This week's lunch round-up: fresh and simple hits the spot

I'd like to say that lunches this week will be mostly fresh items because I planned healthy lunches. However, the truth is, fresh items are simply easier than prepared items. And Monday was another very busy day.

Monday, I made the cucumber dill pickles (3 jars) and another quart of blackberry pancake syrup (now have 2 quarts of blackberry syrup), plus I dug potatoes (backbreaking and exhausting work), roasted a chicken, ran errands (2 markets), did bookkeeping, and 2 loads of laundry. So, I only had 2 prepared items this week, supplemented with fresh garden produce. Here's our lunch selection for the week:

• cinnamon-almond granola ( I have to admit, the almonds were just the end of a bag of almonds, and much more almond "dust" than actual almonds)
• rice-bean-tomato casserole
• fresh plums
• fresh apples
• fresh tomatoes
• fresh cucumbers

And of course, always there is peanut butter, bread, yogurt and mixed nuts.You may notice that this week there are no boiled eggs. We're now down to our last 3 dozen of fresh eggs, and 1 dozen frozen. I'll be needing these eggs for baking this month. So for a while, no more hard-boiled eggs.

It looks like I should be able to make another batch of cucumber dill pickles. That will bring us up to 6 jars of dill slices, to go with 8 jars of bread and butter zucchini pickles, and 9 jars of watermelon pickles. I'll also make green tomato sweet and dill relishes later this month. That should be it for pickle making. October will see me in the kitchen making plum chutney and tomato salsa.

Now, I'll go enjoy my cup of blackberry tea (the rinsings from the pan of blackberry syrup added to yesterday's tea bag, for a fruity and frugal cup of tea), and enter a couple of drawings from my recent shopping (on receipt, survey info in exchange for entrance in drawings for gift cards).

What's on your lunch menu this week?


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Plan A didn't pan out, now working on plan B

So, when I plant my vegetable garden each spring, my thoughts are filled with high hopes and expectations.

Then weather happens, bugs happen, critters happen and off-timing happens. I know I should remember this from year to year. But maybe it's a good thing I'm so optimistic each spring. If I were too realistic, I may just give up on the garden altogether.

Anyway, my family really enjoys green bean dill pickles. I make several jars each summer to pop open in winter. Well, this year, when the green beans were ready, the dill and garlic weren't. And now that the dill and garlic are ready, the green beans are about done. Rats!

On to plan B.

I've found I need to keep my mind flexible with regards to the garden. The cucumbers did far better this year than they've done in years. So, plan B will be cucumber dill slices. I should be able to eek out a few jars of those before the season ends.

All is not lost. We'll enjoy some sort of dill pickle this winter. And we did enjoy the green beans fresh this summer, so that's a very good thing.

Let's hope I don't need a plan C.