For weeks now, my breakfast every morning has been a three egg omelet with tomatoes. I’m going to miss those this winter.
We picked the one sweet dumpling squash that grew before squash vine borers killed the plant.
I baked it with butter, maple syrup, and cinnamon. My mom used to do the same with acorn squash when I was a kid. I hated it.
I didn’t tell my kids that though, and they all ate part of that one squash, even Beatrix who typically declares all foods yucky whether or not she’s ever tried them.
Organic cherries were on sale recently for 2.99 a pound. I bought them all.
We ate most of the cherries fresh, but I also made the upside down caramel sweet cherry cake (something like that) from Rustic Fruit Desserts (fantastic cookbook especially if you’re like me and your favorite desserts are made with fruit.) I only burned one batch of caramel before getting it right. We ate the cake with whipped cream on top, and I regretted giving myself such a large and greedy piece. It was delicious but very rich. A small piece would have been perfect.
In contrast, we also eat lots of plain whole milk yogurt (I made the switch about a year ago, and my kids don’t complain anymore) with grain free granola these days.
So far, the only melons that have ripened in my garden, have also rotted on the underside. I am thinking that next year I am going to plant the reliable Athena melons that we buy at the farmer’s market. I love planting new heirloom varieties each year, but I haven’t had much success finding any that we really like.
Our watermelons are looking great, and if we manage to pick them at the right time, we’ll be doing good. (We didn’t grow the one that Silas is eating.)
Last week we got our first egg. One of our Columbian Rock crosses has started laying an egg every other day. So far she’s the only one.
The first eggs are so teensy and cute (show here next to a large egg for comparison.) Hopefully the other birdie girls will join good girl number one and start laying soon as well. Between me and the kids, those nest boxes are probably being checked more than a dozen times each day.
What have you been eating? I’ve been having a hard time coming up with lunch ideas.
Wendy says
My stomach is growling! I hated it when my mom made baked squash when I was a kid, too. For lunches (and dinners, too) during the summer I like to wash/cut up fruits and vegetables at the start of the week and then store them in the fridge so I can just pull them out at meal time. Some of our favorites: cherries, melon, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes/tomato slices, and grapes. Sometimes I also like to prep a lot of sandwich toppings. Then I just plunk everything on the table, those who are able make their own sandwiches, and choose their veggies and fruit. Two favorite salads that I make up and do the same thing with are Bread Salad (this rarely lasts more than a day) and a Broccoli Slaw. I’m also thinking about trying to institute meal-sized salads.
Taryn Kae Wilson @ Wooly Moss Roots says
Ginny,
I have to say that I love food pictures and can’t get enough of them. 🙂
Omelets.. yum! And I love winter squash. We didn’t plant any this year and are missing it, but I have plans for next year. Congrats on getting your first egg! What an exciting feeling.
We haven’t had any luck growing melons or watermelons in our garden, but if you drive an hour inland from where we live they grow pretty well there. That grain-free granola looks good.
I’m looking forward to eating some homegrown cucumbers and zucchini today. And we’ve really been enjoying blueberries, blackberries, and huckleberries from our yard. Just a few each day, but such a treat nonetheless.
Love, Taryn
Trista says
I have a few ideas for recipes, but I’m not sure they will fit children’s palettes. Our standby is Roasted Veggies- very simply just tossed with a nice oil and salt and pepper and then roasted in a fairly high oven temp, like 425 until browning a little- timing depends on the veg. Also, if you have summer squash, my mother made my favorite dish by sauteing finely minced onion in butter and olive oil, steam or boil the yellow crookneck squash and then drain & mash them up well, add the saute onion, butter, salt pepper, a raw egg, some bread or cracker crumbs (optional) and mix, pour into a buttered oven-safe dish and bake in med oven for about 20mins, add some grated cheese of choice to the top and let it melt and start to slightly brown. (She also did the exact same thing with eggplant instead of squash and it was great) Another favorite was when she sliced the yellow squash about 1/4 ” thick lengthwise, patted it with cornmeal that had been salt & peppered and then fried it in a small amount of oil in a cast iron skillet until it was lightly brown and crisp- delicious, and although it never looks like much of the cornmeal stuck to the raw squash, it is just right. This is time consuming but well worth it.
