The Plan:
Day 1: Grilled hamburgers, Campfire potatoes
Day 2: Stuffed acorn squash
Day 3: Homemade pizza
Day 4: Bok choi and sweet potato salad with roasted garlic dressing, Corn muffins
Day 5: Braised cabbage with apples and bacon
Day 6: Tacos with quick pickle carrots and radish (use my quick pickle banana pepper recipe)
Day 7: Thai curry soup with bok choi
This meal plan was curated using local foods that are in season now or preserved during the peak growing season in the U.S. Midwest. The plan is an exact replica of what our family is eating this week unless we are out of town. Meal plans are developed using whole foods and my meal planning system (click here!) and are meant to be healthy and easy to prepare. Most recipes will take no more than 30 minutes of active cooking time. Occasionally meals may require all day slow cooking, advanced prep, or some oven time. Recipes are provided when available. I sincerely hope this will help with your own meal planning!
Pantry Shuffle:
Out of Storage: (preserved when in season and coming out of my root cellar, freezer, canned, or dehydrated stash)
- Corn muffins
- Homemade vegetable broth
Into Storage:
- Potatoes (store in paper bag in root cellar at ~55-60 degrees)
- Carrots (store in spare refrigerator in a produce bag)
- Celeriac (store in spare refrigerator in a produce bag)
- Pumpkin puree (freeze in 2 cup portions in zip top bags)
Notes: Thank You Farmers!
Photo credit: Culver’s
I would like to give a huge shout out to the farmers that feed our family. While I love gardening and continue to expand every year, we are not even close to being able to fully support our family’s needs. Going right to the source with our community of farmers feeds us healthy food, grown in a sustainable manner, at a fair price for everyone. I am so grateful!!!
Crossroads Community Farm: I believe with are in our 9th season with this farm and every year is better and better! The hard work of Cassie, Mike, and their team is evident in the superior quality of produce that we receive. They also make it their mission to provide access to healthy, organic, fresh food to underserved people. We get a weekly farm box from them for 28 weeks out of the year.
Keewaydin Farms: Organic produce and beans for 6 weeks in the spring. Some of the foods they give us are foraged and we get spring treats like asparagus and rhubarb.
Mastodon Valley Farm: our supplier of sustainable, pasture raised beef, pork, and chicken for 2 years. They use regenerative farming practices.
Prairie Bluff Farm: delicious free range, organic eggs delivered right to our door for a year now.
Appleberry Farm: supplies us with strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, apples, pumpkins, honey, asparagus, and more. Although not certified organic, they use low risk growing techniques.
Thank you also to the many other small farms that we’ve visited at the farmer’s market and that sell at the local grocery co-op to supply us with grains, beans, and dairy.
Here is a look at the produce boxes we received this summer season from Crossroads. If you like what you see and you are in the Madison, Wisconsin area, consider joining one of the above farms next year!
CSA Breakdown:
For those of you also using Crossroads Community Farm, here is a breakdown of how I will use each piece of produce this week. See the first CSA post from this season for details of how I structure the plans.
Last summer box this week! I will be getting a fall/winter share from Crossroads, but I don’t plan to post a weekly breakdown because a lot of the produce will go into storage. Thank you so much to everyone who followed along with me. I hope you were able to get some ideas to make your meal planning a little easier. Don’t stop following me now – there is much more to come. I will continue to post weekly meals plans using foods that I have stored and foods that are in season (yes there are some cold weather crops!)
1 Fennel (1.0 bulb): stuffed squash
1 Carrots (1.0 bag): 2 small quick pickled for tacos, the rest will be stored for winter
1 Acorn Squash (1.0 count): stuffed squash (may need extra if you are feeding more than 2 people)
1 Onion, Red (1.0 count): Thai curry soup
1 Radish – Daikon (1.0 count): quick pickled (see banana pepper recipe, but sub carrots and radish)
1 Sweet Potato (1.0 bag – 2.5 lb): bok choi salad
1 Potatoes – Babies (1.0 bag – 2.5 lb): half for campfire potatoes, the rest will be put in storage
1 Celeriac (1.0 count): Mine is huge! I’m putting into storage. It will keep for months in the refrigerator in a produce bag. Simply cut off a piece, peel, and grate or dice and use in place of celery in your recipes.
1 Bok Choi (1.0 count): I still have a bok choi from last week so I’m using in both the Thai curry soup (instead of spinach/kale) and to make a sweet potato/bok choi salad. The head is pretty big so if you only have one and you don’t have a lot of people to feed, put 1/3 in the soup and the rest in the salad.
1 Broccoli (1.0 head): Thai curry soup
1 Cabbage – Red (1.0 head): braised cabbage dish
