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A FARMER'S GUIDE TO MEAL PREP: A WEEK OF (EASY) DINNERS
08/21/20 — Ada Broussard
For those of you who have kids, Fall might as well be the official start of the year. Under normal circumstances, that transition from late nights and all-day snackathons to early bedtimes and homework can be tough. This year? It’s only the beginning of school season and we’re already throwing our straw hats wildly into the air for the parents among you. We wish you grace and humor as you gear up for the 2020 school year. For some of you, that may mean you’re full-on homeschooling for the first time. For others, perhaps you’re navigating hybrid models and block scheduling filled with synchronous Zooms and online assignments. Maybe it means sending your kiddo to school in a mask, fingers crossed that they stay safe and are able to feel like a normal 3rd grader after the summer that never seemed to end. Wherever, exactly, you are… we see you. What to feed your family shouldn’t be a source of shame or worry for you, ever, but especially as you gear up for school. Your farmers are proud advocates of pizza nights, two nights in a row, if that’s what feels right after a long day.
If you’re reading this, chances are you value incorporating seasonal produce into your cooking. There is no doubt that cooking with fresh ingredients will yield wholesome and delicious food. We're here to remind you that this food can also be painfully simple. The start of school for folks with kids will undoubtedly invite a bit of chaos… don’t let the questions of what’s for dinner to illicit additional stress. At the most basic level, it just needs to be edible.
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Our friend Martha knew the age old trick of making leftovers new: put an egg on it!
On our busy weeks at the farm, we farmers turn to simple, hearty, and veggie-filled meals that involve lots of carryover to the next day, little brain power, and in this instance - lots of rice. We thought we’d share what a week of really easy cooking can look like.
We’re keeping it simple for Monday while also knocking out some meal prep for the rest of the week. On Monday, make one anchor protein and serve it with a side of roasted veggies and aioli dipping sauce. Your anchor can be burgers, as we suggested, but it can also maybe be a piece of fish, roasted chicken thighs, or something else that feels easy and filling. Here, you have a choice on the amount of time you want to invest in this meal: buy pre-made burger patties or an already cooked rotisserie chicken if you’re feeling like your time is best spent outside the kitchen, or go for broke and make it all from scratch. You can also dance somewhere in between: roast chicken thighs, but skip the part where you read a bunch of recipes and simply season them with salt, pepper, and olive oil and roast in a hot oven until done.
Veggies: Use whatever you have! Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, beets, okra, eggplant and squash are all in season right now and are all very roast-able. Roast veggies of similar densities with similar cooking times on the same tray. Leave some space between each veggie on the tray so they brown vs. steam. Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes and beets, for example, could all be roasted together as long as you cut them in similar sized shapes. Eggplant and okra take about the same amount of time, and squash can be done in almost no time. Roasting veggies should happen in a 400-425 degree oven. The veggies are fresh, and so seasoning with just oil, salt, and pepper is a-okay.
MONDAY NOTES: You may already be used to cooking this way, but if not, we encourage you to really hear us: this week’s sample meal plan necessitates cooking more than you need for that night. Channel your inner church-lady and at least double (or more) the amount of some of your meal’s components. These leftovers should really be considered nextovers in your mind - prepped food that will seamlessly carry over to tomorrow night’s dinner (and beyond), jazzed up in a way that will make you forget Monday ever happened.
On Monday, we suggest you double or triple the amount of veggies you roast. If you’re roasting sweet potatoes, for example, roast all of the ones that came in your CSA box! A cubed, roasted potato in the fridge is a way easier ingredient to incorporate into a future meal than a raw potato on the counter. Plus, your oven is on anyway... so you may as well only heat up your kitchen once this week. If you've got a lot of veggies to roast, do them in batches making sure to not crowd your pan. Yes, this method may take a bit longer to cook all of your veggies, but the end result will yield way better nextovers.