One more idea- I recently tore a recipe from a magazine that was interesting but I haven’t tried it yet. You slice the very top off of whole tomatoes and slightly squeeze out some of the seeds & juice but not all, then you crack a raw egg into it and fill a baking tray with these and bake them until well heated and the egg is set, there is probably a little oil drizzled over the tops and salt & pepper before baking. You could add fresh herbs as desired. I hope some of these ideas help!
Carly says
Ooh I can just taste the freshness in your post Ginny! I love this time of year x
lori says
now i am hungry! yum omlettes! i’m making blt’s quite often lately. i think bacon is addicting.
Martha says
♥ we have lots of tomatoes, too….red and yellow, they SO good fresh, I’ll miss them in the winter, too
♥ picked 2 of our watermelons, too early…we’re just so excited, so ended up giving them to the chickens who gladly pecked at them…we did pick a yellow watermelon this weekend that is perfect, though (LOTS of seeds)
♥ I bought 6 pounds of cherries today! I will try to make a pie or cobbler tomorrow.
♥ we have just 3 hens right now, one is moulting and the other 2 are just about 3 months old, I look forward to eggs again soon!
Jenn says
Cute. And Beatrix painted her face again. Oh well; better than the appliances! Haha!
sustainablemum says
I love the pictures they made me want to go eat! Lunch is one of those meals that often takes me by surprise. Usually we are so involved in doing stuff that suddenly it is lunch and I have not given it any thought. If I do think about it I will make something like wraps and salad, soup, homemade hummus with things to dip in like cucumber or peppers, bean spreads (cooked beans mashed with olive oil and herbs), pasta salad with grated courgette (zucchini), pesto sauce, grated cheese (usually Parmesan or gruyere) and olive oil, quesadillas, mushrooms cooked in butter on toast, I also sometimes make special breads such as focaccia or flatbread such as pittas. If we are going to out of for the day I will make a picnic, rolls with fillings, homemade pasties or sausageless sausage rolls. Most of the time I am looking in the fridge at 12and going what on earth are we going to have for lunch!
Heather says
We also enjoy plain yogurt. I used to make my own at home in AZ, but no so while we are here. My raw milk source was great for things like that. Breakfast here is loads of seasonal veggies stir fried with an egg on top. Love this. I used to hate runny eggs as a child. Now I love them. My mom made the same type of squash. I also hard it. Now, not so much.
Leah says
Love this! We’ve been getting eggs for several weeks now. They lay at sporadic times during the day so I still check those nesting boxes very often. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Where did you get your egg holder?
Sonja says
That granola looks scrumptious! People rave about homegrown tomatoes and I do agree that they are delicious. But I have to say that I look forward to homegrown potatoes just as much, if not more.
Heather says
We just got our first eggs this past week as well! It was very exciting! Of course, stupid me, thought that because we hadn’t been checking and were not entirely sure when the chickens had laid the eggs – I threw them away concerned they may have spoiled. Come to find out chickens were laying eggs way before refrigerators were invented…who knew?! http://www.townsend-house.com/2012/08/oh-happy-day.html
6512 and growing says
Ginny, I think your blog must be good for my blood pressure. I always feel relaxed and uplifted coming here.
Lisa G. says
I’m not much for lunch, but yesterday for dinner I stewed a chicken which I like to do when it’s hot. If you put it in the smallest pot it will fit in, and fill it up halfway with chicken broth, a couple of bay leaves, plenty of garlic and a stalk of celery, simmer it for a couple of hours – delicious. Add more liquid if it’s getting low.
Ginny says
I’ve never stewed a chicken before! I am going to try your method for our dinner tonight. Thank you!
Ngo Family Farm says
Yum, yum, yum!! My all-time favorite summer breakfast is scrambled eggs with tomatoes and basil 🙂
-Jaime
little macaroon says
I’m coveting your egg tray too (but living in a city centre with no space for chickens, it would ridiculously frivolous for me!). Here’s to many more eggs 🙂
Ramona says
where I live, it’s time for grapes. We eat them almost every day. Also, pasta with turkey or pork ham, mushrooms, a little bit of garlic and sweet cream. Yammm!
Also, the home-made pizza is very good too.
As you can see, not very healthy choises, but very good, once in a while…
Ramona says
*choices, sorry:)
swanski says
I usually eat a salad with a hard boiled egg and pumpkin seeds, raisins sprinkled on top.
