The Plan:
Day 1: Thanksgiving Day Feast (see last week’s post for ideas)
Day 2: Turkey gnocchi soup
Day 3: Homemade pizza
Day 4: Sheet pan squash pancakes with maple butter, Frozen fruit smoothie
Day 5: Penne pasta with pesto, Apple slices
Day 6: Tuna salad sandwiches
Day 7: Lasagna with kale
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)
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Celeriac root
- Butternut squash
- Sweet potatoes
- Homemade pesto
- Apples
- Pickles
- Ground beef from Mastodon Valley Farm meat share
Into Storage:
- Lasagna (double or triple the recipe and freeze extra batches in aluminum pans)
Notes: Thanksgiving Leftovers
I hope all my readers are able to take some time to enjoy good, local, healthy food with their loved ones this week.
When you are done feasting, remember to rescue all those leftovers from the landfill. Food waste in the landfill is one of the top causes of greenhouse gas production and reducing your contribution is the number one thing you can do as an individual to make an impact on the environment. So empowering!
These are my favorite ideas for holiday leftovers:
- Use your turkey bones to make delicious homemade bone broth that you can use as a base for so many soups (see turkey soup recipe above).
- Shred up the turkey to use in soups, casseroles, tacos, barbecue sandwiches and more
- Make mashed potato gnocchi instead of using noodles in your soup (see turkey soup recipe above).
- Vegan Shepherd’s pie is to die for!
- Mashed potato latkes (pancakes)
- Use that cranberry sauce to make turkey, cranberry, and melted brie sandwiches for lunch.
- Blended cranberry sauce can also be mixed into muffin or bread batter, sort of like using applesauce in place of some of the oil.
- Try mashed squash in pancakes
I know I have a lot to be thankful for, including all of you. Thanks for reading!!
