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The Secret to Meal Planning: Part 4 “Teamwork”

By Shanna Demers, neighborhood market manager:

Teamwork makes the dream work! Five words that never fail to bring my family smiles and remind us that we are in this together. But if teamwork is so important to our family, why was meal planning and cooking ALL on me?! Involving my family in the planning process was a game changer.

I was selecting all the meals when I was following prefabricated meal plans. It was easier this way, but I found myself frustrated when my family (mainly my daughter) wasn’t interested in eating what I had prepared. We all have unique palates and I was only cooking to mine. Meals became more enjoyable for everyone once I started asking my husband and daughter for their input. This is yet another example of why following someone else’s meal plan is not always sustainable. Simple changes really do make big differences.

My family helps plan meals each week, which keeps us on track because we are all invested. Involvement gives ownership. This is important for children as well. Including children in the planning process helps them to learn healthy eating habits and will make them more excited about what’s on the table for meals. They’re more likely to try new things if they helped choose them.

My daughter helps me choose the items in our basket every Friday when the Seasonal Roots menu comes out. Not only is she helping me plan, she is learning where our food comes from. Many children are not aware of how our food production system works. Food doesn’t come from the grocery store — that’s simply a place where we can purchase it. When we order from Seasonal Roots, we can choose our items and see which family farm it’s coming from.

Knowing where our food comes from and how to prepare it are important life skills. I’m helping my daughter learn by inviting her into the kitchen. In turn, she’s more willing to try new foods and eat what we prepare together. A win-win situation!

So this week I’m challenging you to get everyone involved with as much of the planning and cooking as possible. Teamwork makes the (meal planning) dream work!

10 Ways This Simple New Years Resolution Will Help You Live Better

By the Seasonal Roots Veggie Fairies:

If you make a New Years resolution to eat local, sustainably produced food in 2017, you won’t just live better – you’ll actually help change the world. So without further ado, here are the top 10 ways this one simple New Years resolution will change you and your world. (Just wait till you get to #1!)

Resolve to eat local, sustainably produced food, and you will…

#10:
…waste less of everything, including time.

The short distance between a local farm and you means less storage, no middleman, and that means less wasted food and packaging. And with home delivery from an organization like Seasonal Roots, you’ll save time, too.

#9:
…relax and enjoy the view.

Use some of that time you save to relax and enjoy the open space you’ll be helping preserve. That’s because buying local food saves nearby farms from getting turned into yet another suburban development. Since our farmers use sustainable methods (unlike factory farms that plant miles and miles of monocrops), our farmers create ecosystems that are good for the soil, water, and air, a rich patchwork of fields, meadows, woods, and ponds – the perfect habitat for wildlife and a peaceful space for recreation.

#8:
…reduce unemployment and taxes in your community.

When you buy local, your food dollars stay in your community instead of going to some faraway corporate headquarters. Buy local food and your dollars create jobs at local farms, food processing facilities, and distribution systems. Plus, studies show that, compared to development, farms contribute more in taxes than they require in services. Chickens don’t go to school and rutabegas don’t call 911. That helps keep taxes from going up.

#7:
…achieve peace of mind.

Local food is safer and more secure. You’ll get to know the farmers who are growing and handling the things you eat. They’re not anonymous, and neither are you, and our farmers take that relationship seriously as they grow and handle your food. Plus, if there’s ever a breakdown in the global food system – which relies on fossil fuels to produce, package, store, and distribute food – your local farmers will still be here, still supplying you with safe, fresh food.

#6:
…eat more delicious food.

Most Seasonal Roots food comes from farmers and artisans within 150 miles (one-tenth as far as supermarket produce). Because local food doesn’t travel very far, farmers can grow varieties for their flavor, not for shelf life and ability to withstand getting drop-kicked halfway around the world. And since the stuff our local farmers grow will be eaten in days instead of weeks, it can be picked at the peak of ripeness — mmmmm. As for locally made products like cheese, bread, and coffee, they’re handcrafted for best flavor and not pumped full of preservatives and artificial flavors.

#5:
…be super cool.

Compared to the global industrial food complex, food from local farmers and artisans uses less fuel and produces less CO2 – 17 times less! So local food belches fewer greenhouse gases and fights global warming. That’s cool.

