[Week 4] Salad Spinners: Yea or Nay?

Plus Garden Salad Tacos, Snap Pea Salad, & More

Hello Farm Share Friends,

Sometimes — most times — your farm share greens need a bath.

There are several ways to do so, the simplest being to plunge them into a bowl of cold water, let the dirt settle, scoop them out, then dry them in towels.

This is what I did for years, but last September, I bought a salad spinner. I have owned salad spinners before, but when my last one broke, I didn’t replace it immediately, and I didn’t miss it — I never found it to be super effective, and it was kind of bulky to store.

Plus, it was a unitasker, which I think is why I was drawn to this OXO glass spinner, which was marketed as both a spinner and a serving bowl.

Now that I’ve had it for nearly a year, let me share some thoughts:

The good:

• It works very well — it dries greens better than any other I’ve owned.

• It’s well-made and made mostly of glass.

• This week, after I dried my arugula, I stored it in the spinner in the fridge, and it held up beautifully! It felt like a miracle opening the spinner last night after being out of town for several days to find a bowl of crisp, perky arugula.

The bad:

• It’s heavy.

• I’ve never used it to serve salad — I am very particular about salad bowls in that I love a large, wide opening. If a bowl is too narrow, I never feel I can toss effectively.

• The design — there’s a thin plastic insert that must be in place for the spinner to work. It’s not a big deal, but I don’t love having one more item to keep track of.

I don’t have complete buyer’s remorse, because, as noted, it works well, and I have a spot in the basement to store it. But would I highly encourage any of you to buy it? I’m not sure.

Friends: what are your thoughts? Do you like using a salad spinner to dry greens? Do you have one you recommend? Do you prefer using towels? Please share!

PS: If you have the space, I can’t recommend this extra-large bowl enough not only for soaking greens (and reviving them) but also for making large salads and slaws.

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Week 4 Vegetables

In addition to much of what we received last week, this week we’re also receiving fennel and sugar snap peas 🎉🎉 Check out the recipes in each of these posts for more ideas: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3.

• ​scallions → Scallion Recipes​

• cucumbers → Cucumber Recipes

• cabbage → Cabbage Recipes

• turnips → Turnip Recipes

• fennel → Fennel Recipes

• sugar snap peas → Snap Pea Recipes

• basil → Herb Recipes​​

• arugula and head lettuce → Salads

• bok choy → Bok Choy Recipes

• broccoli → Broccoli Recipes

• zucchini or summer squash → Summer Squash Recipes

Find recipes for all the vegetables here → Farm Share Vegetables

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Rough Meal Plan

The recipes scribbled onto this rough meal plan can be found below. Like last week, this week I’ll shoot to use the arugula and head lettuce first. Everything else should hold up very well on the counter or in the fridge for a few days.

8 Recipes

I’ve very excited to try many of the recipes my friend Erinn passed along this week, namely Alice Waters’s Garden Salad Tacos…

PHOTO: © JOHN KERNICK

…and this Zucchini Pizza Casserole…

Photo by Eating Well

… and this cucumber salad with magic spice blend:

Photo by Julia Gartland

For the snap peas: Snap Pea Salad with Buttermilk Dressing

This spring fattoush salad would be great for the turnips, cucumbers, and snap peas:

Shaved Fennel Salad with Avocado and Lemon You could add the cucumbers, turnips and snap peas here as well.

For the turnips (and any radishes leftover from last week), you could make tartines with anchovy butter:

Simplest Cabbage Slaw:

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Fellow Farm Sharers: Please share in the comments links to recipes you are loving for your early season farm share vegetables! Tips, questions, and suggestions are always welcome, too. Enjoy your vegetables! 🥦🥬🥒🌶🌽🥕 See you next week :)