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This is our sixth summer as share members at a local csa farm. Our farmer was one of the first in Maine to do this type of farming and has been at it for over 20 years. Here is where you can read all about our years as members.

Brienne loves the farm tire swing

CSAs are all the rage now-a-days (with good reason). Here's a few articles I've come across in just the past month Understanding CSA's and Their Benefits, Loving My CSA: Learning to eat a Variety of Seasonal Produce, CSA: Community Supported Agriculture and Your Local CSA: 3 Reasons to Join. Do you have a csa post to recommend? Please leave a link in comments.

Different farms operate pick ups with their own unique twists but one thing vegatable csa farms have in common is produce offered according to season. For example in Maine we don't get tomatoes, peppers or melons in early July but do get peas, lettuce, chard and lots of other goodies.

During the summer months our farm prepares boxes each week with a variety of just-harvested produce. Members don't get to pick and choose what they take home. 

this is exactly the color of the chard,
no photo editing, it's called "Bright Lights" for a reason!

Learning to cook according to the local, seasonal harvest is challenging. I'll say right now we don't only eat locally produced food. We would have a very limited diet if we did. This makes me feel less-than-granola/crunchy (we don't eat only organic either by the way) at times and definitely out of touch with the hip locovore movement. But we are committed to a mostly plant based diet and if we were to eat only local we'd be eating either a lot of meat or a lot of cabbage and as it is we eat cabbage, of one sort or another, several times a week!

Most of our vegetables this time of the year come from the farm and some from the farmers market but we still buy out of state fruits and veggies from a favorite produce stand. Having got that non-locovore confession out of the way I feel I can proceed with telling you how I menu plan for summer's seasonal veggies.

Menu Planning Basics

My basic meal planning strategy, regardless the time year is to plan our supper meals around main vegetables, beans or starches and fill in the spaces with other vegetables, beans and starches.

I am not a gourmet chef but I have been cooking whole food, vegan meals for several years now and can, with a certain amount of ease, whip up tasty meals from our bulk beans, grains, a few condiments and whatever veggies happen to be in the fridge.

Normal Menu Planning:

1. Read recipes, choose what to make and write out a menu. Check your fridge, freezer and pantry to use up things on hand.
2. Make a grocery list from your menu.
3. Buy groceries.
4. Cook the meals.

CSA Menu Planning:

1. Pick up veggies from farm. While you're there feed the chickens, pet the goats, chat with other members. Ohh & ahh at the gorgeous vegetables and be so thankful for your farmer who grew it for you.
2. Come home and figure out what the heck you're going to do with all this wierd stuff. Beet greens? Garlic scapes? Daikon? Parsnips?

For most months of the year I use a modified version of the straight forward menu-list-groceries-cook planning strategy. I buy lots in bulk from buying clubs so I can often skip step 3 and "shop" from our bulk supplies, however I do buy copious amounts of fresh produce each week. But for these next four months I shift into csa menu planning mode which in years past has left me feeling a little frazzled.

A Weekly Menu Plan

This year I finally decided to make the unknown (exactly what veggies will I be getting this week) a little bit easier by determining a set menu plan each week that I just "plug" the vegetables into.

Monday:  Pasta. This is my recovery day from our busy weekends. I used to do a lot of meal and house work this day but we recently made Monday a crash day which looks something like this. Pasta is the main thing for the supper meal with the addition of maybe beans and whatever veggies are on hand or from the freezer. One example is empty fridge pasta. Other ideas are pasta salad, pasta primavera, pasta with greens or thai peanut sauce noodles with shredded cabbage and carrots.

Tuesday:  Potatoes. This is similar to pasta night but with potatoes as the base. I have mixed most any veggie (except lettuce) with potatoes. On colder nights we might have mashed taters with cabbage or other such greens (kale, collards). Hot days we eat cold potato and vegetable salads with lemon tahini dressings and sliced olives. Another option is baked potatoes with bean, tomato & veggie toppings.