#4:
…support family farms.

Our family farmers treasure the land as a legacy for their children. They farm with future generations in mind, not short-term profit. That’s good for all of us, for all the reasons listed here.

#3:
…be kind to animals.

Unlike factory farms, our family farmers raise their animals humanely. Chickens, cows, goats, and pigs live happy lives in open pastures. It’s good for the animals, who don’t need constant antibiotics and hormones to grow and stay healthy, and good for us people, too. Grass-fed meat, milk, and eggs are much more nutritious than the conventionally produced kind.

#2:
…get healthy.

Fresh, local, sustainably grown food is better for you. Take meat, dairy, and eggs from animals raised sustainably on pasture. Grass-fed beef, for example, is higher in “good” cholesterol (and lower in “bad”) than factory farmed beef. Grass fed dairy is higher in vitamins A and E, lower in fat, and contains more antioxidants. As for produce, as soon as you pick it, it starts to lose nutrients. So Seasonal Roots delivers it to you within 48 hours, dirt to doorstep™. (Supermarket produce is typically a week old and has lost almost half its nutrients before you even get it home!) Sustainably produced food also means less (or no) agricultural chemicals (such as pesticides), antibiotics, or hormones.

#1: (Drum roll, please…)
…bring more love and joy into your life!
Resolve to buy local, sustainably produced food and you will have a powerful tool for strengthening all the loving relationships in your life. Let’s say you get a passle of local peaches, so fresh and ripe you can smell them, and you remember the peach pie your grandmother used to make when you were a kid, and you get totally inspired and dig out that recipe and call in the kids. Together you whip up a couple of pies while you tell them stories about your late great granny. Then Mr. Grumpy Pants from next door marches over to complain about the noise of happy children – but you offer him a piece of pie and a strange look comes over his face, and you realize that strange look is a smile, and you get to know each other while eating delicious pie to the sound of the laughter of children. And isn’t that what life is all about?

The Veggie Fairies at Seasonal Roots wish you a happy, healthy New Year!

Share the veggie love with someone you care about! 10% off Seasonal Roots Gift Cards if you order by January 2 — give the gift of living better. Just send us an email with your phone number and best time to call to arrange credit card payment, and we’ll set you up with all the Gift Cards you need.

The Secret to Meal Planning: Part 3 “Know Your Schedule”

By Shanna Demers, neighborhood market manager:

So how did shopping at home go over last week?! Digging through your freezer can be intimidating but hopefully diving in resulted in some inspiration to cook forgotten items and saved you some money at the grocery store!

By the way, if you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, head here
for Part 1 of this meal planning series, and here for Part 2, “Shopping at Home”.

After I finish my home shopping and review my upcoming Seasonal Roots order, I have an accurate idea of what I have on hand and use it to inspire my weekly plan. But there’s one more vital piece to this puzzle: our weekly schedule.

It took me a while to figure that out. Normally families have the same commitments week in and week out, but when I assumed I could follow a plan that had a predictable daily themes, like meatless Monday, taco Tuesday, and so on, I failed again. It didn’t work.

Once a week batch cooking — a.k.a. cooking up a storm one day and using the pre-cooked items throughout the week — also didn’t work. No one in my family is ever stoked about leftovers and it felt like that was all we were eating!

I felt trapped. Yet again, these “tried and true” meal plans were not working for me. I was either trying new recipes on my busiest days, or winding up with a large amount of cooked food that had to be eaten whether or not we felt like eating it just to avoid having to throw it away.

Then it finally hit me. Every week is unique. Duh! It seems so obvious now: If I was going to be successful, I had to plan meals that actually fit our schedule. Rules were tossed again and so was the recipe for disaster that I was following. After all, tacos taste good any night of the week, not just Tuesdays.

So now, Sunday is my planning day. I take about an hour and sit with a cup of coffee, cookbooks, Pinterest (where every week Seasonal Roots posts new recipes that use the most popular produce items for the upcoming week), and my calendar planner.

Based on what’s actually on our schedule for the upcoming week, I can better decide which nights I should use the crock pot, which nights I can look forward to cooking, and which nights we will need to have leftovers. I enjoy cooking and usually try cooking a few nights in a row. Leftover night is much more fun when you have a choice in the matter. Seeing which meals produce sought-after leftovers and which meals are just no good unless they’re fresh also helps me plan ahead. So your challenge this week is to make your plan fit your schedule, not someone else’s.

