The Plan:
Day 1: Potato and sweet pepper soup, Apple muffins
Day 2: Bok choi salad with sliced steak and sesame dressing, Apple slices
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Pork chops with apples and pears, Green bean and potato salad
Day 5: Vegetable fajitas with bell peppers and onions
Day 6: Baked potato bar (steamed broccoli, butter, sour cream, salsa)
Day 7: Pasta alla Norma
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)
- Steak and pork chops from Mastodon Valley Farm meat share
Into Storage:
- Cauliflower florets (frozen in quart sized zip top bags)
- Fajita packs (sliced bell peppers and onions frozen in gallon zip top bags)
- Extra batch of sweet pepper and potato soup (freeze in gallon zip top bag)
- Diced tomatoes – got to use up those garden tomatoes! (freeze in quart sized zip top bags)
- Diced anaheim peppers (freeze in quart sized zip top bags for winter chili)
- Vegetable stock (freeze in silicone quart sized bags)
- Shiso (dehydrated and store in Mason jar)
- Mint (dehydrated and store in Mason jar)
- Thyme (dehydrated and store in spice jar)
Notes: My equivalent of pumpkin spice season
When pumpkin spice lattes start to be called out by every barista and pumpkin spice M&Ms make their way to the store shelves, I am not the one lining up to buy these things. Don’t get me wrong, I do like pumpkins for cooking and decorating, but I just don’t find this squash to be as appealing as it is advertised to be. Too much added sugar and spice in order to make it tasty.
So, instead of running to the nearest coffee shop this fall, I find myself heading to my equivalent obsession…the apple orchard. I just can’t get enough of apples. Apple pie, apple cider donuts, applesauce, apple butter, apple relish, apple muffins, apple crisp, apple cider, fresh picked off the tree. However apples come, I find them to be simply amazing. Our family will make many trips to the apple orchard this fall to pick fresh apples, grab some cider and donuts, and just enjoy the beautiful scenery.
Besides taste, the great thing about apples is that they can be stored for long periods of time. Some varieties will even keep for 6 months in a cellar! This is one fruit that I don’t have to freeze in order to enjoy in the winter.
You will see apples round out many meal plans for the next several months. This week I am making apple muffins, pork chops with apples, and apple slices for a side. We will also add them to oatmeal in the morning and send them along to school/work for lunch. So good!
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): bok choi salad
Pepper, Bell – YELLOW (1.0 count): veggie fajitas
Basil (1.0 bunch): pasta alla norma
Shiso (1.0 bunch): dehydrate for tea in the winter
Eggplant, Japanese (1.0 count): pasta alla norma
Bok Choi (1.0 count): bok choi salad
Potato – Gold (1.0 bag – 3 lb): potato and pepper soup, green bean and potato salad, baked potatoes
Beans, Green (1.0 bag): green bean and potato salad
Onion, Yellow (1.0 count): 1/2 potato soup, 1/2 fajitas
Pepper, Anaheim (green, hot) (2.0 count): diced for storage
Pepper, Red Sweet Carmen (2.0 count): potato pepper soup
Lettuce Head, Red Leaf (1.0 head): tossed salad
Pepper, Red Bell (2.0 count): veggie fajitas
Garlic, small (1.0 count): pepper soup, bok choi salad, pork chops, green bean salad, pasta alla norma
