Farm Update
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| The cherry tomatoes are finally ready! We'll have more in the shares this week as well. |
What to Expect in Your Share This Week
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| Can you tell I'm excited about cherry tomatoes? |
At the regular drop-offs:
- Choice of carrots or green beans
- Choice of cabbage or kale
- Choice of potatoes or cherry tomatoes
- Choice of beets, broccoli, or Swiss chard
- Choice of spring mix or head lettuce
- Choice of zucchini or basil
- Choice of fennel, frisee, or onions
For home/workplace delivery:
A Share: B Share:
Carrots Green beans
Cabbage Kale
Potatoes Cherry tomatoes
Beets Broccoli
Spring mix Head lettuce
Zucchini Basil
Onion Onion
Back to School: How to Keep Your Family Eating Healthy When You're Busy
Ah, mid-August.
Summer is here, and the living is easy.
For most people, this is the most relaxed time of year, with warm
weather, fewer scheduled activities, a more flexible work schedule, and maybe a
weekend getaway or two planned before school starts back up. But back to school is right around the
corner, and with that usually comes a busier schedule for the whole
family. How can you keep your family
eating healthy when everyone is away from home for most of the day, and the
evenings are filled with dance classes, sports practices, and other fun but
time-consuming extracurricular activities?
Here are some tips for continuing to live healthily even when you have less
time to cook and everyone is on a different schedule:
1. Plan
ahead. This may seem obvious, but just
because it’s obvious doesn’t mean we do it.
I am a prime example of this. Here
is a true confession: Despite having a
really talented cook in our household (that would be Fred… I can’t claim any
credit for the awesome food on our table!) and all of the high-quality fresh
produce we could ever use, we eat out three nights a week. Because we’re on the road all week for CSA
drop-offs, our routine on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings is to have
dinner out after the drop-off, and then head back to Alma where I pick up our
kiddos from Grandma’s, and Fred gets back to work at the farm until we run out
of daylight. And granted, we try to
choose the healthiest options available, but it’s still kind of a shame, not to
mention that it’s a less healthy and less cost-effective option. All of this could be remedied with a little planning. For example, I could make crock-pot meals in
the morning to take with me on those three days, with veggies I cut and bagged
up when I had more time on Sunday evening, and meat I actually remembered to
take out of the freezer the night before.
It would take minimal effort and have a huge impact. It just takes planning. And while your schedule probably looks
different than mine, the same principal applies.
2. Cook once, eat twice. When you’re cooking, make a double batch and
plan on having leftovers on your busiest evenings, or take them for lunch to work or school. If you’re making a stir fry or pasta toss, it
takes just a few extra minutes to cut up twice as many veggies, and it will
save you from having to go through the drive-through a few days later when you’re
rushing around like a crazy person between activities. Also, some foods freeze well, so if you don’t
think you’ll get to it within a few days, you can put it in the freezer and
pull it out a few weeks later, warm it up in the microwave, and presto! Healthy fast food, without having to detour to
the drive through or resort to prepackaged convenience food.
3. Try freezer meals. In the same cook once, eat twice vein, freezer
meals allow you to prep once and eat many times. It can be as simple as freezing leftovers
from a recipe you make today, or you can set aside a few hours to shop, prep,
and freeze a whole bunch of meals that you can then pull out of the freezer as
needed. Check out this awesome resource
for 60 Healthy Freezer Meals that use real food ingredients, are written by
real-life busy moms, and sound totally delicious!
4. Make time for fitness. I know, I know. It is really hard to schedule time for
physical activity when you are working full time and running kids around to
activities in the evenings. Or in my
case, when you are working mostly from home and the main deterrent to getting
in a workout is not the 20-30 minutes you’d have to set aside for a quick run
on the treadmill, but figuring out how to then get a shower without your
preschoolers destroying something while you’re in there. We all have different obstacles to staying
fit, from long exhausting work hours, to physical difficulties that just make
it seem like too much effort, to a lack of local fitness options, to the
aforementioned small children who need constant supervision. But I guarantee that we can all figure out
something that works with our current lifestyle and limitations. Even if it’s parking far away from the
entrance at work so that you get in a mini-walk on your way in and out, or
following a yoga or Pilates video on YouTube while your kids play. (No shower
required! I know this from experience!) Figure out something that works for you, and
if time (or motivation) is a huge constraint, tell yourself you’re just going
to do it for 10 minutes. I don’t know a
single person who doesn’t have 10 minutes, and that is much better than
nothing.
So here is to a healthier September and beyond! May we all be more intentional about taking
charge of our health, even as our lives get more hectic. Because in the end, staying healthy will keep
us humming along and allow us to continue living life to the fullest, whatever
that looks like for each of us.
Recipes
Because we've had such a cool summer in general, our leafy greens have benefited from the weather, which means lots of kale! In case you're not as much of a kale lover, or you're just looking for something new to do with an old favorite, check out these Top 10 Ways to Prepare Kale. From kale chips, to kale quiche, to good old sautéed kale, there is something for everyone in here. Enjoy!
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