Wegrowandeatrealfood

Wegrowandeatrealfood I help you get home-grown and home-cooked meals on the table despite your busy schedule.

On a Tuesday night, after a full day of work, the last thing most of us want is a complicated recipe with 17 ingredients...
10/13/2026

On a Tuesday night, after a full day of work, the last thing most of us want is a complicated recipe with 17 ingredients and a sink full of dishes.  And sometimes on a Thursday morning, rushing to get everyone out the door, there isn’t time to turn on the stove to make breakfast.

Here are a few simple formulas you can use over and over again to mix and match.

Start with a basic foundation & change the flavors to make it your own.

Oatmeal = 5 different breakfasts.

Chicken + rice = 5 different dinners.

Beef + rice = 5 different dinners.

Same basic ingredients. Different seasonings, sauces, vegetables, and toppings.

You don’t have to reinvent dinner every night. And you don’t have to eat the exact same meal five days in a row, either.

For the oatmeal, you can make the oatmeal ahead and then reheat it with some liquid, OR use quick-cooking oatmeal that can be made in the microwave in just a couple of minutes. (For the cardamom oatmeal, use green ground cardamom – not black – and add it while the oatmeal is cooking for the best flavor.)

Cook your rice & protein ahead, but don’t season them much and keep them separate. Keep a handful of flavor-building ingredients to make sauces and a variety of veggies available.  Then mix and match based on what sounds good, what you have on hand, and how much energy you have that evening.  That’s where you add the seasoning, spices, and/or sauces.

That’s the kind of meal prep I love teaching - simple, repeatable ways to nourish yourself and your family that fit real life.

Which flavor combination would you like to try first? Let me know in the comments!

10/09/2026

I will never tell you that should try to grow everything that you eat.

First, let me start with - I will never TELL you what you “should” grow.  I may make recommendations, and I will certainly help you decide if choices need to be made, but what you grow is just as personal as what you are going to cook with it. It is YOUR garden, not mine!

Second, eating a variety of foods is beneficial to your gut microbiome, and most of us don’t have space or time to grow every single thing we are interested in eating.  Not only that, but the different climates we all live in won’t support ALL of the things.  Some things need cold to produce next year, while some things can’t get cold.  Grow ***what*** you can, ***where*** you can.

Third, & probably most importantly, growing is something that is learned over time.  You don’t pick up this skill instantly; ergo, if you want to continue eating, you should probably plan to continue buying food while you are learning.

Follow me for more life tips!

10/05/2026

Remember Farmer Justin, who has a garden, but doesn’t have it planted because he has so much going on with the farm that he simply can’t find the time to maintain a garden?  During the initial consult back in August, Justin shared his vision for how he plans to grow food on his farm, and it included SO much more than just the large kitchen garden.  He has a fruit orchard, which is already started.  He bought olive and nut trees, and they are currently in pots, waiting to be planted.  He would like create a berry patch, and to upgrade his kitchen garden to include raised beds and a high tunnel.

To implement and integrate the various components properly will take extensive research and planning, which requires time that Justin doesn’t have, so I created A Homegrown Harvest Blueprint for him.  It is designed to organize all of these projects using a Phased Implementation Roadmap.  The Roadmap details what will be done for each project during a specific time period between now & the end of 2027, culminating in a five-year Planting Plan.

We are starting with Phase 0, which includes getting very specific about how and when and where Justin would like to grow for the kitchen garden in 2027, and establishing a timeline for each of the subsequent phases for the other projects.

During his second consult, we took a deeper dive into the physical aspects of the growing spaces:  where are the water sources?  Where will the gates go when the fence is built?  Where will the wash station go?  Where will the raised beds go, and when will we install them?  Will we expand the kitchen garden space now or later in 2027?  How will we plan for dealing with those high winds he mentioned previously?  How will we automate irrigation to save hands-on maintenance time?  Does he plan to start seeds indoors, or only direct sow outdoors?  How much space is available for seed starting?  Does he plan to grow microgreens indoors in the winter while growing outside is not much of an option?  Does he still have everything he needs for seed starting/microgreens?

See below for the full caption.

Did you know that butternut squash turns sweet when roasted? Here’s how!Preheat the oven to 425. Line two baking sheet...
10/03/2026

Did you know that butternut squash turns sweet when roasted? Here’s how!

Preheat the oven to 425. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use a large, heavy-duty knife to cut the squash in half horizontally, separating the top straight part from the bottom rounded part.

Peel both halves with a vegetable peeler.

Slice the straight part into rounds. Stack two or three rounds at a time. Cut small bits off the sides of the rounds to make them square, if you like. Dice the squares.

Cut the bottom off of the rounded part of the squash, and then cut it in half vertically. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon and discard. Slice the two halves vertically, then dice.

Put the squash in a large bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil. Stir to evenly coat. Add salt and pepper, and other seasonings based on the rest of the meal, and stir to mix well. (One of my favorites is fresh rosemary!)

Spread the squash between two baking sheets so there is plenty of room between the squash pieces. (If you crowd them, they will steam and not develop the sweetness that comes from roasting.)

Roast for 25 minutes. Take both sheets out of the oven, keeping in mind which tray was on the lower rack. Flip the squash so that the sides that were touching the baking sheet during the first cook time are now visible (to prevent burning - they will already be a little brown). Place the baking sheets back in the oven, switching their position so that the tray that was on the bottom is now on the top.

Roast for roughly 20 - 25 minutes more, depending on how large the pieces are, your baking sheets, etc...the time may vary slightly. The squash is done when a fork slides in with little resistance. Taste a piece - if it tastes like candy and you want to eat the whole pan right then, it is done!

