The Plan:
Day 1: Grilled veggie and steak kabobs with classic barbecue rub (zucchini, bell peppers, and mushrooms)
Day 2: Summer salad
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Creamy carrot soup, Crusty bread
Day 5: Eggplant pizzas, dilly beans (using same recipe as dill pickles), carrot sticks
Day 6: Taco chili with corn and jalapeno
Day 7: Egg scramble with leftover veggies, Blueberry smoothie
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)
- nothing this week
Into Storage:
- Dilly beans
- Homemade vegetable broth
Notes: Plastic Free July Wrap-up
I’ll admit that there are times when my plastic free living slides. Life gets chaotic, which leads to less time for preparation, which means I start reaching for convenience items. The good news is that every year I participate in Plastic Free July, I get to reset and put new routines in place. Once I get used to a new routine, it becomes automatic so that the next time life gets chaotic, instead of leaning back on plastic items, I automatically reach for non-plastic items. A good example of this is my rag bin. Since I stopped buying disposable paper towels (wrapped in plastic film), I now have rag bins strategically located where I can grab in case of emergencies . I can’t even imagine using a paper towel any more. It just doesn’t feel right (read more here about how I ditched paper towels).
This July, I’ve started experimenting with different ways to store my produce without plastic. I’ve tried to prep some veggies as soon as I get them and store things like cucumber slices, kohlrabi sticks, celery sticks, and carrot sticks submerged in water in a sealed glass container. Not only does it save me time in food prep for meals, but also provides easy ready to go snacks. The cucumbers stay fresh for a couple of days and the other sticks can last a week or longer! Next up, I’ll be experimenting with wrapping my lettuce in damp towels. I’ll let you know if it works.
What experiments did you try this Plastic Free July? Did anything stick? I’d love to hear about your plastic free swaps and successes.
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.
Carrots (1.0 bag): carrot soup, carrot sticks to serve with eggplant pizza and eat as snacks
Scallions , jumbo sized (1.0 bunch): 1 for tossed salad, 1 for homemade veggie broth, 1 for egg scramble
Eggplant, Globe (1.0 count): eggplant pizzas
Pepper, Jalapeno (1.0 count): chili
Zucchini, Green and/or Gold (1.0 count): kabobs
Dill Flower (1.0 head): dilly beans
Lettuce, Summercrisp (1.0 head): tossed salad
Beans, Green (1.0 bag): 1/3 bunch for summer salad, 2/3 bunch for dilly beans
Onion, Sierra Sweet (1.0 1-2 count): 1/4 onion in summer salad, 1/2 in eggplant pizzas, rest in the carrot soup
Cucumber (1.0 count): summer salad, tossed salad, snacks
Garlic (1.0 count): Summer salad, eggplant pizzas, rest put aside for later use (will keep for weeks on the counter)
6 A1 Corn, Sweet (some tips cut): 3 cobs for summer salad, 3 cobs for chili (cut corn from cobs)
Pepper, Green Bell (1.0 count): kabobs
