Local Menu Plan

April 15-21

Here’s the upcoming week’s menu.  Thematically I’ve decided that Monday is a good pasta day.  I don’t intend to follow this as a rule, but more of a casual guideline.  Monday is often when we go pick up our order from Bailey’s  so having an easy one-dish meal like pasta is helpful. And speaking of Monday, I’d like to start a blog hop over here on the theme of 100 Mile Mondays!  I still have a hard time finding very many other local menu bloggers or blog posts so I felt like I should start my own link up to encourage and find others who are interested in this.  Maybe the problem is that a local menu is only helpful to locals!  Therefore the more people who do it the more helpful it will be in a wider range of places.  Anyways, look for that on Monday, and hopefully I can twist my brother’s arm into posting a local Pacific Northwest meal!  us.

This week I’m linking up at Nomday Monday because these are healthy, local meals, and of course I’m linking up at Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday because that’s such a great motivator for me to remember to always post my menu!  We’ll have a couple meals that are “all-in-one” meals, for which it doesn’t seem necessary to do various sides.  Also, we’re leaving Friday open, with an assumed neighbourly meal.  It feels good to leave it spontaneous, at least for now.   And Saturday night we will be in Syracuse meeting up with my sister and her family so who knows what we’ll be eating!  Maybe some good local food from there… if we can find the right type of restaurant (anybody know of one?).  I realize this menu plan is a little bit less-involved than other weeks, and that’s okay with me, I think it will be a little bit of a rest for me.

“Free” Cookbook – Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2012 .  First of all, I don’t want you to buy anything.  That said, if you’re interested… this works, just make sure you do what is necessary to not get more than you want, and no, it’s not actually free, you have to pay for shipping ($4.95).  Still, as you can see I’m cooking from this cookbook a lot and I think it’s worth it.  And no, I don’t get anything from you clicking on it or ordering it.  I just am telling you where I got it.  I’m guessing this is only available in the US, sorry locals….

Speaking of locals – Do these menus work out in other parts of the country/continent?  I’m curious about places that have similar seasonal food calendars, what foods are available where you live right now?  (I’m going to ask my family in Washington State….)

Menu Plan:

Shopping List (we’re shopping for 2 weeks because we’re in Syracuse next weekend) :

• Spinach and/or baby greens (if local)
• Red cabbage
• Onions
• Leeks
• Lettuce
• Celeriac (Celery Root)
• Parsnips – plenty
• “wild†mushrooms
• Dried cranberries
• [Sheep’s milk] ricotta
• Bacon

Not sure if these are at market, so there may be a second stop, but at least I can get the first three locally/regionally:

• Heavy cream
• Fusilli (pasta)
• Tofu
• Whole cloves

(Update: after shopping) Well we got everything on the list, although not all at the Kitchener Market , the second list items were  found at Full Circle Natural Foods .