Day 1: Pumpkin soup with chili cran-apple relish, Crusty bread
Day 2: Roasted squash and bean enchiladas, Guacamole
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Chicken broccoli alfredo, Orange slices
Day 5: Quinoa salad with veggies and feta
Day 6: Pancakes and eggs, Green smoothie
Day 7: Ground pork with cabbage and apples
Notes: Let’s keep those warm, fuzzy holiday feelings going with some pumpkin soup, or what I like to call Thanksgiving in a bowl. So delicious with just about every flavor I associate with turkey day. I’m very grateful for my friend, Diane, who shared this recipe with me a few years ago after I told her about my prior pumpkin soup disasters.
We’ve been getting so many root vegetables from the local farm – take a look at all those lovely roots sticking out in every direction in the picture above. I’ve been using the celeriac (the green, funny looking vegetable on the far left below the red onions) to replace celery in a lot of recipes lately since local celery isn’t available in my area right now. I’m finding that it works pretty well if you peel it, then grate or chop it really small. I’ll soon find out if it works in the pumpkin soup. I’m also considering buying a regular celery, chopping off the top to use in recipes and then trying to regrow my own from the base inside the house. Has anyone tried this before?
Last note: since bell peppers aren’t in season, I’ll be subbing diced kholrabi for some crunch in the quinoa salad. Happy eating this week!
Freezer meal alert: Enchiladas freeze pretty well in an aluminum pan. If you want to make sure they don’t get too soggy when you reheat them, leave off the enchilada sauce, then pour it over the top right before you pop it in the oven. You can put them straight from the freezer into oven and are hot and bubbly in about 30-40 minutes at 350 degree F. They are also really adaptable to just about every diet; vegetarian, gluten free, and meat eaters. You just have to find the right combination of tortillas and filling. I’ll be making a couple extra batches this week for my freezer.
GLP Tip of the Week: Remember when I told you about PFAS a few weeks ago? These are the “forever chemicals” called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as Teflon. Well, I’m bringing it up again because it keeps popping up on the local news as new contaminated waterways are found. And now PFAS is the subject of a major film starring Mark Ruffalo! The new movie, called Dark Waters profiles the efforts by The DuPont Chemical Company to cover up the contamination of PFAS (they call it PFOA in the movie). So my tip this week is to check out the movie, or if you are going to wait for video release (this will be me), you can listen to a short NPR interview with Mark Ruffalo and Robert Bilott (the real life attorney that he plays). Find it here. Then, if you are as disturbed as I am, get rid of all your Teflon pans and write to the EPA urging them to take more action to protect us.