If you’re making hamburgers, buy extra meat and before you cook burgers for the night, roll the extra meat into quick meatballs, cook, and let cool in a glass tupperware on the counter while you cook the actual burgers. Store the meatballs in the fridge for tomorrow. The same goes for any protein, if you’d like. Make extra chicken or a few additional filets of fish, and thank us later.
A NOTE ON THE AOILI: Okay, we know, we said simple, and making your own aioli might feel somewhat extra (but it’s really not that hard). If that’s the case, skip this part and simply zhuzh up some mayo with grated garlic, lemon, and maybe some chopped herbs. But whatever you do, don’t skip the dipping sauce all together. We think this sauce may just be the key to getting your kiddos excited about the idea of a roasted tray of veggies. And if dipping veggies in mayo feels weird, go ahead and just make the aioli and see if we can’t change your mind. (Homemade aioli is delicious and is the perfect partner to any roasted, steamed, or boiled veggie!) Feeling particularly patient? Involve your kiddo in the sauce-making itself. Vocab word: emulsion. If you’re making your own aioli, make double what you thin you need, and then some more, because home made aioli goes with everything.
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A little (or a lot) of upfront prep means very quick meals for the rest of the week.
Entering Tuesday, you should have several tupperwares full of leftover roasted veggies in your fridge including things like sweet potatoes, beets, and maybe some okra. Tonight, you’re eating these veggies over rice and calling it a grain bowl, buddha bowl, or whatever. The only major cooking you’re doing tonight is making rice! Steam a big pot of rice, ideally about three times more than you think your family will eat on Tuesday, and ideally flavored with lots of butter. We like white Jasmine rice. Protip: If you're making a large quantity of rice, the usual 2.1 water to rice ratio should be slightly tweaked and the amount of water reduced. Here's an explanation on why.
You can take this simple idea of veggies over rice in many different directions. Direction one: just eat the re-heated veggies over the warm rice, topped with some of that leftover aioli. Perhaps you do about 20 seconds more of cooking and add siracha to your aioli, call it spicy mayo, and pretend like eating a poke bowl on the sands of Hawaii. Or, you can add a can of black beans and corn plus loads of lime juice and avocado (and tortilla chips?) for a more Mexican take on the bowl. A grain bowl like this is also a wonderful opportunity to incorporate any raw vegetables you received in your CSA box like sliced cucumber or tomato, sliced sweet peppers, and a handful of salad greens. If you’re out of aioli but feel like your rice bowl needs a sauce, follow your heart and don’t over think it. Maybe it’s as simple as another pad of butter, some dashes of soy, some chili crisp, or a miso vinaigrette. Got a jar of pesto? Dollop that on top. If you have leftover protein from Monday, add this to your rice bowls, too. If you want to make this rice bowl more exciting, batter and fry some okra or eggplant (if you didn’t roast it all), and top the bowl with that! Pickled things lining the doors of your fridge? Those would work well, also. We strongly support the addition of any fresh and finely chopped herb like cilantro, dill, parsley, or green onions.
![]()
When in doubt, roast it up!
Leftover rice that’s been sitting in the fridge dries out a bit, making the perfect case to be fried. Tonight, you’re making a ginormous batch of fried rice and the only cooking you’re doing is chopping some veggies and making a quick sauce.
Begin your friend rice by gathering all of your ingredients and making a simple sauce with ingredients like soy, mirin, sesame oil and maybe some oyster or hoisin. We’re not necessarily shooting for authenticity here, but are instead imparting flavor to rice in a way that feels intuitive. Soy sauce will add salt, umami, and color to your fried rice, mirin (or lemon or lime juice) some acidity, and oyster or hoisin some sweetness. We so regularly cook a quick, veggie-filled fried rice that we buy green onions at the store every time we go. Chop these up, too.
