How I Approach Weekly Meal Prep

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posted on

January 29, 2023

I am a farmer who loves to cook, bake, ferment and create. Most of all, though, I want to feed myself and my family nourishing, great tasting food. If you are like me, time in the kitchen during the busy week is rather short. Pre-planning meals is not just an option for me, it is an essential part of getting nutritious food on the table quickly and avoiding the urge to “just order something”. Unfortunately, the majority of food prep ideas online are about making meals ahead of time that are portioned out. You make them all in one day, and then eat them throughout the week. This does not work for us. We need variation and creativity with our meals to prevent food boredom! What I made one day, might not be what I’m craving three days later. Now what?

Our family views weekly meal prep differently than most. We use a set of principles that has worked for us for years – even when we are working long stretches of 14hr days. It’s simple, quick, and leaves room to create.

- Cook grains and starchy vegetables.

I Precook things like rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes or quinoa. They go into their own container for later use. I also roast root vegetables like carrots and beets, or bake winter squash. These foods cook easily, store easily and they are very flexible as a foundation for building a meal.

- I make at least two gallons of bone broth.

We consume around 20oz of bone broth every day. Health benefits aside- bone broth is also amazing liquid for braising meats, deglazing a pan, adding to scrambled eggs, noodle bowls, mashed potatoes, and so on. We always have bone broth in the fridge! Some days I will make broth with chicken wings, leg quarters, short ribs, beef shanks or other meaty bones. After I strain the liquid, I pull off the meat for things like chicken salad, tacos, noodle bowls, stir fry and more.

- Mostly during the summer, I Hard boil eggs for the week.

Not only do these make a wonderful snack on their own, they can be made into egg salad, sliced and topped on greens, or my favorite -- mashed with warm butter and cheese!

- A veggie slaw is always a hit with our family.

Whatever is in season, I turn into a side that is easy to just spoon out of the bowl. Cabbage and other hearty vegetables like carrots, kale, onion, and shaved brussel sprouts work great tossed with salt and lemon. It can sit in the fridge like this for days, I just top it with olive or avocado oil before serving. This is crunchy, bursting with flavor, and complements most other foods- it is our family’s favorite.

- Do I pre-cook my meats?

Almost never. Dustin is pretty vocal about this, and if you think about it – reheated meat almost never tastes as good. That doesn’t mean we won’t have a bowl of meaty pasta sauce in the fridge or some grilled wings. The sauce makes for a quick pasta dinner and the wings get used in lunches all the time. Almost always, though, we thaw our meat in the morning so it’s ready to cook in the evening.

This method of meal prep is how we eat home-cooked meals for every meal of the week. It cuts down our time spent in the kitchen and allows for so much creativity. Eating every meal at home is a revolutionary act. I regain control of every ingredient that my family consumes, by cooking at home. For me, it helps to see cooking as empowering, not burdensome.

meal prep

Cooking

A Subject in Regenerative Farming Not Discussed

There are two struggles in regenerative farming. One is visible. The other is hidden. The visible struggle is obvious. Small farms like ours compete against companies with enormous marketing budgets, national distribution, investor backing, and public relations teams. A company like Vital Farms has a market capitalization measured in billions of dollars. They buy placement in grocery stores across the country, dominate advertising channels, and repeat carefully crafted messages nationally until they become accepted as truth. For years, terms like "pasture-raised" have been used because chickens were actually being raised in green, abundant pastures. Corporations like Vital Farms practice something entirely different. These details matter. Definitions matter. Transparency matters. Yet large companies have enormous resources to shape public perception. That is the visible fight. It's the proverbial “David versus Goliath” story everyone recognizes. Vital farms packs 50,000 birds in a barn with some doors open on the sides. They call it "pasture raised". They are trading off of the good will created by farms like us who DO IT FOR REAL. The hidden struggle, however, is far more important. Farming is heavily dependent on debt. Equipment, land, livestock and operation loans. Production seasons are financed and insured. Interest and insurance payments become significant cost centers. These payment schedules create a difficult reality - many farms spend a significant portion of their energy servicing financial obligations. Farming becomes less and less about stewarding land and animals and more about generating enough cash flow to satisfy lenders. This pressure, without doubt, changes behavior. It changes the way decisions are made and what priorities are highest. When debt becomes large enough, nearly everything becomes secondary to the repayment schedule. Erin and I recognized this hard reality early on. We decided that if we were serious about building a truly regenerative farm, it needed to be a financially regenerative farm as well. That meant refusing to finance our operations. No investors. No shareholders. No operating loans. No one sits at a table across from us explaining why we should relax our standards to improve profitability or efficiency. It has taken us three years to finish this structure without debt. We planned to construct the bare necessities first, then we prioritized the biggest needs as money became available. It is now fully functioning with ZERO debt. If we have a slow season, we simply slow down rather than cutting corners to pay loans To be clear - this decision has never been easy. Every year, peak production season is May through October, and we barely scrape by. We’ve nearly lost everything – several times. In many obvious ways, it has made our journey significantly harder. Growth is slower when you don't borrow your way forward. Infrastructure takes longer to build. New projects take patience. Expansion happens only when the resources actually exist. But there is a tradeoff that we found to be worth everything. Freedom. Freedom to tell the truth. Freedom to make decisions that align with our mission rather than someone else's financial model. Freedom to reject shortcuts. Freedom to say no. Investing in soil biology, grazing systems, animal welfare, local processing, and employees in alignment with our mission takes years. We remain free to serve the people who matter most. Our patrons. That is our secret weapon. Not marketing. Not venture capital. Not investor funding. Our patrons. Our relationship with our patrons remains rock solid because they provide the financial freedom for us to pursue our mission without distraction. Every food dollar entrusted to our care directly funds the farm itself. Food money pays to keep our mission going and growing, not servicing debt. Our patrons have become our shareholders. They may not own a piece of the business, but they make the business possible. Their support allows us to remain financially independent. We realized a valuable truth early -- the relationship between our farm and our patrons forms the symbiotic financial backbone of truly regenerative farming. As we invest in better stewardship, our patrons receive better food. As our patrons continued supporting the farm, we can invest in the resources to become better stewards. We strengthen one another. The cycle continues. It’s regenerative finance serving regenerative farming. This relationship has created something highly resilient. A farm that answers to no investors. No shareholders. No bankers. We are free to serve our mission and the One who has called us forward into discovering the riches of a food production design centered on healing rather than exploitation. A special thank you to all of our patrons who make this possible. ❤️🙏 Dustin and Erin

Bigger Than Growth

We could make a living if the farm was a fraction of its current size. We are not chasing growth for growth’s sake. We are not trying to become a national brand. We are not looking for outside investors. We are not building this business so that one day....

The Foundation of Regenerative Farming

Every characteristic that makes food desirable—flavor, aroma, texture, color, and nutrition—begins with sunlight. Plants are nature’s solar collectors. Through photosynthesis, they convert solar energy into sugars, proteins, fats, antioxidants, and countless other compounds that ultimately become the building blocks of every grazing animal on earth.