Fresh vegetables from the garden: This spring we planted a little vegetable garden, including several type of heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, chard, and cucumbers. There is nothing quite like fresh veggies from your own garden, picked right before dinner, put on the table still slightly warm from the sun. I’ve really been enjoying slicing and marinating the tomatoes in a little olive oil and vinegar with some pepper and basil on top. They make a great side dish to a summer meal. For the more adventurous, you can serve this with a mayonnaise dip, which brings a little more fat to balance out the acidity of the fruit.
Salads as lunches: In my area, September is one of the hottest months of the year. It’s too hot to cook lunch, and sandwiches get boring quickly. One of my favorite alternatives is a meal-sized salad. Besides some of the regular salad veggies, such as tomatoes, carrots, onions, or cucumbers, you can use some nutrient-rich beets or spicy radishes. Of course, to really be satisfying a salad needs some heartiness and protein. As a vegetarian, I skip the chicken and instead put in a couple of different varieties of beans, but either way works. It may seem odd at first, but grains are also great addition! Quinoa is most protein-packed grain, is cooked the exact same way as rice, and is still good cold on salad. I like to make some ahead of time in the rice maker so I can take it straight from the fridge and mix it into my salad greens. If quinoa is a little out there for you, couscous (a tiny pasta) is another option for adding some carbs. Mix it with some warm broth, let it sit a few minutes, and sprinkle it in the salad. Top the whole thing with your favorite salad dressing, and you might just get out of your lunch rut.
Cloth swim diapers: I can’t count how much money (or how many trees) we’ve saved with these. Instead of buying the disposable paper swim diapers, I’ve got a few pairs of cloth ones for my two year old. I never spent more than $3 per pair, because Babies R Us and Target puts them on sale often. They don’t require any special cleaning regimen; I toss them in the washing machine like anything else. Added bonus: I’ve seen disposable ones fall apart when children with full bladders get out of the pool, giving you two messes to clean up, but the cloth ones won’t do that!
Milkshakes with a hand blender: Ever made a milkshake in a blender, only to realize when you try to pour it out that half of your milkshake is still inside, coating every surface? I’ve been making a lot of protein milkshakes this summer, and as a pregnant woman I am not pleased to have to sacrifice any of my chocolate ice cream to the blender! Luckily we’ve got a hand blender, the kind that is basically a stick with a blender blade on the bottom, and can be placed directly into a glass. You don’t end up losing much ice cream at all. Priceless.
