Sunday – breakfast – pancakes, homemade strawberry/blueberry jam; lunch – crispy nuts, cheese, green pepper strips; dinner – rice and carrot casserole, fresh salad

Monday – b – smoothies; l – tuna salad, baked potatoes; d – black bean burritos

Tuesday – b – polenta; l – devilled eggs, vegetable sticks; d – red meat chili, cornbread

Wednesday – b – biscuits, eggs; l – cream cheese rollups; d – lentil pecan patties, sauteed onions, carrot fries

Thursday – b – Yorkshire pudding; l – celery and peanut butter; d – macaroni and cheese (with whole wheat/flax seed noodles)

In response to request to share our Shabbos menus: this past Shabbos we ate out for lunch, so we only had to make dinner – here’s what we had: chicken, roasted red potatoes, baked butternut squash, pepper-olive salad, fresh salad, almond power bars, pumpkin gingerbread (left over from shalom zachor).  We don’t have soup when the weather gets hot, and usually we have homemade challah but this week didn’t want to bake since we only needed it for one meal, and used whole wheat matza instead.

This week’s menu was planned with the Nine Days in mind, so that I can use up whatever fleishig gravy or stock I have in the fridge.  I made hamburger rocks (way to preserve ground meat) for the first time last week and not all of the jars sealed, so I’ll use the ones that didn’t seal for the chili. Today I’m dehydrating some mushrooms I got on sale, and because it takes the same amount of electricity to run the dehydrator if it’s full or half empty, filled some of the remaining trays with chopped onion.  Dehydrated onion is very useful.  At the end of last week I dehydrated ten pounds of frozen okra (I’m working on emptying out the freezer), as well as all the frozen peas and carrots we had.  It’s amazing how little space food takes up when dehydrated – so space efficient!

On the fermented vegetable front, I started 2 gallons of pickles (got lots of cukes on sale), and a corn and red pepper relish (using up the corn in the freezer).  We still have at least a half a gallon of curried carrot sauerkraut left, so those three will be side dishes for the week. I’d like to try making fermented bean paste this week; it would make a nice light lunch together with some veggies and tortilla chips or tacos.

We have loads of green tomatoes in our garden right now, and hopefully in the next week or so we’ll start reaping some of our bounty!  Basically all that we planted for the summer is tomatoes, several kinds of squash, green beans, and cucumbers.  We’ve picked our first cucumber and yellow squash, and are hoping before long that we’ll get enough veggies to supplement our meals.

Avivah