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Summer menu ideas

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BBQ Beef sandwich

Lyn wrote to me asking if I'd write about our favorite summer meal standbys. :) Honestly, it's nothing fancy! But here's what we've been doing this summer for meal plans:

We've been eating fresh veggies. The vegetables are almost all from gardens, thanks to my mom giving us goodies from her garden, along with occasional gifts from other gardeners here. :)

I often make two different cooked vegetables with a meal, or plan meals that are made of mostly vegetables. We love eating huge servings of veggies with our meals... so that is how we manage to get the recommended amounts. :)

We've also had lots of fresh fruit. We call the fruit "dessert" for the boys. ;) The fruits are usually on sale at grocery stores. We love fruit! The children can easily eat two bananas each for their afternoon snack... and when we have nectarines or peaches, they eat those like apples -- often two at a time, as well!

Texas Broil steak

And we've been grilling. I mean Joshua has been grilling meats for us. ;) We've had burgers (I love these garlic turkey burgers!) and lots of grilled chicken and even an occasional Texas Broil. It is so convenient to thaw a little meat and ask Joshua to grill it for our main meal of the day!

I also like to make BBQ Beef Sandwiches in the summertime. I use leftover roast meat and just cut/shred it and stir in some BBQ sauce as you warm it up. The very top photo on this post is of a BBQ Beef sandwich. :)

I haven't been doing much baking lately, aside from our bread. Although it's hot outside, the real reason behind my "break" from baking has to do with our attempts to shrink our waistlines a little. ;) Freshly baked muffins, cookies, cakes, or sweet breads are tooooo tempting to me!! I'm sure this winter I'll get back to regularly baking.

I'd love some reader input on this topic! What are your summer meals like? Do you cook easier/quicker meals in the summertime? What are your family's favorites? :)

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Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 02:08.

Looks yummy to me!

I love veggies in the summer time! So good!

I like to fix Tilapia and Salmon! with veggies and brown rice or bread!

My kids have had fresh corn on the cob in their 'snack bowl' this summer! My little 'picky eater' ate a bunch of sliced cukes in his snack today! ....as you can see... we try to get our veggies in!;-)

You really know how to stir up an appetite! Your pics look great!

-Donna-

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 03:43.

we have a lot of salads -

we have a lot of salads - will make up potato or noodle salad and store in the fridge. Big lot of tossed salad is always handy. Cook a roast in the slow cooker and that does sandwiches for the week. Grilled meat with salad is quite common

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 06:07.

our summer meals

We do a lot of grilling as well. Burgers especially! With garden fresh (farm down the road) sweet corn, yum! We definitely eat quicker/easier foods in the summer. Sometimes it's so we don't heat up the house, other times we're busy so we just don't have a huge sit down meal, more of a bite an go. Sandwiches, brinner (breakfast for dinner!) or leftovers from a previous meal.

Donielle @ RaisingPeanuts.com

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 06:56.

Summer Meals

Hi Tammy,

You have some great ideas. We also love veggies in the summer and often eat 2 per meal plus a salad. We also skip a starch like rice or potato to make our meals a little lighter in the summer months. Sandwiches and wraps are a big hit too...my favorite is a fresh picked tomato sandwich sliced with a bit of salt and pepper and mayo on fresh made bread.

Submitted by HeatherHH on Wed, 2008-07-30 07:51.

Other than produce, our summer meals don't vary....

In the summer, we have fresh summer squash and cabbage and corn and such instead of frozen vegetables, and our own strawberries or orchard fruit at times, instead of juice concentrate or bananas, but that's the only real difference. Even our baking with produce like zucchini bread and strawberry shortcake are year-round things, because I freeze plenty.

On many a hot day, I would love to just eat a big salad, or a cold sandwich, or something else cool. But, my husband doesn't care for cool meals, so we don't have them in general. And we're not grillers, any hamburgers get done on the stove, and that happens year-round.

Heather (married in Aug '00, mom to 4 children under 7, with baby #5 due in early Jan '09!)

Submitted by Big Mama on Wed, 2008-07-30 08:06.

More Grilling

I do more grilling also. I even try to make the whole meal on the grill if I can. Toss on a few potatoes or zucchini. I even have grilled pineapple. It is so good with teriyaki chicken. Our grill is gas, so we have a side burner to use also. It sure makes a difference in the house temperature when we use the grill. We seem to eat more sandwiches during the summer also. It is amazing how a nice bread or roll will make a chicken salad sandwich more like a real meal. I will have to try your Texas Broil. I always shy away from steak because I am scared I will make it tough! Thanks again for being here. DeDe

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 08:57.

Meals

Hi Tammy,

Your bbq sandwich looks SO incredibly tasty. We are celebrating my husband's 50th birthday next weekend and we will be having bbq sandwiches. I'm praying for lots of leftovers:) Did you make those buns too? They look really hearty!

We eat lots of veggies in the summer too. It so healthy for us and makes us feel so good to eat what we grow ourselves.

