Pickles, Garden, and Meal Plan
It has been a wonderfully productive weekend, and I kind of don't want it to end! It is so much easier to get stuff done when M is home. We took care of some business/housekeeping items, planned N's birthday party, weeded and mulched the garden with leftover mulch from our front yard project, attended a graduation party, and did some major crafting with the girls (thank you, Kiwi Crate!).
I also made these easy fridge pickles (they really were SO easy!), adding a clove of garlic to each jar, but I got the measurements wrong so they came out overly salty. I'm hopeful that future batches will be really delicious. You can taste that this batch wanted to be delicious, if only they didn't make you cough.
N helped me make them, and it was a really great way to introduce her to the concept of osmosis. She could see it happening right before her eyes every time she opened the fridge to give the jars a shake. Great little science lesson to check off the homeschooling list!!
A little garden update, in case you care, since I snapped some pics of it freshly mulched:
Our "kale patch"... N just dumped a whole packet of seeds right there. They don't seem to be suffering too badly from growing so close together, but I may thin them out later so the leaves will grow a little bigger.
Our one lonely pepper has been struggling to produce this single pepper for weeks. Note to self... next year, plant more peppers!
We have plenty of broccoli though (also needs to be thinned out)!
See our first little head of broccoli poking out?? Can't wait for more.
Spaghetti squash growing nicely!
Of course our zucchini plants got more mammoth than we ever could have imagined. Classic first-time gardener's blunder. I had to trellis our cucumber plants behind them to give them any growing space whatsoever. They are now threatening to overshadow the pepper and cauliflower as well. Lesson learned for next year... give zucchini at least a full quadrant of garden space (like, 5x5 feet for each plant).
Our spinach has bolted (gone to seed) and I think our basil plant is about to do the same. If I have some extra time (ha!) I may pull up the plants, dry the seeds and re-germinate before summer's end. We'll see. If not this year we can save them for next year.
Overall, we are getting a good amount of produce... I had hoped for more, but as M pointed out today, if we were getting any more we might not be using it efficiently. As you can see, we barely keep up with the weeding, so I think this has been a manageable chunk to bite off for us at this time. N is good at helping and the others will get there too, so each year it should get easier to garden the way we want to!
Another part of our productive weekend was meal planning and grocery shopping. After a few weeks of traveling and meals on the road I'm feeling rested up and ready to cook again. Here's the plan for the week (thanks Laura for hosting the link-up)!
Sunday Breakfast:
Leftover sorghum/millet waffles from Saturday morning, leftover oatmeal
Sunday Lunch:
Annie's Mac and "Rabbit Food" (cut up carrots, cukes, and celery with ranch and hummus dips) for the girls, chicken salad wraps for Mom & Dad
Sunday Supper:
Whole Chicken in the Crockpot, Hasselback Zucchini from the garden
Monday Breakfast:
Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothies and/or microwave zucchini cake (a sugar-free version) that I made last night
Monday Lunch:
Make-your-own wraps (turkey, cheese, hummus, salad greens, pickles, olives, etc.)
Monday Supper:
Tuesday Breakfast:
Stove top steel cut oats with your choice of toppings (raisins, walnuts etc.)
Tuesday's Lunch:
Scrambled eggs and fresh fruit (or leftover broccoli soup if I don't have the energy!)
Tuesday's Supper:
Monterey Beans with brown rice
Wednesday Breakfast:
Vanilla Milkshake Smoothies, rice cakes with PB or leftover oatmeal
Wednesday's Lunch:
Make-your-own wraps (again)
Wednesday's Supper:
Leftovers
Thursday Breakfast:
Poached Eggs
Thursday Lunch:
Tomato soup (from the can) with oyster crackers
Thursday Supper:
CrockPot Mac made with quinoa pasta
Friday Breakfast:
Friday Lunch:
Out at the Botanical Garden... pbj picnic? or buy lunch out
Friday Supper:
Leftovers
Saturday Breakfast:
Daddy makes waffles
Saturday Lunch:
Mix and match lunch leftovers from the week
Saturday Supper:
Chicken sausages and sweet potato fries
Your garden looks fantastic! I was surprised you said it's hard to keep up with the weeds because I was thinking how well weeded it looks! :) We do a lot of eggs and wraps for lunch too- delicious, healthy and kid-friendly. Thanks for linking up!
ReplyDeleteI'm loving my garden this season! Plentiful except for my cilantro. Not sure what happened there. I love pretty much any food I can wrap :)
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