Day 1: Greek marinated chicken, Lemony cucumber couscous, Fruit salad
Day 2: Homemade ramen
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad with carrots, mushrooms, and olives
Day 4: Tuna salad with carrot and celery sticks
Day 5: Grilled burgers, Leftover carrot and celery sticks, Fruit salad
Day 6: Soup from frozen supply (see recipe archives for ideas if you haven’t socked any away), Muffins from frozen supply (Banana bran or Corn)
Day 7: Broccoli cheddar quiche, Fruit smoothie
Notes: Make a large amount of the Greek chicken and cut up the leftovers for ramen the next day. Simmer the bones with veggie scraps overnight and use the bone broth the next day to make ramen and then freeze the rest. I like to use these silicone bags to store my extra broth. You could also freeze in a heavy Mason jar, but be sure to leave at least 1 inch of head space at the top (don’t use thin glass jars or they will break when frozen, I know from experience). Of course, I still use the old standby ziplock bags too. I’ve been washing them out and reusing them for years. Just be sure not to put hot liquids or foods in them or to heat them up with food in them since this can cause chemicals from the plastic to leach into your food. Make your meal prep easier by cutting up a bunch of vegetables for the week and storing in the fridge so you can just pull them out when you need them. Carrots and celery both will keep for a while especially if you store the celery in a little bit of water.
GLP Tip of the Week: If there is one food that you spend a little more on and buy organic, make it strawberries. For the fourth year in a row, strawberries top the Environment Working Group’s dirty dozen list, which is a list of the top 12 produce items contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals. Strawberries contain 4 times the amount of pesticides per sample compared to the average sample of other produce items. Some samples have found up to 22 different chemicals! Many of these pesticides and herbicides are banned in other countries and the European Union due to links to cancer, reproductive and developmental damage, hormone disruption and neurological problems, not to mention their adverse effects on the soil and surrounding environment. If you are interested in learning more about the strawberry contamination click here. If you would like to know what other produce is highly contaminated click here for the full dirty dozen list.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do to combat this problem, and big agribusiness in general, is to purchase strawberries only when they are in season in your local area. Until recently, this is what everybody did because strawberries were not available except for that short May-July season. Search out a farm that you know does not spray chemicals on the plants or fumigate the soil and support them with your dollars. Enlist the whole family and pick to your hearts content. Then eat until you are sick of strawberries and use the power of your freezer to store the rest for smoothies, ice cream, or to top your oatmeal so you can eat them year round. You can also make strawberry jam to preserve the summer flavor (this is going to be my project this summer as I work to figure out the whole canning thing). If strawberry picking is not for you, or you just can’t wait until the right season, then spend an extra dollar or two and get yourself some organic jewels. This time of year you may even be able to find some at Costco at a similar price as the conventional kind. And if it is the dead of winter and you are finding strawberries at the grocery store, you know that either they were shipped halfway across the world and are super expensive, or realize that they are chemical bombs that you do not want yourself or your family ingesting. I simply cannot enjoy eating one of nature’s greatest productions knowing this information.
