Dinner Plans: Week 32

It’s Week 32 of Dinner Plans and we love sharing our weekly meal plans to cook easy and healthy meals using peak summer produce!

We skipped our CSA delivery this week after having an evening away from the kids to enjoy a mini break. With still more produce to cook through this week we're using the rest of the radishes, chard, and carrots.

Seasonal Cooking Tip: Planning Your Summer Harvest

It's August now. If you're in our area this is the gap between summer camps and the new school year. We've got some holiday travel planned for the latter half of this month. This will mean it's time to plan food preservation for summer and fall garden planting. I'm looking forward to the time away with my family to reset and recharge for the new school year! I am also excited for the seasonal shifts in produce. Here's how I'm planning my summer harvest and getting ready for fall:

1. Take a pantry inventory for fall staples like beans, grains, canned tomatoes.
2. Harvest garden tomatoes for canning. You can also freeze tomatoes whole and use at a later date. If tomatoes come in our CSA box, I'm applying the same canning/freezing approach.
3. If you have home garden know your planting schedule. You can confirm your plant hardiness zone using the USDA's site. This helps to know what grows best in your area. I'm using this planting calendar to help plan our small urban garden for the year. We plan to plant more tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers for our zone (9b).

See Part I and Part II of my Pantry Essentials Series for more tips and recommendations for keeping a well stocked pantry no matter what size pantry you have.

DINNER PLANS FOR THE WEEK

Checking the list on Sage Mountain Farm’s website for what we’re getting in our boxes this week helps me to shop our pantry, fridge, and freezer in order to plan a variety of delicious recipes on Sunday. With these relatively easy dinners in mind, I then make our grocery list of ingredients to pick up either at the farmer's market or our local grocery store. 

Here is our game plan for dinner this week:

Sunday: Sautéed Zucchini and White Beans topped with Zucchini Basil Pesto and Toasted Baguette

Monday: Easy Broccolini and Beans Pasta Salad

Tuesday: The Best Watermelon Salad with Chili Lime Dressing

Wednesday: 30 Minutes Pasta with Hearty Heirloom Tomato Sauce

Thursday: Steak and Garlic Rice with Miso Roasted Radishes

Friday: Cranberry Bean and Farro Soup

Saturday: Ratatouille Pizza inspired by Lupa Cotta

From favorite recipes to new things with a wide variety of ingredients, cooking delicious food with our CSA definitely gets us out of a dinner rut and reduce food waste. I share meal ideas for our busy weeks with our weekly newsletter. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to be in the know when they’re live. 😉

Cheers to a nourishing week. ❤️