The Secret to Meal Planning: Part 2 “Shopping at Home”

By Shanna Demers, neighborhood market manager:
My favorite way to start meal planning is to take inventory of everything I have on hand. In other words, I shop at home.

[In case you missed it, here’s last week’s secret.]

This simple step was one I was missing when I tried to use prefabricated meal plans. Many meal plans have shopping lists prepared for you based on meals selected. I would print these nice little lists and head to the store, completely disregarding what I already had at home or had ordered from Seasonal Roots. This was the opposite of budget friendly! I was also buying weird products for recipes and never using them again. Last weekend I threw away an old jar of tahini I used once to make a sauce no one liked because of a meal plan. No wonder I was throwing so much away!

Now, before I decide what to cook, I determine what I have. Not only was I throwing away produce, but I was throwing away things that were buried in my freezer. You never want to find the last pound of that beautiful, pastured breakfast sausage bundle you ordered from Seasonal Roots covered in freezer burn! I was also freezing vegetables to help reduce waste, but… I didn’t know that they should be blanched prior to freezing. The veggies were almost always freezer-burned by time I remembered I had them. Talk about frustrating.

I’ve made some changes, and now let my order from Seasonal Roots and the freezer inspire my meal planning every Sunday. I have found I am saving money and time! One small change can make a big difference. Give it a shot this week. Before you head out grocery shopping figure out what you actually have. It’s often more than you realize.

Stay tuned for more meal planning tips next week. In the meantime, here’s a quick guide on how to freeze extra produce… the correct way, by blanching first!

    • Prepare a stock pot of boiling water.
    • Clean and roughly chop vegetables.
    • Prepare an ice bath for the blanched vegetables.
    • Place vegetables into a wire basket and lower into rapidly boiling water for a few minutes. The time depends on the vegetable. Here’s a good guide for times.
    • After blanching, promptly put vegetables into an ice bath. Once cool, drain and place in a freezer-safe container or baggie.
  • The Secret to Meal Planning: Part 1 “Throw out the rules!”

    By Shanna Demers, neighborhood market manager:

    It took me a long time to figure out how to successfully meal plan for my family. I kept trying different meal planning systems – trying and failing. I’m a neighborhood market manager for Seasonal Roots’ online farmers market and a busy, homeschooling mom, and I used to be an agriculture research specialist… if anyone should’ve known how to meal plan, it’s me! Why wasn’t it working? What was I doing wrong?!

    The thing is, there are a lot of websites out there that will tell you how to plan a week of meals. I’d get frustrated trying to follow their rules and lose all the joy that came with cooking and eating nutritious food. What happened to meal planning making your life better, right?!

    Well, better means different things for different people. For you, better may mean less time cooking, or less time shopping and more time cooking. Maybe you’re tired of wasting fresh veggies. I was. I would find myself standing in the kitchen at 4:30pm wondering how I could turn a pile of wilty swiss chard and semi-mushy zucchini into dinner. It was often easier to compost it or even worse, throw it away and opt for the broccoli from the freezer. It was NOT working.

    Meal planning IS the answer but everyone meal plans differently. I have diet restrictions and so does my daughter, but my husband can eat anything. Trying to make someone else’s meal plan fit our needs was a recipe for failure. Meal planning only started working when I figured out which rules fit our life. Then I threw the rest away.

    That is my secret to successful meal planning: Throw away the rules (not the fresh veggies)!

    In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you how I meal plan. I’ll also give you tips to help you figure out how YOU can meal plan. In the meantime, check out these free meal planning resources. Just remember: Keep what works, throw the rest away.
    http://realeverything.com/tag/meal-plan/

    http://www.thekitchn.com/danielle-walker-new-york-times-best-selling-author-of-meals-made-simple-tells-us-how-she-meal-preps-for-the-week-229368

    http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/our-free-meal-plans/

    http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/recipe-collections-favorites/month-of-dinner-recipes

    This next one has some sample plans, otherwise it’s a paid service.
    http://emeals.com/meal-plans/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=meal%20plans&utm_campaign=B_Meal%20Plan