fresh food – For Dragonflies And Me

“Organizing is what you do before you do something so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”— A. A. Milne

Welcome to the next article in my Organization 101 Series. In my last entry I I shared a sample of Zonal Cleaning and how you’d been unknowingly working on creating these in your daily schedules & routines.

I was happy to share that with all of you on my NEW Podcast. If you missed it, here’s the LINK.

As I mentioned, today’s post will focus on menu planning and some meal prepping. This can be a somewhat daunting task to those of my friends who don’t enjoy cooking, or grocery shopping. Well friends, believe me when I say if you implement this easy task, you might just change your tune about the whole process.

Many of the topics I discuss in this series I learned from an incredible lady named Marla Cilley, A.K.A. The Flylady. Her book, “Sink Relections” taught me how to incorporate all this lessons. It was from the inspirations from her book how I developed my P.M.S. concept! So now lets get into today’s topic!

I also suggested having your family help with this process. Even if you don’t have kids, ask your partner or roommate to join in the fun!

If you are not organized and structured in this area of managing your home, you can end up spending more money on things you don’t need and won’t end up using. By planning your meals and therefore your grocery shopping lists you won’t find yourself buying ingredients on a whim or wasting time thinking about what you should be shopping for.

BONUS to this task include saving TIME & MONEY! With gas prices as high as they are, you’ll even save money due to less running back to the grocery store or market because you forgot something.

I recommend using shopping apps as well.

PRO TIP: Keep your cart open all the time! As you use something or only have one of an item left in your pantry, you can quickly add that item by scanning the barcode of the item. Most shopping apps have a tab called Your Items or Your Favorites. Utilizing these saves time. You are not aimlessly walking around in the grocery store trying to remember what you need.

With Menu Planning, you will only shop for the items you need for the meals you plan to prepare that week, thereby saving money.

Menus & Grocery lists

There are a few ways you can plan your menus: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or even Annually. I’ve done about all of them. Currently I am using the Monthly menu planning as that fits my family’s lifestyle best. However I have done it for the entire year.

The process is simple!

Plan a day where you and your family can sit for about a half to a full hour. I like to do this on a Sunday afternoon as it tends to be more of a family day. I gather up my calendar and my cookbooks and we all get turns to add to the menu. I generally have a main, side, veggie and occasionally a dessert. We are not big dessert eaters, so we only plan a dessert about once a month.

Menus by the season! We attend several farmers markets throughout the season, so I adjust our menu planning according to what is growing in our area seasonally. During the market season- April through November we purchase the bulk of our vegetables from the farmers market and also grow a few ourselves. In the spring we eat a lot more salads, summer holds its bounty in just about everything, and in the fall we eat more root & squash vegetable crops.

I also purchase most of my meat and eggs from the farmers market along with a little Mennonite market up North where I used to have my farm. I very rarely purchase meat from the grocery store.

Here is an excerpt from my previous blog where I show you how to create your menus for the year just in case you’d like to be ambitious or simply knock it all out in one fell swoop.

I designed two groups of menus according to the seasons. Spring & Summer menus focus on the fresh produce we’re growing and that’s available. The second is Fall & Winter which features what we’ve canned, frozen and what’s in the root cellar along with what we’re still growing in the fall garden and winter hoop house. I created eight weeks of menus for each group. This allows me to rotate over two months. I keep that week’s menu on the fridge so we don’t have to think about meal prep, especially during our busy gardening and canning season. Having a menu helps in grocery shopping and meal prep every morning.

Now, let’s look into organizing your life with Menu Planning and Grocery Lists.

PRO TIP: Include this job in your control journal in one of your desk day jobs.

Planning

Tips &

Tricks

I love anything that will simplify my life in the everyday stuff that needs to be done like preparing meals for my family. Remember my P.M.S.? The ‘what’s for supper’ question can quickly become spaghetti all too often without menus! I’m sure many of us can relate to that! So I thought it would be nice to share a few tips in menu planning.

*First take 1-3 of your favorite cookbooks and 1-2 blank monthly calendars and a PENCIL!

*First plan some of your family’s favorite meals before you scour through the cookbooks. Think about the groceries each meal will take beforehand. Fill in one breakfast, lunch and supper for each family member with their favorite thing over the two weeks of menus- don’t duplicate any meal and don’t include any desserts… YET.