Locate the biggest skillet you own. Fried rice comes together quickly, so before you turn on the heat, chop whatever seasonal veggies you’d like to use. Hopefully you have some onions on hand, and can add that, too. Just about anything goes; be mindful that if you’re using red beets, these are better cooked separately and added on top of each bowl because fuchsia rice isn’t that appetizing. Start cooking your fried rice by sautéing some onions and aromatics like ginger and garlic in a generous amount of high-heat oil. Next, add any other raw vegetables that came in your CSA haul - chopped peppers, squash, okra, bok choy, finely chopped sweet potato greens… they’d all work perfectly! Once your veggies are cooked but still have some bite (al dente), it’s time to turn up the heat, add your rice, sauce, and any other leftover roasted veggies and protein from Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully you bought the green onions; add these too. Cook until incorporated and warmed through, on higher heat than you may think. Taste, and don’t be afraid to adjust, adding more soy if it needs salt, or acid or sugar. Give everyone big bowls of piping hot fried rice (and chop sticks, if you’ve got ‘em) and if you do it right, it’s more than more than enough.
![]()
We know. You had fried rice last night. And maybe your family has expectations of having something different every night, but maybe everyone should just embrace the idea of glorified nextovers and minimal dishes to wash?
Thursday night’s fried rice can be stretched or made-new by additional veggies like frozen peas or grated carrots. Our favorite trick for fried-rice embellishment is the egg: fry an egg to top each bowl, or incorporate scrambled eggs into the rice itself during the reheating process. Bean sprouts, corn, and pineapple are great canned goods to keep in the pantry for fried rice 2.0, or maybe you rehydrate a bag of seaweed. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds or roasted peanuts on 2.0, or go crazy and top with some crispy bacon or sauteed mushrooms or fried tofu or anything else that you will. Congrats, tonight you fed your family a nourishing bowl of fried rice that took almost no time.
*If having fried rice two nights in a row feels wrong to you, feel free to change the order of Thursday and Friday.
Our blog and recipe archive is full of creative, diverse, and exciting dishes to make. And yes, cooking new things and Instagram-worthy meals is very fun. But also? It’s just food, there to nourish your body and give you the calories you need to navigate asynchronous learning sessions and spotty internet connections. When in doubt, roast veggies, make rice, and order pizza. Cheers!
![]()
If you’re reading this, chances are you value incorporating seasonal produce into your cooking. There is no doubt that cooking with fresh ingredients will yield wholesome and delicious food. We're here to remind you that this food can also be painfully simple. The start of school for folks with kids will undoubtedly invite a bit of chaos… don’t let the questions of what’s for dinner to illicit additional stress. At the most basic level, it just needs to be edible.
Our friend Martha knew the age old trick of making leftovers new: put an egg on it!
On our busy weeks at the farm, we farmers turn to simple, hearty, and veggie-filled meals that involve lots of carryover to the next day, little brain power, and in this instance - lots of rice. We thought we’d share what a week of really easy cooking can look like.
MONDAY: BURGERS + ROASTED VEGGIES AND AIOLI DIPPING SAUCE.
We’re keeping it simple for Monday while also knocking out some meal prep for the rest of the week. On Monday, make one anchor protein and serve it with a side of roasted veggies and aioli dipping sauce. Your anchor can be burgers, as we suggested, but it can also maybe be a piece of fish, roasted chicken thighs, or something else that feels easy and filling. Here, you have a choice on the amount of time you want to invest in this meal: buy pre-made burger patties or an already cooked rotisserie chicken if you’re feeling like your time is best spent outside the kitchen, or go for broke and make it all from scratch. You can also dance somewhere in between: roast chicken thighs, but skip the part where you read a bunch of recipes and simply season them with salt, pepper, and olive oil and roast in a hot oven until done.
Veggies: Use whatever you have! Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, beets, okra, eggplant and squash are all in season right now and are all very roast-able. Roast veggies of similar densities with similar cooking times on the same tray. Leave some space between each veggie on the tray so they brown vs. steam. Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes and beets, for example, could all be roasted together as long as you cut them in similar sized shapes. Eggplant and okra take about the same amount of time, and squash can be done in almost no time. Roasting veggies should happen in a 400-425 degree oven. The veggies are fresh, and so seasoning with just oil, salt, and pepper is a-okay.
