Dinner Meal Plan for Feb 28- March 5

Sunday: Lentil Soup using recipe on bag of dry lentils; adding vegetable broth, celery, carrots, onion.

Monday: Slow Cooker Bean and Barley Soup

Tuesday: Stir fry

Wednesday: Nachos with Smart Ground (Veggie protein), black beans and cheddar cheese (microvave cheese and beans on chips) cold fixins on afterwards (sour cream, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro and sour cream, salsa)

Thursday: Butternut squash with orzo (precooked roasted squash), saute with olive oil, onions, white wine. Pour mixture over cooked orzo. Serve with salad

Friday: Pizza Night

The CSA Experience and Feb. 21st Week of Dinners

We've been members of our local Community Supported Agriculture for almost three years now. We love it for so many reasons, and have learned so much about heathy cooking, preparation and storage of vegetables. Many friends always ask about my experience with the weekly produce. It's not easy and not for everyone. Both my husband and myself spend many hours prepping vegetables, as well as searching for and trialing recipes. We now eat primarily vegetarian, and mostly organic- and we mostly eat at home. However, we are not food snobs, and would never turn down a home-cooked meal of any kind, or a nice night out at a restaurant (very rare with our kiddies).

We plan our meals weekly (each weekend), after we receive our box of produce from the farms. Because we both work full-time, we wash (necessary, and you may even encounter a big bug or two), chop, and full prep. Anything that needs baking (squash), we will bake at this time. We also prepare a large salad to eat all week long for lunches and dinners. Please note that our kids, ages 2 and 4, do not eat much of what we cook for dinner. We try to incorporate healthy choices and even manage to sneak some in where we can... but I'm hopeful that the day will come when the kids will actually eat what we cook. And, I do believe that seeing their parents eat healthy is very important (let's hope).

Below is a list of daily dinners for this week, created from our utilizing our CSA produce (Inland Empire CSA).

Sunday: Butternut Squash Risotto We slice the squash in half before baking on 400 degrees, for 1 hour. Scoop out squash and use in recipe, instead of frozen squash.

Monday: Vege Stir Fry (we use a variety of recipes and vegetables: bok choy, carrots, onions, garlic, any leafy green)

Tuesday: Vegetarian Reubens with Russian Dressing

Wednesday: Lentil Soup (I usually use the recipe on the side of the bag of lentils (vege broth, not water), and throw in some onion, garlic, and anything else that seems like it would be good).

Thursday: Vege cheeseburgers with salads

Friday: Pizza night! Ready-made pizza dough (from T.J.s or Fresh and Easy), canned tomatoe sauce, or leftover tomatoe sauce from the week, bag of shredded mozzarella cheese. My huband and I will also include any vegetables we have leftover from the week on our pizza.

Saturday: Hopefully not cooking!