Day 1: Fried rice with carrots, onions, radish, and turnip
Day 2: Ground pork with cabbage and apples
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad with carrots and olives
Day 4: Broccoli, cheddar, and bacon fritatta, Leftover salad
Day 5: Roasted squash and bean enchiladas (from frozen supply), Guacamole
Day 6: Ratatouille (frozen from summer), Banana bran muffins (frozen supply)
Day 7: Tuna patties, Sauteed carrots, Green smoothie
Notes: I’m feeling really happy right now that I put a little effort into freezing some meals. When the busy days hit, it is so nice to just heat and serve. This is my “fast food”. Not to mention that it helps curb my summer flavor cravings!
GLP Tip of the Week: Start your summer food planning. I live in Wisconsin. Most of the time I love it, but every year when February and March rolls around I have the winter blues. Not only are the temps still cold and usually still quite a bit of snow on the ground, but February to April is also a food desert here. While there are a few greenhouses in the area, it is nearly impossible to find fresh fruits or vegetables grown locally this time of year so I end up buying produce from California and Mexico. Eating locally is economical and environmental since there are less costs and carbon spent storing and shipping food. And it really is great to support your local farmer and know where your food comes from. Although I can’t totally eat local this time of year, it gives me the perfect opportunity to do some planning. Last year about this time I shared my plans for summer gardening, eating, and storage. I met most of my goals. I even did my first canning. The strawberry jam I made was delicious and I still have a pint left to get through the next few months. Here are some things I am doing to prepare for the next growing season so that we can keep eating locally all through the winter. It takes a little bit of investment up front, but well worth it in the end!
- Signed up for a 20 week food share at a local farm (community supported agriculture = CSA). To find a local CSA near year you check out www.localharvest.org. Now is the time to sign up. I tried a fall/winter CSA this year too from November-December and was happy that I did since we now have storage veggies to last us into the spring.
- Garden planning to supplement my CSA share. We eat a lot of vegetables and the CSA doesn’t supply a lot of herbs.
- Mark the calendar for berry picking. We go through a ton of frozen strawberries and blueberries through the winter and they are sold in multi-layer plastic bags consisting of different number plastics and therefore cannot be recycled. I’m planning to make even more time for family trips to the berry farm to load up and freeze the extras.
- Take stock of what I want to load up on and freeze. I didn’t store enough corn last year and I already ran out, so I need to freeze more corn cut fresh from the cob. I also need to chop and freeze bell peppers and make more homemade tomato soup and tomato sauce. Knowing this will help me plan my garden and decide if I want to make extra purchases from my CSA farm or a farmer’s market.
- Research apple trees to find varieties that grow well in my area.
- More canning research. I can now make pickles and strawberry jam. What else should I try?
Here are a few other ideas of ways that you can plan for the growing season:
- Buy seeds and start seedlings indoors. It is prime seed catalog time!
- Research composting
- Look for gardening, composting, and canning equipment for sale second hand on Craigslist or Facebook for sale groups.
- Look up farmer’s markets in your area
- If you don’t have a yard, find out if your neighborhood has a community garden plot that you can use or look into container gardening
- Other ideas?
