Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Menu Plan: August 30-Sept 5, 2010

This week, we are having a "clean out the freezer" week as our fall beef order is scheduled to be ready this weekend and we are also getting 6 fryers and a duck (!!!) from our pastured poultry farmer this weekend.

Here is our menu. Locally grown or raised items are in bold.

Breakfasts:

*Oatmeal with pecans and honey
*Yogurt with honey or maple syrup and sliced pears
*Granola (local honey and pecans) and milk
*Scrambled Eggs and grits (someone now raises and grinds several different corn products and sells them at our farmer's market).
*Pancakes or waffles with maple syrup or honey and cut up fruit
*Peach and blueberry smoothie

Lunch:

Leftovers
Baked Potatoes
Freezer Meals that have been packaged in individual servings

Dinner:

Grilled T-Bones and Sirloins (using up the last of our spring beef order) with baked potatoes and steamed broccoli

Spaghetti (we are using rice noodles since regular noodles do not agree with hubby - i hope we like them), green salad and sauted squash

Homemade Pizza (plain cheese or cheese and black olives for the boys and what ever we can find in the freezer to use as toppings for hubby and I) and a green salad

Roasted chicken, sweet corn and sweet potatoes (though I may try Alea's sweet potato recipe if I can get my hands on some cauliflower)

Tuna burgers with home grown micro-greens (if they are ready to use by then) and cut up fruit

Soup (probably chicken noodle that way we can use up lots of our frozen local veggies) and cornbread (cornmeal and eggs from the market)

Ok, so while I am excited beyond belief to be getting a pasture raised duck from our poultry farmer, I am unsure of how to prepare it. I'd really like to just roast this one to keep it as simple as possible to see if the family likes duck. Anyone have any tips? TIA :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where are you getting your beef? Lucky you, pastured chickens and ducks too + cornmeal LOL. Occasionally, one of the farmer's @ the market sells homeground cornmeal, but I'm not sure she's getting the corn from her own garden. I've never needed cornmeal or grits when she's selling it.

The Book Lady Online said...

Paula, we have met a wonderful grass-fed beef farmer who lives a few hours north of us. I found her online, but it turned out that she was going to our market, I had just never met her. She also raises lamb and pastured layers so we are getting our eggs from her until ours start laying. In our state, the law is such that we have to buy a "cow share" instead of being able to buy individual cuts like we used to in LA. I like it well enough as we are trying things we would not have tried otherwise (like the T-bones which were amazing). I also inherited my grandmother's old hand cranked cast iron meat grinder, so I will be able to turn some of those other cuts into hamburger which is what we mostly use. Our new share will be ready this weekend :) Plus we reserved another share in October which should take us through the winter (I hope).

We really do have a pretty great market, especially when it comes to things like meat and eggs. There is even a goat dairy at the market, but we don't buy from them often as its not really in our budget right now. I just wish there were more veggie/ fruit farmers at our market and that more of them grew fall crops. Many of the sellers get the veggies/ fruit wholesale which frustrates me. To me, its not a farmers' market if the sellers are not the farmers, yk? And it would be nice if there were more fall crops, but unfortunately, outside of mustard greens, there isn't much at the market anymore :(

We really need to cut down some more trees around here so my garden can expand :)

MichelleZ said...

I love when you do menu plan monday. I really need to get that down every week...and stick to it. :) I will try this week since I bought food for the next two-three weeks and do not want to go back to the store again until October. Let's see if we can do it.