The Plan:
Day 1: Vegetable fried rice with scallions, salad turnip, radish, and carrots
Day 2: Cincinnati chili
Day 3: Homemade pizza
Day 4: Roasted winter vegetables with cheesy polenta
Day 5: Grilled brats with kimchi, Fruit smoothie with oranges, frozen strawberries, and ginger
Day 6: Eggplant parmesan (frozen in summer)
Day 7: Honey mustard sheet pan chicken with carrots and parsnips
Pantry Shuffle:
Out of Storage:
- Frozen strawberries (picked in June!)
- Eggplant parmesan
- Brats and ground beef from Mastadon Valley Farm share
Into Storage:
- Potatoes
- Sweet potatoes
- Kohlrabi
- Spaghetti squash
- Butternut squash
- Celeriac root
Notes: Root Vegetables and Gift Wrapping
I’m turning up the dial on the root vegetables this week. Growing up I always thought a radish was to be eaten raw and on salad, but don’t pass them up in your stir fry this week. They are surprisingly good! I’m also in love with the cheesy polenta recipe and roasting vegetables like potatoes, beets, carrots, and parsnips is super easy. I hope you get your fill of root vegetables this week too.
So what do root vegetables have to do with gift wrapping?!? Not much, except they both are in season this time of year. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, there are a lot of people spending this week preparing for family gatherings, shopping, and then gift wrapping. Here are a couple of facts you may want to take into consideration when selecting your method for gift giving.
- About 9.6 billion dollars are spent every year on wrapping paper in the US
- Most wrapping “paper” actually has a large amount of plastic on it in the form of shiny coating, glitter, or other decorations. This type cannot be recycled.
- If there is plastic tape on the paper it cannot be recycled
- 2.3 million pounds of wrapping paper end up in the landfill every year according to Earth911
All that is just from the wrapping itself! Don’t forget all the plastic bows, ribbons, and gift tags. Seems kind of overwhelming to know you are contributing to this wasteful problem doesn’t it? Well don’t feel guilty, there is plenty we can do about it. I have pledged not to buy anymore wrapping paper in the future. Instead, this is how I have tackled the problem: First, I am using what I already have. Some of the paper I have is recyclable, and some is not. The stuff that cannot be recycled I try to save and reuse. Gift bags have become my go-to, although I don’t need to buy any. We have dozens of bags that have been gifted to us so we reuse them, even if the color or sentiment on the bag doesn’t exactly match the celebration. I have also slowly incorporated a few cloth gift bags that I reuse yearly for my kids. They are actually really awesome for oddly shaped items. Lastly, I have been known to use newspaper and twine. You get a very rustic look under the tree!
Let us know if you have any good tips for cutting back on gift wrapping waste over the holidays.
