Day 1: Green eggs (scrambled with basil pesto) and pancakes
Day 2: Zucchini and fennel sandwiches
Day 3: Homemade pizza, Tossed salad
Day 4: Grilled burgers and brats, Baked beans, Coleslaw
Day 5: Grilled Chicken Caesar salad with local greenhouse tomatoes
Day 6: Spanakopita without the spinach (made with chard and kale!)
Day 7: Beef and broccoli with snow peas
Notes: Plastic Free July
July is almost upon us! In honor of Plastic Free July, each week of this month I’m going to give a simple tip for reducing plastic in your life. We’ve been living a zero waste lifestyle for a while now and have learned a lot along the way that is worth sharing.
First up, ice cream! I don’t know about you, but my family eats a LOT of ice cream in the summer. One really easy way to cut out the single use plastic is to opt for a cone instead of a dish at the ice cream shop. You may think those dishes would be biodegradable, but they are actually cardboard that is lined with plastic to avoid leaking. This type of container is impossible to recycle. Additionally, when you choose a dish, you also get a plastic spoon, which is another item that is not recyclable. Multiply that dish and spoon by multiple people and weekly (or daily) trips to the ice cream shop and you will rack up the disposables over just a few months. An ice cream cone is the perfect, edible container!
Looking for more ways to reduce plastic in your life? Here is the link to my 90 day plastic free challenge. This low pressure series explains the “why” behind making changes and breaks it down into easy to do steps. I hope you will check it out and join me for Plastic Free July!
Meal notes: I’m serving green eggs with pancakes, but you could add ham to make it green eggs and ham for a fun meal. We are also having zucchini sandwiches again this week. Meals on repeat? This is real life here! My kids just love these sandwiches, and I have got to capitalize on any veggie loving situation!
CSA Breakdown: For those of you also using Crossroads Community Farm, here is a breakdown of how I will use each piece of produce this week. Please note that I typically get the pre-filled share each week without substitutions and challenge myself to find new ways to use different vegetables that I may not be familiar with. So, if you are customizing your share, you will need to make substitutions to follow my meal plans. And you certainly don’t need to make the whole week’s worth! This is a jumping off point for you so that none of those awesome veggies go to waste. We rarely eat out, so this is a replica of our actual meal plan for the week and we typically have leftovers for lunch the next day. Also note that every week we have homemade pizza night with a tossed salad. You can throw practically any veggie on the pizza, even lettuce. You can also toss those extra veggies into the salad if you need to use something up.
Fennel (1.0 bulb): zucchini sandwiches
Scallions (1.0 bunch): 1 with zucchini sandwiches, 1 for Caesar salad, 1 for beef and broccoli
Kohlrabi (1.0 bulb): tough outer layer peeled off then cut into sticks for lunches and snacks
Broccoli (1.0 head): beef and broccoli
Kale, Green Curly (1.0 bunch): spanakopita
Cabbage, Green (1.0 head): coleslaw
Zucchini, Green and/or GOLD (1.0 count): zucchini sandwiches
Basil (1.0 bunch): pesto to mix with scrambled eggs.
Salad Mix Bouquet (1.0 bunch): tossed salad to serve with pizza
Lettuce, Romaine (1.0 head): chicken Caesar salad
Chard, Red (1.0 bunch): spanakopita
Salad Turnip (1.0 count): sliced for lunches and snacks. Or you could dice and add to the beef and broccoli
Cucumber (1.0 count): first cucumber of the season! I love simple sliced cucumbers with a dash of salt so I don’t expect to much with it beyond that. If there happens to be some leftover, it will make it into one of the salads this week.
Peas, Snow (1.0 bag): beef and broccoli