*Have any family vacations, work or school days off, sports or other activities with special dates handy so you can take those into consideration. Don’t plan a favorite meal for someone when they won’t even be home for it!

*Decide if you will include breakfast and lunch! This may depend on summer vacation for kids, etc.

*If you plan to have a night out or order-in meal, jot those down next.

*Do you want to include desserts? If so, fill those in now.

*Now go to the cookbooks. I encourage you to try a new recipe once a week. This will be fun and will help you and your family find new favorites. It’ll also help you from getting in a rut of the same old thing.

PRO TIP: Be sure to jot down what the cookbook and the page number for the recipe on the calendar. I recommend using abbreviations for cookbooks. For example I would put LS for my cookbook, Lovingly Seasoned Eats & Treats. If you don’t think you’ll remember them, jot down a legend on the back of the calendar.

If you haven’t purchased your copy of my popular cookbook, Lovingly Seasoned Eats and Treats, click HERE.

Some extra tips when planning your menu:

*Do you have a garden? These should all play a factor in your menu planning.

Do you shop primarily at the Farmers Market during the season? Do you have any of your own livestock that you raise? Do you have your own chickens for eggs?

*Take into consideration what season you’re in. If you do the bulk of your shopping at the grocery store, seasonal crops will be far less expensive than items shipped from across the county. Shopping at farmers markets and/or having a garden can help save money here. Spring offers more salad crops & greens. Summer will be the mother load of produce and will eliminate much grocery shopping for fresh produce. Fall provides root crops such as potatoes, carrots, onions, and squashes. If you raise your own animals, butchering time is also happening now. Do you or a family member hunt? This can be an additional source of meat.

*Have your family members help create the menu.

This can be a fun family activity and sharing time of who liked and didn’t like what!

You now have two whole months planned out and it was so much fun and so easy. If you feel adventurous try doing another month and plan it out seasonally.

Grocery Lists Tips & Tricks!

Grocery lists are really not complicated and won’t take up too much time when you have your menus to work off of. Here are some tips!

*I recommend keeping a magnetic note pad or grocery list right on the front or side of your fridge! Each time you run out of something, jot it down or tick it off the pre-made list.

*Google ‘grocery list’ and you’ll find oodles of styles to download. Keep a master in your control journal and make a copy for each week, unless you have a pre-printed notepad.

*You’ll need to go over your menu for the next week and shop accordingly.

*As I mentioned you can save a lot of money when you grow your own or at least eat seasonally. But if that’s not an option for you, shop at the farmers market which is the next best thing. There are many winter farmers markets as well that you can shop and support and still eat seasonally with root crops, storage crops and fresh greens.

*Stick to the list when you go to the grocery store. I’m sure most of you shop at several stores for different items. Have a list for each store and coupons/ ad’s to go with each.

*If you have any returnables, be sure they’re ready to go and in the trunk.

*I always make sure I have my grocery list, coupons and shopper bags ready to go.

*Don’t go shopping when you’re hungry… you WILL buy things you normally don’t because ‘they look good’ at the time!

Keep posted for the next in the series as we look a concept I learned during a class I took. You’re going to love it.

Jump on over to my Podcast & SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss an episode!

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Happy Day,

Jean

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“Ol’ man Simon, planted a diamond. Grew hisself a garden the likes of none. Sprouts all growin’ comin’ up glowin’ Fruit of jewels all shinin’ in the sun. Colors of the rainbow. See the sun and the rain grow sapphires and rubies on ivory vines, Grapes of jade, just ripenin’ in the shade, just ready for the squeezin’ into green jade wine.” -Shel Silverstein

As many of you may remember, my past life as an Organic Farmer was filled with busy days in the greenhouses, gardens, and with the animals. There is part of me that misses it all… yet there is another part of me that is simply grateful for the experience and lessons it taught me.

One of the things I loved most about my farm was our Community Supported Agriculture program AKA CSA. This is the time of year that many people begin looking for a CSA program for next year. That may seem strange to some… thinking about getting next summer’s produce, but from a farmer’s point of view, now’s the time.

