Groceries

Going for groceries is a weekly trip for me that starts with menu planning.  This time of year it is challenging because I don't know when I will have guests and the garden is producing so much I tend to cook based on what is available.  When I went shopping yesterday I bought almost no vegetables by my family's standard (they are normally our main staple), just tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers.  My own tomatoes and peppers are just starting to be ripe, as I have harvested only one green chili and a cherry tomato, and I only grew oyster mushrooms once with help from Greta and Gus.

Fruit is a bit more extensive, as less grows here. I bought cherries, melon, plums and nectarines.  We grow our own sour cherries, but no plums, and we can't grow melons and eating cherries.  Still, we currently have sour cherries, a few strawberries, rhubarb and raspberries. This turned into great rhubarb-raspberries bars for breakfast.

At lunch today we had peas, beans and kohlrabi with a homemade potato soup (not our potatoes yet) and homemade bread. Yesterday we had our own greens as the foundation of a salad, and a curry with rhiata (I am using up cucumbers and mint). As a result of my impromptu menu, we run out of dairy products, but still have lots to eat.  It is hard to know when to shop, but somehow I manage to spend $200 anyway. 

Teela, Peff and the kids arrived yesterday and I showed them around the yard a little and sent them home with peas before they went grocery shopping.  Hopefully, they will have the same issue. Merlina and Viola loved the yard and spent a while grazing on raspberries and peas.  It was fun to have them, and I hope I'll get to be a grocery store and garden  for them a number of times this summer. Makes me feel like a great grandma, even though I am just evil Aunty Wendy.