even whilst I was working. (No interruption of work by COVID-19 and since I already worked from home it wasn’t a big change.)

Looking at my email today I saw an article in Bon Appetite about a meal prep trick to deal with all those bunches of healthy, but bulky greens. I thought I’d share this insight and it’s always nice to have some outside authoritative input.

I’ve extended this to lots of produce other than leafy greens, too: potatoes, beets, carrots, squash. Amazing what a little prep work does for quick, easy, and tasty meals.