Taste for salt…you may want to sprinkle with a little more while the squash is hot out of the oven as some tends to fall off during the mid-roast flipping process.

09/30/2026

One of the best things about the fall garden is that the veggies don’t take up much space! Many cool-season crops can be harvested young and grown close together, allowing you to produce a variety of food without needing a large garden. The key is to plan for how you will harvest: baby leaves and small roots can be spaced more intensively, while full-size kale, collards, and chard still need a little more room to grow. Another advantage of the season is the temperatures are cooler, so less watering is usually required.

These are some of my favorites…what are some of yours?
Let me know in the comments.

09/29/2026

What do you do when you have plenty of space to grow food – and gardens (more than one!!) – but you still aren’t producing enough to feed your family?

Meet Sharon & Leland.
Sharon and her husband Leland have built an incredible amount of food-growing infrastructure on their property over the years:
- Raised beds near the house
- A large primary garden
- A pollinator garden
- A large secondary garden
- Blueberries
- Grapevines & fig trees
- An orchard filled with fruit and nut trees
- A 12’ × 32’ greenhouse
- Rain barrels
- Seed-starting equipment
- And plenty of experience trying different ways to make it all work.

But Sharon didn’t call me because she needed MORE garden.
She called because what they already have isn’t producing the amount of food she wants for her family of four.

And that’s an important distinction.

During our consultation, we walked the property and looked at each growing area as part of a larger system.
Where does the sun fall?
Where does water collect - and where does it run away?
Which beds are performing well?
Which ones consistently struggle?
How far is each growing area from a reliable water source?
Where is wildlife creating pressure?
What’s happening with the soil?
Why have established fruit trees produced so little?
And is a large greenhouse actually useful if maintaining a workable temperature requires constant hands-on management?

There are a LOT of individual questions to answer.
But the answer isn’t automatically to build another bed, plant another tree, buy another piece of equipment, or try another garden trick.
First, we need to understand WHY the existing system isn’t producing.
So that’s where we’re starting.
Soil testing.
Water management.
Irrigation.
Wildlife pressure.
Greenhouse function.
Orchard health.
Garden layout.

And ultimately, how all of those pieces work together toward Sharon’s actual goal:
Producing more of the food her family eats.

09/28/2026

It is normal to want to focus on successes and wins, and downplay failures, but please know that failure is a normal part of the learning process.  Epic fails help us reconfigure, re-strategize, re-plan, and start again.  I have been gardening for years, but that does not mean I am never going to fail, and here is a prime example.  This was the first year I grew the sweet potato squash.  I planted them on April 25 and watched them grow all summer long.  I discovered the problem on September 3, and it was so disappointing.  I thought I lost the entire crop, other than the handful I had already harvested.

Part of the failure lies with me…I did not keep my eyes on the squash often enough.  A cardinal rule in the garden is to walk the garden often. The heat was just so bad, and I let the weeds get out of control, and it kept me from setting eyes on the squash.  In my mind, one day they were still waiting to ripen, and the next day, they had spoiled…but in reality, there was probably at least a week, maybe more, between those two things.  Way too long to not check on things!

The important part of growing (literally and figuratively) is what you do after something fails, how you rebuild, and that you use what you learned to be better the next time around.  In this case, I know for next year that I am going to build a trellis for these squash to get them up off the ground.  I am not going to let them go unattended in the heat of the summer for days on end.  I will grow them again, and I will be better at it.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover more healthy squash on September 12 that had been hidden by the weeds.  (Another note for next year:  I will NOT let the weeds get this out of control!!).  Stay tuned for how I cook it!

09/26/2026

You don’t have to grow everything you eat to enjoy the benefits of growing your own food.

Tonight’s Thai Basil Beef came together with mostly grocery-store ingredients, plus one thing from the garden: eggplant!

And that’s perfectly okay. Growing your own food isn’t about perfection. It’s about growing what you can, using what you grow, and enjoying the process.

Plus, spending about an hour cooking gave me dinner for tonight + four more nights of meals. Now that’s a weeknight win!

Grow what you can. Cook what you love. Supplement when you need to.

Follow for more healthy meal ideas, gardening tips, and simple ways to grow and eat real food in your busy days!

09/24/2026

What if eating real food doesn’t require that you already know how to cook?

What if you could simply LEARN?

Meet Dorothy.
She came into our first coaching session wanting something much bigger than a temporary change in the way she eats.  She wants to change the way she LIVES.

But there is one pretty significant obstacle standing between where she is today and the lifestyle she envisions:  she has never really cooked before.

And when she starts thinking about everything she needs to learn, she gets overwhelmed.

So overwhelmed that eventually she shuts down.

But here’s what I heard as we talked:
She loves to learn.
She loves to research.
She’s excited about what is possible.
And she already has a picture of the life she wants to create.

She told me:
“I am writing my story now and the way I WANT to.”

So, we aren’t going to start by trying to teach her everything there is to know about cooking.  We’re going to start by helping her cook ONE meal – lunch.

Then we’re going to do it again.
And again.
We’ll keep the meals simple.
We’ll keep the number of ingredients small.
We’ll minimize the number of pots and pans.
We’ll build skills as she actually needs them.
And we’ll give her enough repetition to see the evidence that she CAN do this.

Because she doesn’t have to become a good cook BEFORE she can start eating real food.  She becomes a better cook BY cooking real food!

One meal at a time, one skill at a time, one success at a time…until eventually, the thing that once felt overwhelming simply becomes part of how she lives.

That is the goal…not to know everything…but to know enough to BEGIN.

Address

Suffolk, VA

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wegrowandeatrealfood posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category