Hello everyone!
We are trying something new with the farm happening this week and would love your feedback!
This week a few things happened:
- Vince came home with some canned ravioli and I (Kate) realized that things had gotten so busy that I hadn't kept up with making meals that save well and that everyone loved.
- We purchased farm shares for ourselves so that we could be choosing from and cooking with the same ingredients as all of our members.
- I am attending a Harvard Continuing Education course on Lifestyle Medicine (including a pre-course on culinary medicine!!) and would like to try implementing some of the tools and knowledge I am learning right away (and to share this with members who are interested).
What I am going to try to do is put together a weekly meal plan using the advice from the culinary medicine course (including ideas like batch cooking and making extras for lunches and frozen meals on busy nights), including as many of our seasonal and local products as possible. I will do my best to include recipes and a grocery list. This will be a work in progress so please send me your feedback!
This week we have an abundance of some key ingredients (cilantro, kale, beets, garlic scapes) that will be highlighted in the recipes for the week.
Recipe ideas for this week include:
- Fermented Garlic Scapes
- Smashed Cucumber Salad
- Tuscan Kale and White Bean Soup
- Pasta with Brown Butter and Sage
- Lemon Vinaigrette
- Beet Risotto
- Sauteed Beet Greens
- Pork Tacos with Cilantro Pesto
Here is a sample schedule for meal prep for a family of four:
Saturday (or your main cooking day):
- Main Meal: sausages with cucumber salad
- prep ahead for rest of week: vinaigrette (keep in container in fridge), fermented scapes (these will be great in so many dishes all year long, recipe suggestions to follow), roast beets(keep in container in fridge), cilantro pesto (freeze in small containers once prepped), soak beans overnight on the counter for Sunday's soup (consider preparing many extras so that they can be frozen in 1.5c batches in the freezer for easy future use)
- thaw 3 packs of sausages
- remove casings from one pack and bulk cook with taco spices then freeze for later in week
- cook remaining 2 packs for dinner, refrigerate or freeze any left over sausage for leftover night
- prepare cucumber salad
Sunday:
- Main Meal: Tuscan Bean and Kale soup, sourdough bread, salad
- prepare soup, consider making extra for easy lunches and frozen dinners
- salad can be simple greens and dressing or consider adding radish, green onion or anything else in your fridge; consider making extra in deli containers with dressing and hard veggies on the bottom and leafy greens on top for easy grab and go shake and serve salads for the rest of the week
Monday:
- Main Meal: Pasta with Brown Butter and Sage/Salad
- prepare pasta, consider making extra for easy lunches
Tuesday:
- Main Meal: Beet Risotto and Sauteed Beet Greens
- consider making extra risotto for easy lunches and frozen dinners
- remove bulk prepped sausage and cliantro pesto from freezer for tomorrow's dinner:)
Wednesday:
- Main Meal:
- Pork Taco with Cilantro Pesto
- using pre-prepped bulk sausage and pesto; add cheese, green onion and anything else delicious in the fridge!
Thursday/Friday (or any other busy night):
- leftovers from other nights
- grilled cheese and salad
- bread/cheese/red pepper jelly/pickles/left over sausage bites/white bean dip (from bulk prepared white beans) and kohlrabi sticks
Here are links to specific recipes:
- Fermented Garlic Scapes
- Lemon Vinaigrette
- Cilantro Pesto
- Smashed Cucumber Salad
- Tuscan Bean and Kale Soup
- Pasta with Brown Butter and Sage
- Beet Risotto
- Sauteed Beet Greens
- Taco Spices
Here is a grocery list for this meal plan (all of our products are * and will be prioritized on our list this week so that they are easy to find when you are doing your online shopping):
- beets*
- salad*
- radish* (optional, for salad)
- mint* (optional, for salad)
- green onion*
- sage*
- sourdough bread*
- honey*
- garlic scapes*
- sausage x 3*
- cucumbers*
- bacon*
- 2x lacinato kale*
- arborio rice
- pasta
- unsalted butter
- parmesan
- lemons
- parsley
- olive oil
- pickling salt
- pepitas
- lime
- jalapeno (optional)
- sesame oil
- rice vinegar
- garlic
- chili powder/cumin/oregano/paprika/thyme
- onion
- carrots
- celery
- veggie or chicken stock
Happy cooking everyone!
Your farmers,
Kate and Greg.