I thought now would be a great time to share some tips on choosing a CSA, and what to look for when hunting down the perfect farm for you!

Many seed, greenhouse supply and agricultural companies offer substantial discounts to farmers for getting their orders in before the end of the year. This can mean substantial savings to farmers, especially beginning farmers. Not only that, but meat and dairy producers are looking at feed costs and amounts of livestock needed for the following season.

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Most farmers plan & place seed orders by the end of November. Plans for ordering next year’s Thanksgiving turkeys are being thought out right now as well. How many meat birds and laying hens will be needed to supply the demand the following year. Quantities of feed they’ll need to secure for their livestock is also a consideration. These are all important factors being considered by farmers as I write this.

1. Types of CSA’s. Determine what you’re looking for before you go on the hunt. This will allow you to do custom Google searches. Here are a few of the more common types you may consider when starting your search.

There are many types of CSA’s including the typical veggies but some farms have what are referred to ‘add-on’s’. These can include fruit, flower, egg, meat, milk & dairy, and even coffee! Our farm offered a Spring, Summer, and Winter share with all of the above options with the exception of coffee.

2. Questions you will need to consider when deciding on the perfect CSA program for you. Does the farm meet your individual/family needs?

Do you want organic products or is that not relevant to you? Does Organic certification make a difference?
Pro Tip: My personal note here is, that it is important to know your farmer/producer. Organic certification is not geared to small, family run farms and can be very cost prohibitive to them.
Do you want home delivery? Do you want to pick up at your local farmers market?
What are all the delivery options?
Does the potential farm have multiple share size options to fit your individual/family size? For example: full or half share, senior or single options.
Do you want to participate in a work share program if that’s an opportunity? This would entail doing labor on the farm or market location in exchange for the food or discount off the share.

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6. Do you want to help support a small-family run farm, or a large multi-member farm?
7. Does the farm allow installment, accept credit card, offer discounts for full pay or an early bird discount?
8. How many share members does the potential farm allow each season? When is the cut off date? 9. Does the farm have a web site to view their products, farm photo’s, etc.?
10. Does it have a Facebook page where members can communicate between each other and their farmers?
11. Are you picky eaters? Do you cook? Do you ‘want’ to cook?

12. Does the farm have ‘customizable’ share options? Will you be able to swap out things you don’t care for?
13. Is it a pre-pack (shares packed and ready for pick up) or a U-Pack (You get to choose between specific items for your share)?
14. Does the potential farm have an on site farm stand?
15. Does the farm allow for visits? does it have a ‘field day’ where members are invited to attend?

With regards to this last item, I’d like to defend some farmers stand on this… being I was a farmer for almost 15 years.
Farmer’s have families and lives outside of their business life and it’s not always convenient to have people ‘popping’ in. I always suggested to the ‘curious’ potential members if they allowed their clients or customers to just pop into their homes unannounced? Suddenly the reality of the request became a little bit more realistic. Most farmers aren’t trying to ‘hide’ anything, it’s simply a matter of privacy and having a life of their own. Also, many people don’t understand the dangers on a farm, especially around equipment and with children. Additional insurance is required when allowing people to come onto the farm. So please don’t judge a farmer harshly just because they don’t offer ‘unannounced pop-ins’.

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3. Sources to find CSA programs. Here are a few reliable sources to begin your research.

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

http://www.localdirt.com/

http://www.ecovian.com/csa

http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml

If you have the opportunity to visit the potential farm/er at a local farmers market they participate in, I suggest you go early in the morning. Most members try to pick up their shares earlier and this would give you an opportunity to see how the farmers relate to their members. You’d also have the chance to talk to other members, which the farmers usually love. The members will be able to give you an actual ‘review’ of how they like the share and the farm/er. You would be able to see the produce available and the additional things they offer, like meat, eggs, flowers, etc.

Finding a Community Supported Agriculture program that will fit your families or individual needs can be a challenge, but if you go on the hunt prepared and understanding what you’re looking for, it won’t be so daunting.

If you enjoyed this blog , please LIKE, Follow, Share & leave me a comment! I love your feedback!

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Happy Day,
Jean

Copyright Policy

All text and images on this site are copyright of For Dragonflies And Me. Unless otherwise noted, you may not use this content without written permission.