Lori Ann says
Love all the yummy foods – but really enjoyed seeing your bunnykin dishes too! I still have mine from when I was young and my son used them for a long time! Enjoy the harvest!
meghann says
I made a ton of raspberry jam and blueberry jam a few weeks ago; we’ve been eating a lot of that on bread for breakfast *and* lunch. And snack. And sometimes supper. 🙂 xo
Dawn says
We are overloaded with tomatoes….mostly romas, so I have been making this soup http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2010/08/our-carrot-tomato-soup.html eating some and freezing the rest batch by batch. It is a favorite of my kids. We love it in the winter time with grilled cheese sandwiches. I didn’t have a good year with melons or cucumbers, I can only figure that it must have been the weather.
Meryl says
What a steal on the cherries. We enjoyed too many when they were in season here (if that’s even possible) but we’re well past cherry season now.
Barbara says
I have a hard time with lunch, too. I am happy with yogurt, fruit and granola…but the kids. Ugh. Lately it’s been good roast beef, homegrown tomatoes, and lettuce on good seeded 9 grain bread — or just wrapped in lettuce leaves. On cooler days lately, grilled cheese or quesadillas and tomatoes. Your omelet sounds like a great lunch!
Kelly J. R. says
I’ve found that placing a small piece of wood beneath each melon keeps them from rotting. I think the constant contact with the soil and dampness makes them rot.
Nichole G says
Good idea about the melons. And Ginny are you putting any straw under them?
Allison says
Our chickens lay all winter. We’re in NY. Since you’re in a warmer climate, I expect you’ll be fine – it’s nice to have a supply all winter long.
heathermama hawkes says
i just love when chickens first start laying eggs, they are so cute.
what are we eating? peaches, berries, melons, greens. i just love all the goodness that comes with summer.
Maren says
We had zucchini-potato-thyme soup yesterday (after having had a cake party on saturday- and having eaten three different types of quiches, a makkaroni-cake, and loads of other sweet and salty cakes) ….
amy says
Where I live, green beans and zucchini are plentiful right now. So, early one morning, before the kitchen got hot, I roasted a huge quantity of beans and chunks of zucchini in two pans, followed by chopped red potatoes. I let everything cool and since then we’ve been eating “veggie bowls” with these three cooked vegetables combined with varying amounts of cucumber, Brandywine and Sungold tomatoes (the only ones ripening yet). The bowls get topped with any combination of the following toppings: pepitas, sunflower seeds, almonds, feta cheese, black beans, radishes, carrots, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. It’s been delicious and caters to individual’s preferences.
I can’t keep fruit around long enough to bake it into anything. Chopped peaches with blackberries. Makes a nice breakfast with some plain yoghurt or just milk; and, it makes a nice dessert too with a light sprinkling of brown sugar to “dessert-ify” what might otherwise be identified as “breakfast”. Heh.
Kim says
Love that egg tray. We are checking our nesting boxes all the time, waiting patiently for the first egg.
Michelle says
Lunch has always been the hard one for me. When I think lunch I think sandwiches. I really need to expand that repertoire. I will be checking back to see what others eat for lunch. My favorite is homemade soup but with the bulk of the homeschooling taking place in the morning that rarely happens. I save the soup making for the weekend.
Aimee says
Beautiful photos!! We had squash vine borers kill our squash and zucchini and pumpkins. Such a bummer. I just bought an ebook by Renee Tougas on eating Meal-Sized salads for lunch. Trying to do at least 2 a week for our family right now. Our newest lady, Sally, just started laying this past week. Those small eggs are just so cute. Our Silkie bantam should start laying anytime now and I look forward to those wee ones! Probably perfect for toddlers. 🙂
sarahelisabeth says
Potatoes out of the garden are so good.
I don’t know whether it is too hot for you to be cooking at lunch time but soup is a favourite for us. Lentil is the all time best and we add whatever veg are available. At this time of year, tomato and apple goes well. We use Bramley apples as we have a Bramley tree but any cooking apple would do. This is a great way to help use a glut of apples although, sadly, that is something that we won’t have this year. Neither soup takes long to prepare.
Phyllis says
What beauty you have in your life! I love your egg tray!!!