The Plan:
Day 1: Spinach soup with homemade rosemary croutons
Day 2: Shrimp, orange, and arugula pasta salad
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad with olives
Day 4: Grilled brats, Sauteed mustard greens, Roasted sunchokes and beets with garlic thyme dressing
Day 5: Scrambled eggs with scallions, Frozen fruit smoothie
Day 6: Italian sausage with onions and peppers
Day 7: Lentil soup with garlic olive oil, Crusty bread
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)
- Brats from Mastodon Valley Farm meat share
- Red bell pepper and onion pack (sliced and frozen in gallon zip top bag in fall)
Into Storage:
- Nothing this week!
Notes: Earth Month Wrap-up
Wow! What a great month of plastic reduction. In honor of Earth Month, I hope you joined me on this journey to to reduce waste and lower our plastic use. Let’s recap what areas were covered:
Week #1: Buy American (or from the country where you live). This most definitely was a challenge for me! It takes a lot of reading labels and research to get what you are looking for. There were several times I went to buy something and couldn’t find it made in the USA at all, like a dog tether. This calls for creativity to use things you already have or maybe borrow from a friend. Ultimately, I ended up reducing my overall purchases. I will admit, I did buy some kids clothes made in other countries. Have you ever tried to find clothes made exclusively in the USA? It is hard. I gave myself grace on this one, especially since I was buying secondhand clothing. This was a good reminder for me that I don’t have to be perfect!
Week#2: Identify and reduce plastic items that may be leading to microplastics in your bloodstream. This mostly focused on cutting back on plastics that come in contact with your food and water. I personally did not know that most chewing gum is made from plastic and this is something that my family is now working to eliminate.
Week #3: Identify and reduce plastic items that may be leading to microplastics in your lungs. We found that clothes (polyester, nylon, spandex, etc) are one of the biggest contributors to inside air pollution with plastics. I have been working for awhile on reducing plastic clothing, so instead for this challenge we skipped fingernail polish for the month. Now that I know that it is largely made from plastic, which chips off and ends up in the environment, I’ll be going nude for awhile!
Week #4: Help reduce plastics in our environment by picking up litter.
Since we started our Earth Month Plastic Challenge a little early, there is no new challenge this week. Hopefully you are able to take some time to reflect on plastic in your life and how it affects your health and the environment.
If you are looking for more ways to cut back on plastic use, check out my 90 day Plastic Reduction Challenge. It is…well, challenging. But if you stick with it and finish out the 90 days, you will have a profound impact on the planet.
Extra notes: This is the first week of my Spring CSA. If you are curious what grows in the Midwest at this time of year, check out the list below of what is in the farm share this week. It will be mostly greens and herbs over the next few weeks, along with overwintered root vegetables. There are a few items that are new to me (lovage, sunchokes) and I’m excited to experiment. I’ve worked everything into the meal plan above.
CSA Breakdown: For those of you also using Keewaydin Farms, here is a breakdown of how I will use each piece of produce this week in my above meal plan.
-Salad Mix: tossed salad to serve with pizza. Leftovers for lunches
-Spinach: spinach soup
-Mustard Greens: sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with salt, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes. Served aside brats
-Arugula: shrimp pasta salad
-Green Garlic: Immature garlic plants. Looks like scallions, but has a mild garlic flavor. Use any way you would scallions or regular garlic. I’m putting in lentil soup (I will add extra garlic powder to intensify the flavor)
-Overwintered Potatoes: spinach soup
-Overwintered Beets: roasted and tossed with sunchokes and garlic thyme dressing
-Green Scallions: scrambled eggs
-Lovage: leafy plant with a celery and parsley-like flavor. Lentil soup in place of celeriac root
-Sunchokes: The knobby looking tan things in my picture above. Also known as Jerusalem artichokes. Nutty flavored tuberous root of a certain type of sunflower. Crunchy like a radish when eaten raw; creamy inside like a potato when cooked. I’ll be roasting and serving aside brats
