The Plan:
Day 1: Lettuce wraps with ground meat and spring vegetables, Strawberry oat muffins
Day 2: Spanakopita (using leftover dill from last week), Radish and turnip slices
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Cilantro chimichurri sauce over steak, Leftover salad, Strawberries with fresh whipped cream
Day 5: Thai curry soup
Day 6: Quiche with zucchini and scallions, Intense strawberry lemonade
Day 7: Lasagna (my frozen supply)
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):
- Pie crust (made a few months ago and frozen in a pie tin place in a gallon zip top bag)
- Vegetable broth
- Lasagna
Into Storage:
- Spanakopita (doubling recipe and freezing one in an aluminum pan)
Notes: Veggie Art
Here is a repost from my meal plan almost exactly a year ago. It’s a little silly, but captures exactly how I feel about food.
“Please don’t laugh, but sometimes when I review the pictures I take of my farm share produce I think I am looking at art. The spirals of a head of lettuce, beautiful deep green leaves, kooky kohlrabi, and the pops of colors from things like radishes, peppers, and strawberries. Every season has a different shade, but each is pretty in its own way. I like to study my produce, dirt and all, and discover all the ways that mother nature is a true artist. Sometimes I see perfect symmetry. Other times the unevenness is what makes the piece of produce stunning. The human species is always trying to change and manipulate nature, but in my opinion, it is already perfect!”
One more note: this is the third week we are having steak. We have a meat share that has to be used. If you don’t want to eat (or pay for) steak, easy substitutes that go with the chimichurri sauce are pork chops/pork steaks, chicken, beans, lentils, grilled veggies, or just use as a salad dressing.
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.
Scallions (1.0 bunch): 1 for lettuce wraps, 1 for spanakopita, 1 for Thai curry soup, 2 for quiche
Broccoli (1.0 head): Thai curry soup
Spinach (1.0 bag): spanakopita
Zucchini, Green and/or Gold (1.0 count): quiche
Cilantro (1.0 bunch): 1/3 bunch for Thai curry soup, 2/3 bunch for chimichurri sauce
Radish, Red (1.0 bunch): cut off greens and use in spanakopita, slice all the radishes and use half for lettuce wraps and the rest to serve with spanakopita or use for snacking
Lettuce, Red Butterhead (1.0 head): lettuce wraps
Garlic Scapes (1.0 bunch): 2 for lettuce wraps, 2 for spanakopita, 1 for chimichurri sauce
Lettuce, Romaine (1.0 head): tossed salad
Bok Choi (1.0 count): lettuce wraps
Salad Turnip (1.0 count): slice them all up and use half for lettuce wraps and half to serve with spanakopita or use for snacking
Strawberries (1.0 Unit): cut up and top with homemade whipped cream, Strawberry oat muffins, snacks/lunch
Kale, Lacinato (1.0 bunch): Spanakopita