Take Care,

Trixie

Submitted by Tammy on Thu, 2008-07-31 23:28.
Tammy's picture

I didn't make the hamburger

I didn't make the hamburger bun in the picture... that picture was actually taken before we got our grain mill! I have made homemade buns but am still perfecting the technique... to get them just how we want them... :)

Submitted by Meggan on Wed, 2008-07-30 12:10.

Well, I wish I could say

Well, I wish I could say we've been eating lots of home grown veggies, but the season has been so off here in Alaska. The farmers don't know when crops are going to ripen. It's been a slow trickle of veggies every week at the farmer's market, and the paper said its looking to be the coldest summer in the past 20 something years. We've only had two days break 70 this summer. This weekend my husband and I are going to rip out our "summer crops" that aren't doing anything, and put in some cold loving ones that hopefully will make it till October if we have a moderately not too frozen fall.
We got lots of salmon this summer though, so we've been enjoying that a lot.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 14:02.

We've been trying some new

We've been trying some new recipes to use up summer produce since we joined a CSA this summer and I have a small garden for the first time. Today we had a veggie fritatta with zuchinni and swiss chard. We've had lots of pizza topped with fresh tomatoes, basil, and green onion instead of the typical pepperoni. We often steam fresh veggies for side dishes or have a salad from the garden. I, for one have enjoyed the variety. We also grill at least once a week.

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 2008-07-30 14:27.

This Summer has been

This Summer has been different for my meal planning as people continue bringing food since the twins were born. And I didn't get my garden planted this year! But typical Summer meals do tend to be focused around fresh vegetables and lighter, easy to cook foods.

If I can find a sale on fresh NC coast shrimp, we'll get 1/2 lbs. per adult (less for kids) and have boiled shrimp with a vegetable salad and corn on the cob, some crusty bread with it. The boiling is quick, and everybody peels his own shrimp at the table.

I also tend to fix a meat with a couple of simple, bare-bones vegetable/fruit side dishes. The luxury of Summer vegetables is that I don't have to do much to prep them. . . no casseroles or such. Just simply prepared and served.

Emily

Submitted by Emily25069 on Wed, 2008-07-30 15:02.

We do a lot of smoothies and

We do a lot of smoothies and salads. Sadly, our grill isnt up and working.

Do you have a gas grill or a charcoal grill?

Submitted by Tammy on Thu, 2008-07-31 23:27.
Tammy's picture

We have a Weber Q gas grill.

We have a Weber Q gas grill. It is fabulous. We've had it for 4 years and love it!!

Submitted by Gwen on Wed, 2008-07-30 15:59.
Gwen's picture

Summer foods

We like to lighten up in the summer. I love cold pasta salads, and lighter pastas (fresh diced tomatoes, garlic and basil being a favorite). We love lime chicken soft tacos, grilled talipia with lemon basil sauce, and cold dinners like layered bean dip with chips.
I do love summer foods, especially the fresh veggies and fruits. But the first chills of Autumn make me long for fresh baked bread and hearty stews. God is so good to give us foods in season...lots of good things to enjoy the whole year through. :)

-Gwen

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-07-31 09:44.

Wraps!

We love wraps. I can cook a couple of chickens one day, and have shredded chicken and veggie wraps, make chicken salad for wraps, and make some filling pasta salads as healthy dinnertime fare. And of course, there are always plenty of veggies to go in from the garden! We are having such luck with cukes and zucchinis this year. Shredded zucchini is great on wraps for that extra crunch.

Carla :)

Submitted by Martha Artyomenko on Thu, 2008-07-31 11:13.

We enjoy alot of salads and

We enjoy alot of salads and vegetables too. I recently took summer squash, garlic, and added snap peas and some diced tomatoes with basil and fresh oregnano and a little p. cheese. We had chicken and rice with it with warm tortillas.
Tacos and actually we still eat alot of soups and probably more hot dogs than should be allowed! Sandwiches are a big thing too!

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-07-31 11:51.

summertime foods

These are the things that we eat most often in the summer:

grilled burgers
grilled hot dogs or Italins sausage links
grilled hick chicks sandwiches(grilled BQ chicken breast with a slice of cheddar & two slices of bacon on a bun)
coleslaw
baked beans
homemade dill potato salad
homemade bacon ranch macaroni salad
taco salad
regular salad
veggies from our garden ~ green beans, stewed squash, zucchini, etc.
sandwiches
fruit ~ watermelon, plums, nectarines & cataloupe
yogurt
on really hot days we will just haave ice cream for dinner : )

Submitted by Tammy on Thu, 2008-07-31 23:25.
Tammy's picture

Ice cream for dinner

on really hot days we will just haave ice cream for dinner : )

Sounds like every child's dream!! :) 

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-07-31 19:09.

can you say SALADE.. thats

can you say SALADE.. thats pretty much what we live on in the summer.. ofcourse I make other stuff but we always have salade to go with it.. besides my kids LOVE salade.

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2008-08-04 21:00.

Beans

Hi Tammy, I'm wondering what type of beans are in this picture? I'm about to plant and they look succulent!

Thanks,
Sue.

Submitted by Tammy on Tue, 2008-08-05 03:26.
Tammy's picture

They were called "Sugar Snap

They were called "Sugar Snap Peas" (edible pod) and my parents grew them from seed. :)

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