Replay: How to Make the Most of Summer Seasonal Produce

This is a replay of one of our favorite episodes! Even though we're heading toward the end of summer, there is still so much fresh produce available and plenty of reason to give this one a listen.

We walk through everything that's in season during the summer, talk about farmers' markets and CSAs, and why they're worth exploring. We get into how to pick a good melon, which vegetables you can regrow right on your counter, and do a mini deep dive on eggplant and cherries that includes some facts we think will genuinely surprise you. 

We also share a handful of summer recipe ideas to help you make the most of what's still fresh and in season. Enjoy!

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Ep #18 Summer Seasonal Foods - replay
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[00:00:00] Hi, it's Roni. We are doing a couple replay episodes this month as a bit of an end of summer break for me and Riley. We are sharing episodes that we thought were really great and deserve another listen, including this summer seasonal foods episode. It is so great, and there is so much information in here that we forgot we even talked about And we realize we are reaching the end of summer, but we still thought this was super applicable because there is so much fresh produce still available, and we hope this episode inspires you to make the most of the end of the season.

As always, we appreciate you listening, and we will talk to you again soon



I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the plan to eat podcast. [00:01:00] Today, we are part three of our seasonal food series. And today we were talking about summer. 

Oh, I'm so excited about summer. This list makes me excited. I'm pretty sure I say that every time. I think the thing that excites me the most about summer produce is farmer's markets. It tells me that warm weather is coming. I love fruit a lot. Um, like watermelon just like, feels like eating dinner outside on the patio. Like that's what this list makes me feel. It's far more than just food.

Yeah. I there, there is something special about food in the summertime. Just you saying that like eating food out on the patio makes me really excited for just like the days to be longer. Um, we're obviously recording this not quite summer yet, so I'm just excited for the days to be longer. And for those like warm summer nights where you're, you know, eating a piece of watermelon outside on the back patio, I love that.

I love that.

Yeah. I mean, I [00:02:00] grill pretty much year round, but it's way different to grill in a snow storm than it is to grill on a beautiful summer evening.

Uh, yeah, I made some hamburgers the other night and it was kind of raining and really windy. And I was like, this is not ideal to be outside managing the grill. 

Why do we do this to ourselves? 

I don't know. 

That's too funny. 

We are going to shoot you a list here of some of the summer seasonal foods. This is a long list, but it still doesn't even cover all of the things that could potentially be in season for the summer. It also includes items that are, um, some of the items are in season earlier in the season.

Some are in season later. So it's just a more comprehensive list. Um, because summer just has so many things and uh, sometimes the growing seasons can go on from the middle of summer, all the way into fall. 

Why don't you give us, give us the rundown here, Riley. 

Awesome. All right,

[00:03:00] apricots, hold on. I have to say something. Yeah, I'm from the south. And I say Apricot's like ape, like a chimpanzee ape I give. Um, and so when I read the word, I felt like, oh, I really need to pronounce it like apricots, which is a, probably the way you're supposed to say it, which is why I got stuck on that word.

Um, okay. Apricots Bazell beets, bell peppers, blackberries blueberries butter, lettuce, cherries, corn, cucumber, eggplant, grape tomatoes, green beans, honeydew, melons, nectarines peaches, plums, raspberries, shallots, strawberries, summer squash, tomatillo tomatoes, watermelon, and zucchini.

Dang. I love it. I love all of the things on that list 

Me too.

Yeah, it's a great list. And, um, there's so many things that I'm already thinking about. Like how can I implement these things into [00:04:00] my, um, into my meal plan? Um, there's a really delicious strawberry cream cheese pie that I love to make with fresh strawberries. Um, so like just, I'm just excited about, 

I think there are so many possibilities with summer foods. So like not only are a lot of these foods great. Just to be eaten raw, like fresh out of the garden or, you know, fresh from the farmer's market or the grocery store. But, um, you know, they make great, you know, like you can put them into salads, you can grill them, you can cook them in all sorts of different ways.

I feel like, uh, because there's such a variety of. Produce options here. There's also a variety. It's like such a big variety of recipe possibilities. And not only that, but like one thing that I love to do in the summer is we have, like a strawberry patch in our backyard and it overwhelms us with strawberries in during the month of June.

And so we like to pick all the strawberries and then we wash them and freeze them and save them for smoothies. so like not only is there like. Possibilities for [00:05:00] freshness right now, but there's so many possibilities for like preserving and, getting ready to can things and save stuff for the winter. Um, for when you don't have these readily available or in season. 

I love what you said about, uh, like there are so many possibilities for cooking options and even just eating a lot of these things for all is really wonderful. Um, because nobody likes to be cooking when it's like a hundred degrees outside. Like you don't wanna make your house that. And so just the options for throwing something on the grill, having a fresh salad veggies, or a bowl of fruit, um, it just makes, uh, it makes meals, a little bit different in the summer because you don't have to do as much cooking it relieves some of that, uh, the burden around that, and also just fresh veggies, like in the little like salad of some kind, so delicious.

