With that disclaimer, here's a very non-professional post about our recent menus. :)
Our growing season starts early in Phoenix (obviously), so we usually start our garden in February. This year was especially mild, with very few nights with frost, so our mesculun mix greens took right off and we were harvesting salads in just a week or so from planting the seedlings! Our herbs did well right from the start, too, so I combined our mint and lettuce with onions, cucumbers, feta, toasted pita, and a wonderful dressing to make one of our favorite salads: fattoush. The fattoush dressing uses a good bit of lemon juice, which worked out well in using up some of our abundant supply. (We pick lemons from our Lisbon and Meyer lemon trees from about the end of November till April.)
Grilled Moroccan chicken from Natasha's Kitchen goes beautifully with this salad. (I reduce the amount of salt and typically sub lemon juice for most of the oil.) Her recipe also helps us use our surplus of lemons, and our meager supply of cilantro contributes to the marinade before it bolts (I've never had good luck prolonging the cilantro season--it bolts within a few weeks of planting a seedling, it seems.)
I make that Moroccan chicken throughout the year--it's so good! Often I make up a big batch of marinade and process a bunch of chicken at once, bagging chicken tenders or thighs in quart ziplocks with the marinade and freezing for future meals. It makes it easy to pull out a package to thaw for dinner. If I have muffins or bread in the freezer, too, I can warm that and only have to make a salad or hummus and veggies to round out the meal.
We're fortunate to have fruit in season for many months. During citrus season (winter/spring), we feast on blood oranges, tangelos, navel oranges, and grapefruit from both our and neighbors' trees. Sometimes we even get some clementines, tangerines, or mandarins.
I love how pretty and special sliced grapefruit looks sprinkled with flaked coconut:
When we have lemons in abundance, I often make a double batch of hummus every other week--that amount uses up a full cup of lemon juice! (The recipe I linked to tastes the most like hummus we'd buy from shawarma stands and Lebanese restaurants in Dubai. I do often need to thin it with water/olive oil.) If I don't feel like making a salad for dinner, I like the ease of pulling out the container of hummus and chopping some veggies to dip in it. We also enjoy it with Arabic bread, kofta, or sourdough crackers. Clara likes to eat it straight with a spoon!
Lemons in January
I typically cook a big pot of chickpeas in our pressure cooker, freeze them in 4-cup amounts, and thus have them easily on hand for thawing and using in hummus.
These June days bring a bounty of fruit in our back yard! We're so excited about the peaches and grapes this year. They're just gorgeous, don't you think? The children will gobble down as many as they're allowed (and Lydia has been known to sneak sour ones weeks before we pick them), but I think I'll try to freeze some this year for snacks later in summer.
I like that I don't need to put much fruit on my grocery list when our vineyard and orchard are so prolific. We do eat plenty of store-bought watermelon and still stock some apples and bananas and berries. Unfortunately, our apple trees have been a bit disappointing. We got a few Anna apples this year, but we had to slice off wormy parts.
Anna apple on left
It's nice to end a meal with a lovely bunch of grapes or sliced peaches and whipped cream, and I like keeping sugary desserts to a minimum. We do indulge in the occasional peach crisp, pie, or shortcake, though--and the peaches are so good on top of plain yogurt with homemade granola.
Mid-pride peaches
Our dwarf Bonanza peach tree is at the tail end of its season--we've been picking its peaches for close to three weeks now. They're a bit small and sometimes a little mealy, but decent. The Mid-pride yields really excellent peaches, though, and we're on the cusp of what looks to be a lovely harvest. I'm looking forward to peaches with just about every meal in a week or so, plus plenty to slice and freeze for future smoothies, yogurt, snacks, desserts, etc. (We've canned peaches before, but it's long, hot work and hard to do with small children underfoot. The last couple years we've been happier just freezing them.)
Well, I intend to write more about our produce and meals/menu planning, but the children are up from rest time and feeling needy ("I want a snaaack!" "Can I see those pictures? Can I take a picture? Where's a picture of me?" "I wanna sit on your lap, Mama!" etc.). So that's it for now.
