Day 1: Chopped salad with quinoa, sweet potatoes, and apples

Day 2: Beef and butternut squash stew, Roasted Brussels sprouts

Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad, Apple crisp

Day 4: Braised red cabbage with bacon and apples, Mashed festival squash

Day 5: Honey mustard salmon, Carrot, pepper, and radish sticks with ranch

Day 6: Veggie egg scramble, Fruit smoothie

Day 7: Sweet potato carrot and apple stew, Corn muffins

Notes: You will find some similar flavors through the week with subtle differences. Lots of apples and squash/sweet potatoes. Tis the season! Everything feels like fall comfort food to me. We rarely eat dessert, but it is hard to pass up an apple crisp this time of year. See below for how to roast Brussels sprouts. For the salmon, all I do is mix a tablespoon of honey with 2 tablespoons of mustard and spread it over the salmon before baking. Any and all leftover veggies should be put into your egg scramble. Saute the veggies for a few minutes to soften prior to adding your eggs.

GLP Tip of the Week: Get familiar with PFAS. I have been hearing a lot about PFAS contamination of drinking water and waterways in Wisconsin, and sort of let it go in one ear and out the other. But this story just kept popping up over and over locally, so I finally decided I better figure out what the deal is. And it is a big deal. So big that I have to share it with you! PFAS is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as Teflon. PFAS are found in non-stick cookware and stain-resistant fabrics and are known as the “forever chemicals” because they never break down in the environment. The thing about PFAS is that even in very small amounts they have been connected to testicular, kidney, liver, and pancreatic cancer, reproductive problems, low birth weight, and weight gain in children among other health effects. You can read more about PFAS from the Environmental Working Group here. Unfortunately, PFAS adverse effects have been hidden by chemical companies until recently. The EPA has yet to take widespread action, but fortunately both the House and the Senate have introduced legislation limiting PFAS use and requiring polluters to clean it up. In the mean time, states are taking things into their own hands and banning these substances and communities are working to address the contamination. So what can you do? Here are a few tips to make sure your family isn’t exposed to PFAS:

• Use stainless steel and cast iron cookware
• Avoid microwave popcorn, the bags are coated with PFAS
• Raid your bathroom cabinet and toss any beauty products that contain PTFE or “fluoro” ingredients.
• Cut back on fast food. The containers and wrappers used often are treated with PFAS
• Decline stain resistant treatments on your carpets when you have them cleaned
• Check the tags on outdoor gear and skip the Gore-Tex or Teflon
• Urge your senators and representatives to vote for PFAS regulations

CSA Notes: Thanks for cooking with me this season. I hope you enjoyed some new recipes and ideas for preserving the summer harvest. I would love some feedback. This is my first year doing anything like this and it is hard to know if it is helpful for CSA folks out there. I will be getting a weekly winter share, but will be storing a lot for later this year and into 2020 so you won’t see a breakdown of how I use my share anymore. But be sure to follow along for recipes and ideas to use winter vegetables. I try to continue to use as much local produce as I can in addition to the food that I have preserved from the summer. Slow food is awesome!

• Butternut Squash, medium to small: Beef and butternut squash stew
• Carrots: grated for tossed salad, cut into sticks to serve with salmon, and grated for egg scramble
• Collard Greens: chopped for quinoa salad
• Festival Squash: baked and mashed to serve with braised cabbage
• Radish – Daikon: 1 chopped for tossed salad and 1 diced for egg scramble
• Sweet Potato: quinoa salad, sweet potato and carrot stew
• Brussels Sprouts: trimmed, sliced in half, toss with olive oil and sea salt, than spread on a baking sheet and roast at 375 degrees F for about 15 minutes until you can easily stick a fork in them
• Onion, Yellow: a few thin slices for the quinoa salad, the rest in the beef stew. You will need at least 1 more to make the whole weeks recipes
• Mixed Ripe Sweet Peppers: 1 in tossed salad, 1 cut into sticks to serve with salmon, 1 diced for egg scramble
• Garlic: beef stew,
• Cabbage – Red, small: braised cabbage
• Radish, Beauty Heart: cut into sticks/rounds and served with salmon