The Plan:
Day 1: Spaghetti squash taco bowls
Day 2: Out for a celebration!
Day 3: Homemade pizza
Day 4: Slow cooker pulled pork, Coleslaw
Day 5: Homemade hummus plate with radishes, carrots, kohlrabi, olives, and pita bread
Day 6: Soup from my freezer stash (Succotash chowder)
Day 7: Creamy Brussels sprouts au gratin, Baked apples
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)
- Spaghetti squash (from root cellar)
- Ground beef and pork roast from Mastodon Valley Farm meat share (from freezer)
- Onions (from root cellar)
- Daikon radish (from refrigerator “root cellar”)
- Kohlrabi (from refrigerator “root cellar”)
- Carrots (from refrigerator “root cellar”)
- Succotash chowder (from freezer)
- Apples (from refrigerator “root cellar”)
Into Storage: Nothing this week
Notes: The Beauty of Food Preservation
Busy week so I’m going to keep this short and sweet. One of my themes on this blog is to eat local and seasonal. My take on this means preserving food when it is in season by freezing, dehydrating, canning, storing in a root cellar, or pickling. The beauty of this type of system is that you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor throughout the winter and spring when you are busy with holidays, school events, work, and more. On those cold days when you are snuggled under a blanket and it is dark and you are having trouble mustering the energy to cook a meal, this is the time when you can reach in your freezer and grab that extra batch of soup you made in summer with fresh green beans, corn, and zucchini. It is such a comfort to know that this food is there to get you through.
Last week I broke into my summer stash of pesto and this week I am getting into my reserve of soups. We dove into the frozen fruit recently to add to smoothies along with dehydrated greens powder. I have enough premade meals, pasta sauce, pesto, and more to get me 1-2 quick prep meals per week until the next growing season. And the rest of my preserved foods are there as ingredients for some delicious homecooked comfort foods. It is all there, almost everything I need! This keeps my grocery bills low and ensures that we eat healthy and local all year round.
I’m hoping to get my Brussels Sprouts Au Gratin recipe up soon. I am using it as a main dish this week since it is pretty hearty, but this is another one that is great for a holiday side dish!
One last thing… some pictures of my last garden harvest from a couple of weeks ago. We got so many carrots this year!
