The Fresh 20 For One Week (Winter Menu) - Review

I bought The Fresh 20 cookbook last year thinking that this was going to be awesome (because I do like menu planning, I like eating fresh, I like cooking), but I bought it on Kindle and so it's not like you can resell it if you don't like it. What I should have done was borrowed it from the library first because I have a problem with it.

I really like the menus for Spring, Summer, and Fall but the Winter menus are so perplexing to me. And I only really like one week out of the four that are in the recipe book. The three menus that I don't like have ingredients that The Monkey won't eat - and recipes that I probably wouldn't like either OR food that's not in-season and food that's not cheap in Minnesota (like clams - those bastards are so expensive!). 

So I tried the only week that looked good to me and that looked like it might be a fairly reasonable budget. 

THANK GOODNESS I already had meat in the freezer because to be quite honest - if I didn't have the meat, our grocery bill for one week would have been over $175. RIDICULOUS. I had a three pound roast, chicken breasts, turkey sausage, and fish already so it wasn't too bad (but buying all that meat for one week would have been so expensive from either Byerly's OR the Co-op). 

I did it though - I made a beef roast, sausage, fish with veggies, a vegetarian meal, and a plate of pasta with the leftover roast beef. 

All of the recipes were really great, and tasted awesome. But I think I'm going to have to review the Spring menus to see what I can mash together for when we start getting our CSA boxes - my problem is that not everything we have will fit together with pre-planned menus SO I need to be able to fudge recipes a bit and move things around, when dealing with leftovers that can be hard to do (plus it's not like you actually want to cook EVERY NIGHT when a frozen pizza will do the job...). 

Conclusion - if you hate menu planning, you can cook 5 out of 7 days, and have approximately $150 to spend if you eat all organic, then go for it. Buy the cookbook, cook the food (which the recipes are really good!) and plan away!

Tuesday's Frugal Mission

Mer.

Frugality.

Frugal.

CHEAP.

Frugal doesn't necessarily mean cheap. Frugal means thinking about where you're spending your money, what you're spending your money on, and actively making a choice on how you're spending money.

Some days I'm great at being frugal. Others... not so much. OY. I think it's like that for a lot of people.

In any case, today I had a BRILLIANT idea. I saw these awesome curtain rod strings at Ikea and thought - I NEED THOSE FOR MY BACK PORCH.

And then I remembered that I bought the same curtain rod strings - in fact I bought them to string up in the dining room to hold The Monkey's art work but I never got around to it (and I've determined I really like the painting we have in the dining room anyway so I bought magnet clips for the fridge). I thought I might have donated the string or maybe sold it in the last yard sale that we had but no, I didn't do anything with it. Instead the curtain rod string thingy was just hanging out in a basket in the closet.

I even have leftover home decor fabric from when I made curtains for The Monkey's room when I was pregnant. SCORE.

All I need are 4 extra corner holder thingys from Ikea and some type of hanger clips and I'm all set to hang up some curtains - instead of using the tension rods which keep falling on The Monkey when she's playing back there (it's sort of funny. I mean you suddenly hear something snap and then a 3 year old screaming "GHOST! IT'S A GHOST! I CAN'T SEE!!!").

So the total cost for these curtains AFTER finding what I already have in my house will be under $10. WOO HOO!!!

My NEXT frugal mission after Ikea and the curtain rod string thingy is to go to the library.

I reserved 5 books - two are urban homesteading books which are all about turning your yard into a vegetable garden and basically making the most out of a 1/4 acre of land. Here in the city we have like an 1/8 of an acre - but with the tree coming down in the back, I can start to take advantage of all the sunlight we're going to get next year and plan out more vegetables and determine how to PRESERVE what I grow. That's the tough part - you can only eat so much while it's fresh so knowing how to preserve homegrown food is really a good thing to know. I'd like to do lasagna gardening in our front flower beds for vegetables and move all the flowers into the actual yard - but make some sort of patio for chairs and a table (yes, we hang out in the front yard here in Minnesota, sometimes even in the garage!). First I need to read HOW to do some of this shit and determine how much sun the front gets to know if I can actually move some flowers and how bad chicken wire will look from the street. Maybe I should start looking at what grows best for vines... Meh, whatever... I have lots of months to think about gardening and to write down which flowers did the best this year.

Three books are just for funzies - one stupid Nora Roberts book (the last in a trilogy which will take me two or three days to read); another last-of-a-trilogy book in the Grave Mercy series which won't take me long at all; and the 4th book in the Logan McRae series by Stuart MacBride (if you can't tell it's a book set in Scotland by a Scottish author).

And the last frugal thing that I do today:

Make lunch with leftovers from dinner - some type of veggie wrap or quesadilla with the grilled veggies from last night.

Cook dinner with the last of our CSA veggies from last Thursday. Tonight = roasted veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, beets, turnips) with rice pilaf.