Wednesday: Soup, Casserole, Patties or Wraps. Tuesday and Wednesday I have some time to pull together something nicer for Wednesday supper. We eat a lot of easy, one pot meals but this is the night I make an effort to prepare a nice one pot meal. If I'm running short on time I can pull together a hearty veggie soup with my eyes closed, otherwise I might take extra time and make veggie patties which are like burger patties only filled with healthy grains, seeds, vegetables and/or beans. Another favorite is brown rice or whole grain corn tortillas with toppings.

Thursday:  Beans. We eat a lot of beans at our house. Our kids have been eating them for years and don't think anything of eating a bowl of beans, with some veggies of course, for supper. Thursday is our farm day. I cook a large pot of beans earlier in the day and then add fresh veggies from the farm pick up. Alternately, if it's cooler day we might have baked beans with sauteed garlic greens.

Friday: Stir fry & Rice. Each season provides interesting veggies for stir fry and during the summer season this is definitely true. This could be asian inspired or it might take on a mexican cumin/salsa flavor depending on the veggies. Making stir fries with fresh picked greens is especially delightful.

Saturday & Sunday: I don't plan too much in advance. After hiking we almost always eat out or maybe have easy pizza at home. The other night I'll ask the family for ideas or try to use up something in the fridge.

A Sample Menu

Last week's farm pick up we received chinese cabbage, carrots (thinnings), garlic scapes, lettuce, parsley, shell peas, snap peas, scallions, swiss chard and pyo herbs. This is a sample menu, roughly based on what my family ate this past week, showing how you could use these seasonal veggies. Our pick up day is Thursday so my menu plan starts that day.

• Thursday - Garbanzo Bean Pesto Salad. Veggies used: shell peas, garlic scapes, parsley, scallions and pyo basil.
• Friday - Chinese Cabbage Stir Fry. Veggies used: chinese cabbage, garlic scapes, snap peas and scallions
• Saturday - Wraps with fresh veggies, marinated tofu, beans and salsa. Veggies used: lettuce, scallions
• Sunday - Supper out
• Monday - Sesame Noodles w/ Garbanzo Bean. Veggies used: chinese cabbage, peas, garlic scapes, scallions
• Tuesday - Swiss Chard Potato Salad. Veggies used: carrots, parsley, swiss chard
• Wednesday - Vegetable & Tofu Lasagna, loosely based on this recipe. Veggies used: none from the farm but kale from our garden.

To each of these meals I often added other out of season vegetables, ie: tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, avocado etc.. The lettuce was eaten for lunches in our salads as were any veggies that didn't get cooked for supper. Peas were also eaten as snacks. 

How do you menu plan around seasonal veggies?

This winter, while taking a mini writing break, I wrote a three sentence post about hand washing our dishes. A few people have asked me to write more about that and I agree that this subject deserves more attention than three sentences. 

Our family made a conscious decision this year to not use our dishwasher and hand wash our dishes. Why would we do this?

For several reasons. One of them is that I make all our own soap (except for Dr. Bronners liquid castile soap) and pretty much insist on doing so. It's my thing. But I cannot, for the life of me, produce a good handmade dishwasher soap that works really well. 

That's one reason. But mostly we are trying to simplify our lives in purposeful and intentional ways and this seemed a good place to start (or continue with).

  
You know how people seem to run around like crazy these days? Going from one activity to the next. Shopping, school, entertainment, work, recreation. Going, going, going at dizzying speeds. Homeschoolers are just as prone to this as "regular" folk, I'd like to add.

Well if you hang all your laundry to dry, cook meals from scratch and spend time washing dishes together you'll have to necessarily spend a fair amount of time at home. This is what we are choosing. If you read this blog you know we don't spend all our time at home. We also love being in the woods and mountains, farms and other natural places.

