The January monthly food drop from Harvesters had a lot of fresh vegetables. Much of the fruit and vegetables are close to their expiration date. I suspect they are donated by supermarkets when they cull the older items from the stores. The food drops are once a month and they try to provide fresh fruit and vegetables for a month. A lot of them won't last 4 days, never mind a month. But free is free. 

We sort the fruit and vegetables first by shelf life. Vegetables with a short life span are washed and prepared to eat over the next few days. Longer-lasting items, such as cabbage and apples, are held until later in the month. We also make sure the longer-lasting items are still in good condition to hold for two to four weeks. The ones that are not are added to the pile to eat within the next few days. 

The first week of the food drop, we eat vegan and vegetarian. We want to be sure to use the vegetables that will not hold well as soon as possible. We design recipes based on the vegetables that need to be used up and what we have in the house. Vegan is easy. We always have sauces, beans, and lentils. We can get two days' worth of meals eating raw vegetables. The third and fourth days are vegetarian meals. This would be noodles or rice and stir fry vegetables. We use scrambled eggs in fried rice dishes or egg foo young. Sometimes, we will saute a pile of vegetables and share a pork chop. By the fifth or sixth day, the vegetables that don't hold well need to be used up. We will put them in a homemade soup with either chicken or beef. Finally, any vegetables that won't hold anymore are cooked down in water and run through a sieve. The liquid is stored in the freezer for a vegetarian soup base or used to braise fish later in the month. Any remaining pulp is fed to the chickens.  

 Vegetables and fruits such as apples, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, or cabbage have a longer shelf life. We save those for the last couple of weeks in the month. Both my husband and I like cabbage in stir fry. We both love a lot of carrots in our homemade soups and stews. My husband also makes great roasted carrots. The free food drops always have onions, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. In the winter they have access to carrots that can't be sold to stores. (They are too short, too long, not straight, or too thick) We end up with two large bags of carrots each month. They may not look perfect for the grocery store, but they are sweet tasting.