The Plan:
Day 1: Eggplant parmesan (with homemade pasta sauce)
Day 2: Sesame noodles with totsoi/bok choi
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Kielbasa hash, Baked apples
Day 5: Nachos with quick pickle banana peppers
Day 6: Italian sausage with onions and peppers (with homemade pasta sauce)
Day 7: Fried rice with carrots, kohlrabi, and totsoi
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)
- homemade pasta sauce
Into Storage:
- Extra batches Eggplant Parmesan (freeze in aluminum pans) -> Day 1 this week is my parm assembly day; 1 for dinner the rest to freeze
- Honeycrisp apples (store in bags in fridge – they will keep up to 6 months!)
- Pepper and onion packs (slice both and place in gallon zip top bags for easy winter supper – fajitas or Italian sausage dish in the meal plan above) -> This will be done at the same time as when I prep for my Day 6 meal this week
Notes: Fall Colors
Everywhere I look I see beautiful fall colors! Here in Wisconsin the purple asters are in full bloom and the farmer’s fields are ablaze in yellow. The trees are tinged with red and orange. The prairie grasses are a field of red, brown, and white. There are so many wonderful sights and smells which explains why this season is often ranked as the most popular.
The same fall colors show up in my CSA farm share this week. The bright orange carrots, the red tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes, the yellows of the banana peppers and onions, the purple in the eggplant, the white garlic, and of course a bit of green with the totsoi and kohlrabi. It is a fall cornucopia!
Variety of colors in your food also mean variety in nutrition, which is very important for your health. The potatoes will give you a good dose of magnesium, potassium, and fiber. The peppers are loaded with vitamin C. The greens have vitamin K. The tomatoes will give you a healthy dose of lycopene. And the eggplant has anthocyanins. A lot of this nutrition is in the colorful skin, so make sure you eat that too!
All of these vitamins and nutrients act together to keep your immune system strong, build bones and muscle, detoxify your organs, and feed your gut. There is also a lot of hidden nutrition in produce that we don’t know about yet, which is why it is generally best to get your vitamins and minerals from food rather than supplements. New discoveries are being made all the time about the way that fresh produce supports your health.
Right now is the perfect time to eat up all those fall colors!
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): fried rice, the rest will be stored in the fridge (they keep for months) to use for lunches, snacks, and meals down the road
Kohlrabi (1.0 bulb): peeled and diced for fried rice
2 Tomatoes (1.0 increment): tossed salad, nachos
2 Banana Pepper (1.0 count): quick pickled and put on nachos
Onion, Yellow (1.0 count): kielbasa hash
2 Pepper, Red Sweet Carmen (1.0 count): kielbasa hash
Tatsoi (1.0 head): sesame noodles
Eggplant, Globe (smaller) (1.0 count): eggplant parmesan – you will probably need to purchase extra from store/farmer’s market to get enough for this dish
Potato – Red (1.0 bag – 3 lb): kielbasa hash
2 Pepper, Red Bell (1.0 count): Italian sausage with onions and peppers
Garlic, small (1.0 count): quick pickle banana peppers, sesame noodles, Italian sausage pepper dish, fried rice
