Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the End of August Through the First Day of September

Friday

Friday
sausage, mushroom, basil pizza
garden green beans
garden salad
blackberry pie

Our standard homemade pizza for pizza and movie night. We watched My Fair Lady, checked out from the local library.

Saturday

Saturday

garden vegetable and bean soup

homemade tortillas

leftover blackberry pie

My husband made dinner this night. He makes pretty good tortillas, so does them often as a starchy side. The soup used some chicken stock from the freezer, garden vegetables and garlic, canned tomatoes, and a store-purchased onion. It looks like a small dinner, but the slices of pie were huge.

Sunday

Sunday

TVP and garden vegetable teriyaki

tempura celery, zucchini, and green beans

rice

My husband cooked again this night. He loves fried food and I very rarely make anything fried. So he went with tempura. It tasted pretty good and wasn't too greasy.

Monday

Monday

blackberry-cheesecake French toast with blackberry syrup and fresh berries

Have you noticed all of the blackberries in our meals in recent weeks? I made a batch of blackberry syrup this afternoon. I had been thinking about making some French toast for a while as an easy supper dish. I added some freshly picked blackberries and the homemade syrup. Very, very yummy. I could eat this a couple of times a week!

Tuesday

Tuesday

grilled chicken legs

rosemary potatoes

sautéed garden kale

fresh blackberries

One of my daughters made dinner this night. She marinated the chicken legs in a homemade teriyaki sauce, then grilled them. Very delicious! The potatoes are instant mashed with garlic and fresh rosemary mixed in. More kale and blackberries.

Wednesday

Wednesday

scratch refried beans with cheese and salsa

garden green beans

fresh figs

mac and corn

My other daughter cooked fro us on Wednesday. She's very busy these days, so I suggested something on the easy side. I had the cooked pinto beans and corn in the freezer, She had a small container of cooked pasta she wanted to use up. And I picked and rinsed the fig and green beans for her. She added some of our fresh cilantro to the beans and that made them especially tasty.

Thursday

Thursday

meatloaf and gravy

rice

more sautéed garden kale and onions

fresh blackberries

One of my go-to's for using ground beef -- meatloaf. I made the gravy with the drippings from the meatloaf, but it tasted flat. I added salt, pepper, thyme, and chopped canned tomatoes to add some zip to it.

I've been marveling at all of the beautiful colors in the vegetable garden. This is the basket with Thursday's lunch soup ingredients as I rinsed them. There's bright green sorrel on the bottom, orangey-yellow pumpkin and squash blossoms in the middle, and topped with lavender-colored chive blossoms. I made a cream of sorrel soup with these. 

We're making plans for a cook-out on Labor Day. For us, cook-outs mean doing hotdogs over a fire ring in the backyard. I'll make buns, a couple of salads using garden ingredients (one garlicky with tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil, the other sweet and tangy with kale, apples, celery, and pecans with a mayo, lemon juice and jam dressing), a potato dish and s'mores for dessert.

Do you have plans for this upcoming weekend? Any last-of-summer BBQs or cook-outs? Or will this be a low-key weekend?

Wishing you a lovely weekend, whatever is in your plans.

Finding Beauty in the Simple Things

There is this cluster of ripening tomatoes that struck me as beautiful. I was working in the garden on Wednesday and I looked up and saw a trio of tomatoes hanging together, one yellow, one orange, and one green. I just thought this was so beautiful. I do love a nice rose or lily. But who would think that tomatoes could be beautiful in a way that is unrelated to their edible aspect?

When I take a moment and slow down to look around or listen, I often find something extraordinary in the ordinary. Sometimes it's the call of a bird flying high over head. Sometimes it's the fragrance of the lilies in bloom by the small pond. And sometimes it's a pair of tiny green frogs enjoying the sun together on a sorrel leaf in my herb circle.

It's easy to get caught up in the flash and bling that proliferates in our culture. But is there really any superior beauty than that which can be found in a garden, woodland, seaside, mountain top or our own backyard?