If you notice, there's no meat listed above. Basically we get enough veggies where I don't really need to cook meat with a meal. There's no way we can eat everything if I include meat. We become partial vegetarians in the summer with the amount of vegetables we receive with our CSA and with what I supplement from the co-op or Cub or Target or Byerly's. That doesn't mean we don't have meat - in the freezer there's pork chops, chicken, ground beef, fish, and shrimp. I have meat so when we do need some protein I can just pull it out of the freezer instead of running to the grocery store or wherever to get meat. It's a cheap way to eat meat - I buy when it's all on sale (and I don't buy the cheap stuff, I buy organic free range chicken, organic grass fed beef, organic fed pork, etc...) and then I toss it into bags with marinade in portions for 1 or 2 people.

So.. I think that's all we're up to today.

Happy Tuesday!!!

CSA Week 3

WE HAVE SO MUCH LETTUCE.

Seriously, I can only eat so many salads before I HATE lettuce.

Ok, I'll never actually hate salads but still, so much lettuce since it's the season for it now.

We've got two heads of lettuce, some crazy strong lettuce leaves which I think will be great for lettuce wraps (I'm thinking turkey, cheese, maybe some cream cheese, but plain for The Monkey to eat too!).

We also received peas (which were gone in 24 hours...), dill, green onions, broccoli (I blanched and froze immediately!), and vitamin greens (I have NO idea what these things are... they just look like arugula so I'm sure they'd be fine in green smoothies but I don't like green smoothies, so maybe I'll do pesto this afternoon with them for some variety).

I think with the two heads of lettuce I'll be eating salads until Wednesday for lunch AND dinner - see - this is why we're basically vegetarians in the summer. I get too many veggies to even think about buying meat!

But I'll need some variety. I've never made a creamy salad dressing before, so that's on my list of things to do today to use up the dill - unless I make fish - in that case what I do is mix together 1 tsp of dill + 1 tsp of Old Bay seasoning along with a little salt and use that to season fish for the grill. And that's for two pieces of fish - if you have more fish to cook, mix up more dill and Old Bay.

Blah. I think that's all that's on my list of things to make this week with the CSA veggies:

Salads
Possibly creamy salad dressing
Pesto
Grilled fish with some dill

CSA Box - Week 2

This year I opted for a different CSA other than Driftless Organics (which btw... was a GREAT CSA and still is! I just wanted to try a different one).

I decided to go with Turnip Rock Farm because it has a closer pick-up site to our house. We can bike there!

For week 2 we got:

• bok choi
• salad mix
• green onions
• garlic scapes
• radishes
• arugula
• broccoli
• herb pot - basil & parsley

• Scarlet Queen Red Turnips
• Napa Cabbage
• Head Lettuce

So I've got a major list of recipes that I want to try - last night I already made turkey lettuce wraps with radishes, garlic scapes, green onions, two turnips, with the head lettuce being the "lettuce wrap" part. The sauce part is 1/4 cup hoisin sauce, 1/4 cup soy sauce, a pinch of dried ginger, and 1 tbsp of sesame oil. Mix it all and dump it into the pan you've browned your meat and softened your veggies in. I really don't have much more of a recipe because I switch it up almost every time depending on the veggies in the fridge - I could use carrots instead of turnips, white or red onions instead of green onions, etc... 

BUT more recipes I want to try:

Napa cabbage - stuffed cabbage wraps

Turnips & radishes - roasted with some sort of lemon vinaigrette

Arugula - I have no clue yet, arugula isn't exactly my favorite but I WILL eat it on pizza so that might be what I'll end up putting in on - and my pieces only because I know Bimmer Man doesn't like it and the Monkey won't like it because it's too peppery - otherwise it will end up in the compost bin. 

Bok Choi - some type of stir fry - probably with chicken

Broccoli - I LOVE it steamed, so we'll do a stir fry with one head (along with the bok choi) and then I'll make an easy meal with the other head (sauteed or grilled chicken with rice and steamed broccoli)

Bimmer Man also complained that I didn't sign up for Turnip Rock's cheese share.

I'm quite regretting that decision as well and I'm pretty sure I've learned my lesson - next year I'll sign up for the full share (AGAIN) along with the cheese share and possibly the egg share.

Caprese Salad

I don't even know if you need instructions.

Tomatoes

Mozzarella

Basil

Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Layer tomatoes, mozzarella & basil. Sprinkle with oil, vinegar, salt & pepper.

And yes, my 17 month old smashes tomatoes into her mouth, she loves them so much!!! This is a great toddler meal - skip the balsamic or not - easy, fresh, healthy & colorful! 

Yum!

This makes me sad to see summer passing by.

Summer Soup

Chicken Sausage & Kale Soup

Just an FYI, this is a CSA recipe, so the ingredients seem weird! Ha!

1lb Chicken sausage

1 bunch Turnips

1 small bunch Broccoli

4 Leaves of Kale

4 Scallions

2 Garlic Scapes

3 tbsp olive oil

1 Beer

6 - 8 cups of water

Salt & pepper to taste

You can either leave the sausages in their casings or not. If you don't, then drain some of the fat off. Put the oil in the pan, cook the sausage.

Add in scallions & garlic. Saute for a minute or two. Add in the beer.

Bring it up to a boil. Add the water. Add in the broccoli & turnips. Bring to a boil & let simmer 6-8 minutes.

Add in kale. Salt & pepper to taste. 

Serve with fresh parmesan.

Below: Bowl is adult serving, plate is child serving