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When I signed up for the Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance’s subscription produce program eleven years ago, I was enthusiastic about eating locally grown, organic (almost always) produce. I discovered, though, that I needed to expand the ways in which I typically used produce in the kitchen if I had any hope of using all the goodies I received each week.

More than anything, I needed to learn how to use a lot of produce everyday. Eating fruits and vegetables is good thing, as any nutrition expert will tell you, but it meant that having a salad and green vegetable with most dinners just wasn’t enough.

(Note to those considering joining a CSA, or community supported agriculture program: Don’t be scared off; many CSAs provide different programs depending on the size of the household. Or you can do some version of what I do, which is to take turns with a friend from a similarly small household.)

In the spring, when lettuces, spinach, cabbages and other greens are plentiful, salads were an obvious option, but part of the CSA attraction for me is variety. On the other hand, I’m lazy when it comes to weeknight meals, especially if they’re just for me, so I don’t want to have to spend a lot of time digging up new recipes at 6 p.m. when I’m hungry.

Here, then, are some suggestions of basic dishes you can use as edible canvases for your fresh local produce. You probably have recipes for them already. If not, I’ll run a few in future posts.

Salads. Vary your batches of leafy green things by adding assorted combinations of other stuff. Use themes to help you along. Examples:

• Fruits and nuts. Pick one or two from list A and one from list B. Season with simple, lightly sweetened vinaigrette. You can add a little minced onion to the dressing, too. (The alert reader will know that not all of the following grow locally here, but I’m not committed to a 100-mile diet just yet.)
  • List A: Raisins, grapes, raspberries, blueberries, strawberry halves, apple chunks, peach slices, orange slices, grapefruit slices.
  • List B: Toasted pinenuts, pecans or walnuts; slivered almonds; roasted cashews; roasted sunflower seed kernels.
• Cold vegs. When you cook your vegetables, do so lightly and set aside extra for salads. Douse the to-be-leftover vegetables in ice water, drain and refrigerate until you’re ready for salad. You can do this with almost any vegetable-asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, green beans, new potatoes (cooked until tender), carrots, radishes, onions. Drizzle with a garlicky vinaigrette.
• Animal protein. Chop or slice leftover hard-cooked eggs, roast beef, pork tenderloin or chicken breast and distribute over your greens. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, wine vinegar and olive oil, and top with a handful of chopped herbs.

Stir fry. Stir fries provide the great leveler for those items in my CSA bag that I find less appealing. A nice stir fry (with garlic, onion, ginger, and soy sauce as key seasonings) can make radishes and turnips interesting, reduce a large volume of cabbage to a manageable quantity, or disguise those mushrooms. Serve with some nice, hot steamed rice.

Omelets or frittata. Omelets, at least when I make them, don’t use big amounts of produce. Still, you can sprinkle a generous quantity of herbs over them, or you can use them for the foundation to support a nice topping of, say, steamed spinach (squeezed dry) chopped and mixed with cheese or a little green onion or, later in the year, a ratatouille.

Risotto. Prepare a risotto almost to completion and then add large quantities of diced vegetables for the last few minutes of cooking. I’ve done this with zucchini and other summer squashes; green or red or mildly hot peppers; asparagus; spinach; and combinations of same.