Meal Planning or Making the Most of Your CSA

I haven't done a cooking post in awhile, and since Spring is theoretically around the corner and our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share has begun again, I'm in the mood to start thinking about culinary fun. I was talking with a friend the other day about how to make the most of the fresh fruits and veggies each week in the CSA, and we came to the conclusion that *TA DA* meal planning was the best solution.

I'm not the world's biggest planner, nor do I find the exercise particularly enjoyable, but I have decided that if I want to "Waste not, Want not" with our food, I HAVE to plan. Originally, I thought having a master list of dinner favorites would be the best option, but after eating squash soup for weeks, it was definitely no longer a "favorite" and I decided to come up with a new plan.

My current idea is to sort menus by Month, including what is in season and the best recipes we have found using those ingredients. Because the basis of the recipes, the veggies, will vary by season we should get a nice variety of dishes.

For example, this second week of March in the CSA we received:

Broccoli

Kale

2 bags Salad Mix

Parsnips

Carrots

Rutabaga

Onions

Potatoes

Apples

Pears

Frozen Blueberries

Wheatberries

Dozen eggs

The meal plan for this week looks something like this:

Wheatberry/Chicken Waldorf Salad - uses the wheatberries, apples, & salad mix

Turkey sandwiches and Broccoli soup - takes potatoes, broccoli & lettuce for sandwiches

Cheese Tortellini soup w/Kale - kale & onion

Turkey Burgers w/Salad - onion & salad mix

Linguine with Garlic & Tuna- frozen green beans from last summer's CSA

French Winter Soup w/Crusty Bread - takes onion, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga

We try to eat meatless at least once a week (better for the environment, leaves less of a carbon footprint, and is healthier for you too!). I also plan to have a couple of healthy snacks lying around. This week I'm going to use the frozen blueberries with some plain yogurt, and the pears with some cottage cheese. The kids love these and I feel better giving them something protein-filled and healthy!

Since I am a habitual breakfast skipper, I've also gotten in the habit of making one egg dish casserole per week, hard-boiling a half-dozen eggs, and making a batch of muffins. This way, no matter what my schedule, I have no excuse not to eat!!

I'm also happy that local and sustainable eating will gain more attention since Michelle Obama has announced healthful eating as one of her platforms. The White House can be a powerful influence for change by example. After all, when Kennedy gave up wearing hats, so did the rest of the nation :).

I hope this has inspired you to think about what you can do with the seasonal produce from your gardens, CSAs and grocery stores. I'd love to hear from you if you have any tips on meal planning. It seems to be one of those Mom chores where there is always room for improvement!

Car Napkins!

Although it may seem small, we have been taking steps towards sustainability by trying to go "paperless" in our house. To that end, I am removing all our paper napkins and replacing them with these cute and reusable cloth car napkins. I made them from some of the leftover flannel from the pajama pants. The kids love the bright colors and prints so much I don't think they've even noticed the switch! I'm such a sneaky mommy :).

Now if only giving up my dependence on paper towels was so easy! And after the colds in our house this weekend, I'm not convinced of the virtues of hankies over kleenex, but hey, one battle at a time, right?

I also found the local, organic meat shop this morning so that makes me happy! Now we can get our meat, milk, eggs and all produce from local and organic sources. Not quite self-sustaining, but outside the corrupt corporate economy at least :)!

Edited to add: This is a great post about why we should not abandon eating organic and local despite the cost of groceries and the economy.

Environmental and Holiday Musings

Laundry detergent success! Here is my very own bucket of homemade laundry detergent. The texture that you see in the picture is actually the fats from the soap. It was fairly simple to make and cleaned the children's clothes very efficiently! I was surprised to see that the mixture was mostly water, which explains why it is so much less expensive to make it yourself. You can try the recipe I used here. I was able to find all the necessary ingredients at my local Fred Meyer, but I don't know what that translates to for those of you in other parts of the country.

I also saw a Nightline special this weekend on 2 moms from Portland who have found ways to limit their garbage to 1 can per month and I found the idea very intriguing. Their blog site is EnviroMom. Most of their ideas involved having recycle cans in all the rooms of your house, composting, and avoiding purchasing individually wrapped items. We are now thinking about how we can incorporate some of these ideas into our routine. I wish we had sustainable living classes near us!!

