Midweek Menu

I did not plan a menu last week and I hated when it would hit 4pm and I'd be scrambling to figure something out. I was bound and determined not to let that happen again this week.

Yesterday, we picked up our veggie box. In it, we received green tomatoes, collard greens, cucumbers, and oranges. We doubled up on oranges and cucumbers instead of getting carrots and lettuce. Once I know what's in the box, it's time to figure out how to incorporate it into a menu. The oranges are delicious! I'm not sure what variety they are but all three of us have been eating them with breakfast and as a snack. They don't peel easily so Trent is learning how to eat the flesh off the orange smiles.

Monday - Lentils and Veggies

(basically a clean out the fridge day of the veggies we have left from the previous week's vegbox. I loosely followed the recipe, but instead of spinach, I used butternut squash and sweet potatoes.)

Tuesday - Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff with sliced cucumbers on the side

Wednesday - Pork Chops with Collard Greens

(Thank goodness for southern friends because I had no idea what to do with collard greens!)

Thursday - Chickpea and Parmesan Pasta

(I have been wanting to try this recipe for weeks and it keeps getting put off - tomorrow's the day!)

Friday - Homemade Pizza

So that leaves me with green tomatoes... I like fried green tomatoes, but we have more tomatoes than I want to fry. A friend suggested green tomato salsa, so I may have to try that and see how it turns out!

CSA Tuesdays

Every Tuesday, Trent and I venture out to get our veggie box. The weekly menu is revealed the Sunday before and we have until Monday afternoon to customize what we'd like for the week. This week we received green beans, a double order of winter squash, sweet potatoes, and a double order of apples. I usually get a double order of whatever the fruit offering is for the week. The CSA always offers 6 vegetables or fruits and you can double up, single order, or request none for any of the options as long as your total number equals six. I usually skip the lettuce options because we don't eat much salad at our house.

The vegetables and fruits offered change from week to week. Sometimes we'll have the same vegetable offered week after week and other vegetables will appear for a week and then not be offered again. Sweet potatoes have been in season for a while. We have accumulated at least three weeks of sweet potatoes. We also have a large supply of winter squash and that's only from today! So tonight I have been perusing the internet for winter squash and sweet potato recipes. I also have an abundance of green beans right now. Sometimes the items seem to disappear so quickly and other times I have to start getting creative to use it up before it goes bad. The latter seems to be the case for the sweet potatoes and squash (even though I enjoy both). There's just that much! So if you have any suggestions on what to do with these items, I would love to know! I'm not big on making separate casserole dishes. Normally the veggies are either in the meal (like a casserole) or they're on the side but kept simple (sauteed, roasted, etc.)

The other fun thing about getting a box of locally grown produce is TJ gets to try new foods fairly often. He has eaten such an assortment of vegetables. Tonight we had okra, cucumbers and corn from last week's box. Trent devoured the corn and cucumbers but the boy does not like okra. If it happens to sneak into his mouth, he will find a way to remove it. He makes a face every time!

Milling My Own Flour

We have been baking our own bread for at least a year now. I primarily use our bread machine and a book called 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.' Both ways provide quick and easy approaches to making really yummy bread. The bread machine also allows me to use the dough setting to make bagels, homemade rolls, etc.

We had been keeping massive bags of flour in the freezer. When I did some research, I found that the majority of the nutrients in flour are lost within 72 hours of being ground. When flour is commercially made, they purposely take out the bran and germ to increase the shelf life. This increases shelf life, but depletes the flour of nutrients. Even more nutrients are lost when the flour is bleached.

When you grind your own flour, the bread tastes delicious! It's lighter, moist and better tasting than commercial comparisons. Plus, there are many different kinds of grains to choose from - far more variety than you can find in the grocery store. I've never been a huge fan of toast, but homemade bread had me eating more, and bread made with freshly ground flour has me converted!

Now before you think I've lost my mind... it is SO easy. The grain mill works just like a coffee grinder. You toss wheat in the top and it shoots flour off the side into another bowl. It takes about a minute. So simple! Since you generally grind the grain right before you make the bread, you do have to do a little bit of math. 8 cups of grain makes 12 cups of flour so it's not a 1:1 ratio - still, it's not difficult.

So far I've made banana bread, a few loaves of sandwich bread and dinner rolls using the hard white wheat. They have all turned out really well. Tonight, I'm going to attempt some squash bread as well.

The first time we bought wheat, we drove about 30 minutes away to a store that sells the wheat. I later found a co-op in our town that we started using instead so we don't have to make the drive. I ordered Rye from the co-op so I'm anticipating its arrival so I can make some Rye bread and Pumpernickel Bread.

And the best perk... having a house that smells like freshly made bread!

Great Recipe Suggestion from A Friend

When you are eating what is in season, often times you have to find recipes with ingredients that you have on hand, rather than picking out recipes and buying what you need. Anyway, each week I try to make one beef or pork meal, one chicken meal, a veggie meal (I can only handle so many meat days in a row, but Jesse isn't a huge vegetarian fan), a pasta dish, and a soup or salad night. I also try to vary the cuisines we eat.

A friend of mine posted this recipe on her blog and it worked perfectly for our veggie meal. It was SO yummy. We ate it with coconut rice. I have only recently started eating rice again. I've always had texture issues with rice and the fact that it looks like bug larva. For years, I did not eat rice, but we want our children to be adventurous eaters. So I've been forcing myself to eat rice again and Jesse is forcing himself to eat raw tomatoes (usually in the form of caprese salad - another staple at our house). The coconut rice is SO good! I never thought I would rave about the taste of a rice dish, but I really enjoyed it. We eat mostly brown rice at our house (it's healthier and looks less like bug larva). Overcoming a rice dislike is a work in progress... So we had brown rice in our recipe. We also had sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes, sour cream instead of yogurt(note: add sour cream at the end, it will curdle if heated over long periods of time) and green beans instead of celery.

It was a success! The dish was delicious and I love seeing my 14 month old son chow down on vegetable curry. You should see the way he devours chickpeas! He also LOVES raw tomatoes (much to Jesse's bewilderment.) He's very much into feeding himself these days. He wants nothing to do with us feeding him. The vegetables in this dish were the perfect sized chunks for him to grab and he shoveled the rice in without a problem.

Dirty Dozen

The "dirty dozen" list is a list of fruits and vegetables that contain 47 - 67 pesticides per serving. You can eliminate up to 80% of the pesticides you consume, by simply buying the organic alternatives.

The dirty dozen:

Celery

Peaches

Strawberries

Apples

Blueberries

Nectarines

Bell Peppers

Spinach, Kale, Collard Greens

Cherries

Potatoes

Grapes and Lettuce

There's also good news. The following vegetables and fruits are considered the clean fifteen because their outer shell keeps them from absorbing much of the pesticides. They were found to have little to no pesticides on them.

The Clean Fifteen

Onions
Avocados

Sweet Corn

Pineapples

Mango

Sweet Peas

Asparagus

Kiwi

Cabbage

Eggplant

Canteloupe

Watermelon

Grapefruit

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Onions

CNN recently had an article explaining the effects that pesticides can have on your health. The article can be found here.