I think it's really important for me to say this: I would not have made this choice with toddlers. If I hand washed all our dishes I would of never left the kitchen. I also didn't hang laundry in those days either.

an old photo I found of the kiddos "helping" me do dishes 6 years ago

It is the fact that our whole family participates in these choices that makes them doable for me.

I am not the dishwasher, we all are. I am not the laundress, we all are (or rather four of us are). I am the cook-in-chief but that is slowly evolving to shared responsibility as the kids grow.

So, this is how it works for us:

• We store most of our dishes & cutlery in a cupboard designated "hospitality" and keep handy only what our family needs. There are 5 in our family so that means 5 plates, 5 cups, 5 spoons, 5 forks.... you get the idea. Later this year and into next we will be evaluating that hospitality cupboard to determine what we truly need. I wasn't ready to get rid of most my dishes quite yet. 
• While I am cooking I try to wash and dry as much of the prep dishes (bowls, measuring cups, pots, pans, food processor) as possible as I go. Most of these never did go in the dishwasher anyway. So no great change here. 
• Right after most meals each person washes and dries their eating dishes. 
• After that or instead of that we all tackle the clean up together. We are still training the children to see and do, instead of standing around waiting for direction. We're getting there but if we are all working and focused clean up can be as quick as 15 minutes, right down to a wiped down sink.
• We use my handmade bar of soap and baking soda (for scrubbing) for washing. 

Things learned through this process:

• Dishwashers, even energy efficient models as ours is, use a lot of electricity. It is hard to calculate the exact amount we've saved because in the midst of this change we have acquired a new tenant and we pay the full utilities on the house. Our bill goes up if they are energy hogs (this tenant isn't). But even accounting for a different tenant a conservative estimate of our savings is $30/month but more likely it's higher. That's almost $400 a year. 
• We might be able to skip on dishes but not dishtowels! With 3 kids drying, 3 times a day I was running out of clean dishtowels - I only had four to start with I think. So this was an additional cost, to buy a few more dishtowels so we'd have dry and clean towels when necessary.
• We allow ourselves to use the dishwasher when hosting groups of people, unless our guests help with dishes - which often they do. Works out to be once a month or so that we run the dishwasher. 

~~~

Any other questions about hand washing? I'm certainly not the guru but I might have an answer. It's really not that complicated.

I know some of you hand wash your dishes, what are your thoughts? 

Firstly, I just want to say how overwhelmed I was by all your comments in response to my last post. Your words encouraged me to appreciate the relationships I have, continue to seek out friendships, hold fast to my husband (no worries there) and enjoy the diversity we each have to offer. I was truly amazed with what you all contributed.  I do apologize that I cannot reply individually to each comment. I started out doing that but ran out of time to continue. Thank you, once again.

Something I've wanted to share for some time (in response to your questions) are some practical pointers for how our family makes time each week to be outdoors together. We aren't outdoors as much as some families who actually live in wild places and because of where we live (in a small city) we have to make a concentrated effort to make nature adventures happen.

Damien wrote a post entitled One Day a Week that explained a lot of our family philosophy and strategy in this regard. But now I've followed that up with my own post from a homemaker's perspective. 

Here's a little tidbit:

A couple years ago when Damien first suggested that we set aside one whole weekend day to pursue outdoor activities together as a family, preferably in the mountains an hour or so drive from our home, I was not entirely enthusiastic. I liked hiking and all but every weekend?....

To read the rest you'll have to pop over to ADVENTUREinPROGRESS.

I know things have been a bit outdoorsy here lately. I have been making soap and lotion and homeschooling my kiddos - just not writing about it, no time. But oh, you should see my notebook full of post ideas about these topics!

This outdoorsy flavor is a reflection of a not-so-subtle shift in our family goals which is influencing my personal goals as wife, mother, homemaker, photographer, gardener, blah, blah, blah... all the things I am and that I talk about on this space.

Bear with me as I work through this change and figure out how to share the values that matter most to me in a way that is accessible and meaningful for other people to read.