MONDAY NOTES: You may already be used to cooking this way, but if not, we encourage you to really hear us: this week’s sample meal plan necessitates cooking more than you need for that night. Channel your inner church-lady and at least double (or more) the amount of some of your meal’s components. These leftovers should really be considered nextovers in your mind - prepped food that will seamlessly carry over to tomorrow night’s dinner (and beyond), jazzed up in a way that will make you forget Monday ever happened.
On Monday, we suggest you double or triple the amount of veggies you roast. If you’re roasting sweet potatoes, for example, roast all of the ones that came in your CSA box! A cubed, roasted potato in the fridge is a way easier ingredient to incorporate into a future meal than a raw potato on the counter. Plus, your oven is on anyway... so you may as well only heat up your kitchen once this week. If you've got a lot of veggies to roast, do them in batches making sure to not crowd your pan. Yes, this method may take a bit longer to cook all of your veggies, but the end result will yield way better nextovers.
If you’re making hamburgers, buy extra meat and before you cook burgers for the night, roll the extra meat into quick meatballs, cook, and let cool in a glass tupperware on the counter while you cook the actual burgers. Store the meatballs in the fridge for tomorrow. The same goes for any protein, if you’d like. Make extra chicken or a few additional filets of fish, and thank us later.
A NOTE ON THE AOILI: Okay, we know, we said simple, and making your own aioli might feel somewhat extra (but it’s really not that hard). If that’s the case, skip this part and simply zhuzh up some mayo with grated garlic, lemon, and maybe some chopped herbs. But whatever you do, don’t skip the dipping sauce all together. We think this sauce may just be the key to getting your kiddos excited about the idea of a roasted tray of veggies. And if dipping veggies in mayo feels weird, go ahead and just make the aioli and see if we can’t change your mind. (Homemade aioli is delicious and is the perfect partner to any roasted, steamed, or boiled veggie!) Feeling particularly patient? Involve your kiddo in the sauce-making itself. Vocab word: emulsion. If you’re making your own aioli, make double what you thin you need, and then some more, because home made aioli goes with everything.
A little (or a lot) of upfront prep means very quick meals for the rest of the week.
TUESDAY: GRAIN BOWLS
Entering Tuesday, you should have several tupperwares full of leftover roasted veggies in your fridge including things like sweet potatoes, beets, and maybe some okra. Tonight, you’re eating these veggies over rice and calling it a grain bowl, buddha bowl, or whatever. The only major cooking you’re doing tonight is making rice! Steam a big pot of rice, ideally about three times more than you think your family will eat on Tuesday, and ideally flavored with lots of butter. We like white Jasmine rice. Protip: If you're making a large quantity of rice, the usual 2.1 water to rice ratio should be slightly tweaked and the amount of water reduced. Here's an explanation on why.
You can take this simple idea of veggies over rice in many different directions. Direction one: just eat the re-heated veggies over the warm rice, topped with some of that leftover aioli. Perhaps you do about 20 seconds more of cooking and add siracha to your aioli, call it spicy mayo, and pretend like eating a poke bowl on the sands of Hawaii. Or, you can add a can of black beans and corn plus loads of lime juice and avocado (and tortilla chips?) for a more Mexican take on the bowl. A grain bowl like this is also a wonderful opportunity to incorporate any raw vegetables you received in your CSA box like sliced cucumber or tomato, sliced sweet peppers, and a handful of salad greens. If you’re out of aioli but feel like your rice bowl needs a sauce, follow your heart and don’t over think it. Maybe it’s as simple as another pad of butter, some dashes of soy, some chili crisp, or a miso vinaigrette. Got a jar of pesto? Dollop that on top. If you have leftover protein from Monday, add this to your rice bowls, too. If you want to make this rice bowl more exciting, batter and fry some okra or eggplant (if you didn’t roast it all), and top the bowl with that! Pickled things lining the doors of your fridge? Those would work well, also. We strongly support the addition of any fresh and finely chopped herb like cilantro, dill, parsley, or green onions.
