Locavore Meal Plan for Mid-Summer

Locals Only , Vegetarian , Weekly Menu 10 Comments

This post was originally written for Food Bloggers of Canada .

Welcome to The Local Kitchener!  If this is your first time here you should check out the book giveaway going on right now.  It’s a book about food, farms, and family, and how those things are all intertwined.

My family has been meal planning ever since we had our first child almost five years ago.  We realized that life would be much easier if we knew what we were going to make for dinner when we got home from work.

Meal planning has also helped us to eat almost entirely local and seasonal foods because we plan the meals around what is available locally.  Sometimes we have to alter our plans once we get to the farmers’ market, but for the most part the plan we make usually lines up with what we can expect to find at the market.

Here is a week’s worth of meal ideas that are perfect for the fresh produce available from local farmers and your own garden in the middle of the summer:

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  1. Veggie Burgers on English Muffins or Gluten-Free Potato Buns (shown). Veggie burgers are best when you make fresh buns to go with them, and nothing beats the flavour and texture of homemade English muffins or the absurd simplicity of a potato as a bun.

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  1. Beet Black Beans . Sometimes it’s hard to know how to incorporate beets into a dish but the Brazilians know how!  Make it even more tasty with some awesome fruit salsa !

  1. Eggplant Parm-Awesome! Our family is so in love with eggplant parmesan that we renamed it!  Goes great with a cucumber chickpea salad or a classic garden salad .

  1. Polenta with Sofrito and Egg . Some nights we want something that is a super easy, quick, delicious, filling meal, and this is it:

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  1. Local Pizza . Every Friday should be pizza night.  But every pizza night should be different.  Just take what you’ve got leftover from the week’s produce and put it on the pizza!
    1. Summer Pizzas with Tomatoes, Basil, and Zucchini
    2. Cardamom Apricot Pizza
    3. Kohlrabi Robertson – a Kohlrabi and Bok Choy Pizza

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  1. Greens, Egg, and Ham Potato . If you are a member of a CSA or have a garden (or both!) then you might need to have yourself a week of greens!  Start with this great dinner or breakfast dish.

  1. Frittata, Salad, and Bread .  It’s nice to have Sunday’s meal be a good cleanup of the last things in the fridge, and if the pizzas didn’t finish off the produce then a nice frittata should. Serve it with some fresh homemade bread and some salad or slaw!

This post is being linked up at Menu Plan Monday !

southern ontario locavore meal plan