Meal plans and the week ahead

This past week I was able to get quite a bit done in terms of food preservation. I...

~ canned two batches of black forest preserves
~ made a batch of garlic scape pesto which gave me two ice cube trays of frozen pesto
~ dried two bunches of green onions from the farmers market
~ dried dill from the garden
~ blanched and froze 3 more heads of broccoli from the garden
~ dried and froze more cherries (now I'm up to 6 quarts dried and 4 quarts frozen and I think I'm about done with cherries for the season unless I can find some tart cherries to make cherry pie filling... but tart cherries are usually before sweet cherries, so I think I missed them.)

This week will be a fairly normal week again. Kevin won't be traveling for work at all this week, which will be nice. I'll be going to Detroit on Monday afternoon and again Tuesday morning. I have a late meeting in Lansing on Tuesday afternoon, so that will be a later night for me, but otherwise everything looks good. Here's what I'm thinking as far as meals go this week... but I might change them up a bit once I get back from the farmers market later this afternoon.

Sunday ~ asian grilled pork chops, sesame braised pac choi from the garden, zucchini fritters using some frozen grated zucchini from my garden last year, leftover cherry mousse, Kevin and my Dad worked on my sister's car at our house all day, so my Mom brought over babyback ribs, potato salad, baked beans, and cheesy potatoes.
Meatless Monday ~ super stuffed tortillas, with leftover cherry mousse if there's any left
Tuesday ~ Something easy since I'll be running a little late... tacos are super easy, so we'll do a taco night using ground lamb
Wednesday ~ grilled chicken breasts marinated in italian dressing, whole wheat organic penne pasta with broccoli and cherry tomatoes from the garden, yellow zucchini, garlic scapes, EVOO, and freshly grated parmesan cheese
Thursday ~ grilled burgers using the Voogt beef, oven-baked organic red potato wedges, steamed broccoli from the garden
Friday ~ TBD... possibly grilled pizzas
Saturday ~ I'll be in Lansing for a Girls' Night Out to celebrate the upcoming birth of my SIL's third child. We'll be painting pottery and then going to eat at P.F. Chang's. Kevin and Carson will be on their own with some leftovers, unless they end up ordering pizza.

As for the week ahead and things I hope to accomplish... I have some buttermilk to use up, so I'll have to do some baking. I'm not sure what I'll make yet, though. Maybe I'll make up another batch of those lemon blueberry cookies and freeze them - they were so yummy and easy to make. Or maybe I'll make another batch of scones. I'll have to think about it.

The tomatoes are in already at Eichelbergs farm stand down the road from us. I'm going to wait to see how the beginning of the week plays out, but I think I might make a trip down there to get some tomatoes to do up some salsa. I'm down to one jar left from last year - and that will be used up this week with our dinners on Monday and Tuesday. Its blueberry season now, too. So I think I'll pick up some local blueberries at the market to get in the dehydrator. I ordered four more trays for my dehydrator last week, so hopefully they arrive early in the week because they'll be so handy to dry larger quantities of fruits and veggies. I also ordered the fruit roll screens (I only have 1 screen so far) for the trays so I can try making fruit leathers in the dehydrator. Blueberry fruit leathers sound great right now!

We'll see how much is ready in the garden this week. I know we'll have more broccoli - enough to use with meals this week and to freeze a good amount, too. The cauliflower will be ready soon, too, they're growing such cute little heads right now. The cabbages are so cute right now, too. I'm hoping to harvest the majority of the remaining pac choi to blanch and freeze this week. I'm getting lots of ripe cherry tomatoes right now, but those will be used in lunches, with dinner, or for Carson this week (Carson LOVES tomatoes!!). We've got a couple bell peppers that are getting quite large and it doesn't look like it'll be long before they're ready to pick. I think I'll be able to start harvesting zucchini and beans soon, too. I tore out the peas over the weekend and Kevin tilled up the space for me and I've planted another round of masai haricot green beans there. Everything is growing so well in the garden right now - all the veggies look awesome, but the weeds are growing like crazy right now, too. I'll be doing some major weeding/hoeing back there in the evenings to keep the weeds under control.

I think that's enough to keep me busy for the week... but just in case I need something else to focus on... I want to clean out and re-organize my upstairs pantry again. Its so cluttered and disorganized right now and its driving me absolutely crazy!