I also found this site this morning and thought it amusing:

Movie Reviews

I have no idea how they determine this type of thing. My guess is that they check spelling and grammar, vocabulary and/or words per sentence. It must be similar to the reading level checker on Microsoft Word when you are trying to check your papers in school :). I still thought it was verrry interesting. I checked most of the blogs I read and some of you are geniuses!!

I have a pumpkin in the kitchen waiting very patiently to become a pie, so I probably should sign off. We will be traveling to visit family for the holiday so I will be leaving you all for awhile. On the cusp of the Thanksgiving holiday, I am grateful for so many things including an incredible family and friends, employment, and health among others. I hope you enjoy the best of this Season of Gratitude!

We love our CSA and other news

It is official! We have joined a community of like-minded individuals who purchase only local, organic produce and we love it! The farm that we have a "share" in is over 20 acres with free range chickens, cut your own herbs and flowers and a children's garden. The boys love to run around it and we take home the freshest food picked same day! This week in the share we got corn, radishes, lettuce, zuchinni, cucumber, eggplant, apples and blackberries along with garlic and fresh basil.

We used the blackberries last night to make this Fruit Crumble (from the Naked Chef, aka Jamie Oliver, a Brit with a fantastic accent and even better cooking show on the Food Network, who is fully-clothed in every episode :) and it is divine! It is also one of the easiest bakes I have ever attempted.

Fruit Crumble
1 3/4 cups of flour and oats (use the ratio you prefer)
1/2 cup of butter
1/3 cup of sugar
pinch of salt
1 lb fruit (blackberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, etc.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Stick all the oats, flour, softened butter, and sugar into food processor (or use your hands) until it resembles fine bread crumbs.

Put the fruit in a shallow, ovenproof dish and sprinkle with a bit of sugar. Spread the crumble over the prepared fruit. Give the dish a little shake and bake for about 30 minutes or until top is evenly golden.

I have to admit that this smelled so good last night that we had a spontaneous regressive dinner and ate dessert first. (Bad mommy!)

In other, more somber news, I may be offline for the next few days as Crusoe's grandmother passed on this week. She lived a long life of 91 years and had a large, loving family. We will be traveling east for services and to pay our respects. Praise God that He lives in both life and death!

Do It Yourself Laundry Detergent

What a great weekend at a lakeside cabin with friends! We had so much fun skipping rocks, playing board games and chatting. Even though we did watch some movies due to stormy weather, it was a media-lite weekend which was a much needed break.

One of the things I love about my friend Bekah is that she consistently inspires me when we spend time together. She has been taking Sustainable Living classes in Vancouver and so we spent some time talking about all natural products, foods and cleaners. To that end, I have decided to try making my own laundry detergent. I was shocked to find out how simple it is, and that most of the ingredients are items I was already using for different purposes. The best news is that it should cost about 15 cents per load. Hmmm...these sustainable living types might be onto something.

I'm going to try this recipe. I'll keep you posted on how it goes :).

1850s shawl collar vest & Blueberries

I finished Crusoe's vest for Brigade Encampment last weekend. Clearly my mannequin is much smaller than my husband :).

I used Past Patterns vest pattern and it went together really well with the help of the vest pocket tutorial on The Sewing Academy. My biggest problem was that I have never done menswear before and a lot of the steps seemed sort of counter-intuitive to me. All's well that ends well though! I love how it came out, and it really makes my husband's impression, so maybe I will have to try more tailoring again soon!

We all went to the blueberry farm last night and picked over 3 lbs of blueberries! It was the last day the farms around here were open. Our strangely cool summer weather severely delayed the fruit harvests and hurt all the local farmers. But for now, everything is blueberries! I was inspired by Anna Allen's blog to make this blueberry/peach cobbler for me and a friend and it was delicious!

This morning the boys and I enjoyed more of the blueberries in smoothies. We love our fresh produce so much we are thinking about joining a CSA. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Have any of you done this? You purchase a share in a local farm, and every week you get to pick up a share of their organic produce. It sounds fantastic!

Our local organic farm also offers a free-range organic egg share and a plot in the children's garden. I would love for the kids to get to garden and being that we live in a suburban development with very small yards, there is no room for that here. (I've already called poison control once this summer because Nathan was eating my hyacinths, so its probably best to stick with a farm :)

Hopefully, I will have Brigade Encampment pictures to post soon. We forgot our camera, so I am waiting for some friends to send pics. Its a beautiful sunny day here in the NW!