Our CSA is taking a break from deliveries this week to tend their crops. NT and I decided to continue with local food while it's in season, so we went to the farmer's market downtown today at lunch. (It's a combination of real local farms and grocery-store rejects, but it's easy to tell which is which now that we've been doing the CSA for a few years and know what's in season in Minnesota right now. Hint: Tropical fruits are not. )
We spent $26 and got:
Thai basil
Green tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
New potatoes
Leeks
Onions
Garlic
Summer squash & zucchini
Green bell peppers
Portobello mushrooms (the only non-local purchase)
Baby bok choy
Purple kale
(plus free samples of hummus, Sun Chips and Pepsi!)
We were kind of brainstorming what we'd make, but mostly just buying what looked good and was reasonably priced. Now I have to make sure we plan our menu so none of this goes to waste! The greens and herbs are most delicate, so we've got to use those first. Tonight's dinner is already planned, and we're not cooking Friday night. I'm thinking:
Saturday lunch: Creamy kale pasta
Saturday dinner: N/A, date night
Sunday lunch: Rice-lentil salad, zucchini boats, leftover Harvard beets
Sunday dinner: Holy basil seitan w/sauteed bok choy & rice
Monday: Sauteed cherry tomatoes & basil over pasta; garlic-butter crostini
Tuesday: Gardein BBQ "ribs," fried green tomatoes, leeks & carrots, cornbread
Wednesday: Portobello sandwiches w/sauteed peppers & onions, potato salad
Thursday: Southern fried tofu, cross-hatch squash & biscuits
Friday: Depends on CSA box
We shouldn't have to buy much for this menu. We already have:
- At least 2 boxes of pasta, may need to get one more
- Vital wheat gluten so I can make seitan from scratch
- Fresh basil (non-Thai) and parsley growing on the balcony
- Thin baguette in the freezer
- Gardein "ribs" that I bought with my own spending money as a treat recently
- Leftover carrots from last week's CSA
We'll need to get:
- Maybe 1 box of pasta
- Maybe some nutritional yeast for southern fried tofu mix
- Brown rice
- Lentils
- 1 shallot
- Cornmeal
- Bread for sandwiches
- Tofu
Also on the grocery list so far:
Rainier cherries
apples
bananas
berries
Silk soymilk
lemon juice
foil
formula
bagels
English muffins
Tofutti cream cheese
Earth Balance buttery sticks
EB shortening?
toothpaste
Bonne Maman jam
I'm excited! I hope we can stay well under budget this month. We've got to use our CSA months to catch up on the budget so we don't fall farther behind when winter comes and we have to start buying grocery-store veggies again. Also, we're now buying disposable (well, compostable) diapers for SL going into daycare, and some formula to supplement the breastmilk. So we need to conserve our grocery dollars more carefully than ever. Plus, this is one of the half-months that has 3 weeks of grocery shopping instead of 2. Hmm, thinking about all that, I may skip Rainier cherries for a week, and probably the Tofutti cream cheese as well.
Menu planning for the upcoming week
July 26th, 2012 at 09:18 pm
July 27th, 2012 at 02:07 am 1343351220
July 27th, 2012 at 02:38 am 1343353111
I think there's a product called Smart Balance -- maybe that one has dairy? I've never looked into it but the name is so similar, maybe that's what you're thinking of.
July 27th, 2012 at 03:26 am 1343356007
Also, do you have a veggie burger product you love? The Boca line is good, but small IMHO. Today I had an awesome veggie burger at a restaurant that was a good 50% bigger than the patties I've seen in the market.
Thanks!
July 27th, 2012 at 03:54 am 1343357649
(Morningstar also has a vegan chicken strips product that's really tasty, but again, too expensive to get very often.)
I've had a Gardein turkey-style roast that was great, and I love their chicken products too. I have to say, I like both Morningstar and Boca veggie burgers, but Gardein's burger kind of blew them both away. But, we look for coupons and sales, so I'm not brand loyal.
If size is important to you, Costco sells a Boca burger as well as a Morningstar black bean burger that are gigantic compared with the normal ones sold in regular grocery stores. I bet you can find those larger ones in other places besides Costco, if you're not a member and don't know someone who is!
If you're looking for a good faux hot dog, I tried a new one that's expensive but REALLY good; it's the Field Roast frankfurter. We will probably just eat veggie hot dogs less often so we can get this pricier but much better line.
July 27th, 2012 at 04:14 am 1343358869
Have you had the Big Franks (Made by either Worthington or Loma Linda)? They are my ultimate veggie dog. I've never heard of the Gardein or the Field Roast companies - may have to check them out.
July 27th, 2012 at 05:11 am 1343362269
July 27th, 2012 at 01:50 pm 1343393412
A very beloved method (for other people; we like it but prefer the above) is to make kale chips. Here's a recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/melissa-darabian/crispy-kale-chips-recipe/index.html
July 27th, 2012 at 04:43 pm 1343403810
July 27th, 2012 at 05:06 pm 1343405182
We also tried to replicate some of the stuff we loved to eat out, like pizza, pasta, Mexican and Chinese food. Eventually we developed good techniques and favorite dishes in each area.
We thought back to childhood favorites, and tried to figure out how to make those if we didn't already know. My mom's stuffing, for example.
We have a couple of complex meals that will be worth the effort, but we also try to have a couple of meals that are heavy on convenience foods and light on preparation, such as veggie hot dogs with baked beans and frozen french fries. There are some nights none of us feel like cooking, so we need some meals that only take about 10 mins. of effort to throw together.
If we had some ingredients hanging around and they didn't seem to go together, I would enter them into Google along with the word "recipe" and quite often can find something that way, e.g., "potato fennel dill recipe" got me a lovely creamy soup we wouldn't have thought to make. Lately we've really been trying to keep our grocery bill low, so I sometimes make a list of ingredients I have on hand and try to create the menu with an eye toward buying as little as possible.
When I'm making the weekly menu, quite often I'll be in a certain mood and end up with three or four pasta dishes, or several Mexican dishes, or a few sandwich-type meals. That's OK, but if it looks too same-y when I look over it, I might switch something out and add the other thing to a list of ideas for the next week.
One of my friends had a system of themed days to help him come up with meals, so it would be one ground beef day, one pasta day, one sandwich day, one bean-n-rice day, one soup day, etc. That helped him narrow his focus when he was searching the internet and cookbooks to find recipes.
August 7th, 2012 at 02:41 am 1344303702
A restaurant in Phoenix has a salad that starts with kale and also has dried cherries, apples, red pepper, cheddar cheese, cucumber, and dried corn. SO GOOD.