When in doubt, roast it up!
WEDNESDAY: FRIED RICE
Leftover rice that’s been sitting in the fridge dries out a bit, making the perfect case to be fried. Tonight, you’re making a ginormous batch of fried rice and the only cooking you’re doing is chopping some veggies and making a quick sauce.
Begin your friend rice by gathering all of your ingredients and making a simple sauce with ingredients like soy, mirin, sesame oil and maybe some oyster or hoisin. We’re not necessarily shooting for authenticity here, but are instead imparting flavor to rice in a way that feels intuitive. Soy sauce will add salt, umami, and color to your fried rice, mirin (or lemon or lime juice) some acidity, and oyster or hoisin some sweetness. We so regularly cook a quick, veggie-filled fried rice that we buy green onions at the store every time we go. Chop these up, too.
Locate the biggest skillet you own. Fried rice comes together quickly, so before you turn on the heat, chop whatever seasonal veggies you’d like to use. Hopefully you have some onions on hand, and can add that, too. Just about anything goes; be mindful that if you’re using red beets, these are better cooked separately and added on top of each bowl because fuchsia rice isn’t that appetizing. Start cooking your fried rice by sautéing some onions and aromatics like ginger and garlic in a generous amount of high-heat oil. Next, add any other raw vegetables that came in your CSA haul - chopped peppers, squash, okra, bok choy, finely chopped sweet potato greens… they’d all work perfectly! Once your veggies are cooked but still have some bite (al dente), it’s time to turn up the heat, add your rice, sauce, and any other leftover roasted veggies and protein from Monday and Tuesday. Hopefully you bought the green onions; add these too. Cook until incorporated and warmed through, on higher heat than you may think. Taste, and don’t be afraid to adjust, adding more soy if it needs salt, or acid or sugar. Give everyone big bowls of piping hot fried rice (and chop sticks, if you’ve got ‘em) and if you do it right, it’s more than more than enough.
THURSDAY: FRIED RICE 2.0
We know. You had fried rice last night. And maybe your family has expectations of having something different every night, but maybe everyone should just embrace the idea of glorified nextovers and minimal dishes to wash?
Thursday night’s fried rice can be stretched or made-new by additional veggies like frozen peas or grated carrots. Our favorite trick for fried-rice embellishment is the egg: fry an egg to top each bowl, or incorporate scrambled eggs into the rice itself during the reheating process. Bean sprouts, corn, and pineapple are great canned goods to keep in the pantry for fried rice 2.0, or maybe you rehydrate a bag of seaweed. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds or roasted peanuts on 2.0, or go crazy and top with some crispy bacon or sauteed mushrooms or fried tofu or anything else that you will. Congrats, tonight you fed your family a nourishing bowl of fried rice that took almost no time.
*FRIDAY: PIZZA
Order pizza and have it delivered to your home. If the adults among you feel like they need something more, toss that lingering arugula from your CSA box with olive oil, lemon juice and salt and top each pizza slice with a big handful of dressed arugula, shoving the greens and pizza into your both all in one. It’s like a salad, except without the dishes. Lingering cucumbers, carrots, or tomatoes? Chop ‘em up and serve with ranch dressing while you wait for the pizza to arrive. Dip pizza in leftover ranch, but did we really need to specify that bit?*If having fried rice two nights in a row feels wrong to you, feel free to change the order of Thursday and Friday.
Our blog and recipe archive is full of creative, diverse, and exciting dishes to make. And yes, cooking new things and Instagram-worthy meals is very fun. But also? It’s just food, there to nourish your body and give you the calories you need to navigate asynchronous learning sessions and spotty internet connections. When in doubt, roast veggies, make rice, and order pizza. Cheers!