So good that the other night, actually. So I'm currently doing a cookbook review for the plan to eat blog. You will, it will be out by the time this podcast comes out so y'all can read it on the plan to eat blog. Um, and one of the recipes that I made for it was a. squash, snap pea and asparagus salad. [00:06:00] And, um, it's really good.

It was really good. You kind of just like chop thing, you just kind of chop everything together. So it's like not a lettuce based salad. It's just a, kind of an assortment of vegetables salad and, make this really yummy Dijon mustard, Dijon mustard, and vinegarette dressing for it. And my husband and I sat down to eat and I was like, I actually can't remember the last time we had like a fresh vegetable salad, because it's been like months at this point, because we're just finally getting into springtime right now.

So this is definitely gonna be a salad. I'm mean we make it through like all of summer, because it was so yummy and just like crunchy and fresh. And I loved it. 

We've talked a lot in previous seasonal episodes about how it's important to eat in season. Uh, at why those nutrients are important to you at different times of the year. And so I think it's like, it's good if you're craving those kinds of things, because it's time, it's time for you to start eating those things, your body's ready.

Um, and your body needs those, the nutrients that are in all of those foods. And [00:07:00] so like when a really beautiful, like summer salad is tastes really good. Your body is like, yeah, this one we needed.

Yeah, totally. So one of my favorite parts about the summer is being able to garden. Um, I know Riley doesn't have as much availability for gardening cause she's lives a little bit higher in the mountains. Growing season is a little shorter there, but we like to have a plentiful garden every year.

Like I said, we have a strawberry patch. We have, four raised garden beds and we planted strawberries in one of the raised garden beds. Like three or four years ago, I think. And they have taken over, are spilling out the sides of the garden bed. I don't even know how I think we put in like four plants originally and it's taken over a whole, like four by six garden bed.

Like it's just, they're going absolutely crazy. So it kind of limits the, the room that we have to plant other things, but I love it cause I love strawberries. If you also love to garden, you know, it might be getting a little late in the season, depending on where you live, [00:08:00] but we do have some really great resources on the plan T blog for gardening.

Um, we have a guest blogger, his name's Cody Hitchcock, He's been writing some great gardening posts for us. He's a horticulturist. And so he goes into some of the things of like what you can do to prepare your soil for gardening. You know, how best to water and irrigate your plants, all that kind of stuff.

So definitely check that out. Uh, I feel like gardening is really rewarding. It's really rewarding to go out into the backyard and just be like, I'm gonna pick this zucchini and that's what we're going to eat as part of our dinner tonight. And I grew up myself. 

Yeah, that has got to feel so good. And it's just, um, yeah, really fulfilling that you get to do that, uh, while you were talking about your garden and your strawberries, it actually made me think of one of my favorite things about summer. Um, and that is like Roni mentioned. I live up in the mountains and we have wild raspberries that grow.

And so July and August, uh, you can just go like, go on a hike and eat hundreds of wild raspberries. And they are [00:09:00] delicious last year, Roni and I picked tons and tons and tons and tons. And, um, it's really fun. Every time I'm picking wild raspberries, I'm like looking over my shoulder because we run into bears so many times cause they also love them.

Um, so I'm like looking over my shoulder and like picking a handful of raspberries. They're really tiny. They are. Uh, dime size and smaller. Like if you get one, that's the size of a dime. You're like, look at the biggest one I've ever seen. But that's, that's so funny. You reminded me of your raspberries.

They just grow wild. They grow rampant. Like, um, if you find a patch, the patch is huge and there's hundreds and hundreds and you just can't seem to pick them all. Cause they just go on forever and ever. It's really fun.

Yeah, I think we both picked like a Mason jar full last year and it was like it, I mean, because they're so little, They hardly act like you can't really make anything with them. They're much better to just eat on the spot, but,

They are, I did freeze some last year and made it I've made a pie or two with them. But it's more like a pie topping 

because, uh, it's just not enough to like fill up a whole like deep, deep [00:10:00] pie crust. 

even a thin pie crust. But, um, last year my daughter, I would be picking him and holding him in my hand before I would go dump them in the big jar.

And she would eat 95% of the ones out of my hand. I could have made so many for just her. Um, but she loves raspberries and she loves to pick them too. So it's a really fun activity.

Yeah, that was really fun. And we should do that again this summer. 

Yeah. So another really fun thing about the summer that's one of my favorites is the local farm is a local farmer's market. Um, we live in an area where there are a lot of them seem a lot to choose from a lot of the same vendors, go to a lot of the same farmer's markets, but, you can just find really excellent produce organic produce, small farms, and it could have been grown within like 50 miles of your house, which is just cool.

Um, you can get wild honey. Other pastries and desserts and things like that, the farmer's market is just a fun community oriented event, um, where you're supporting, supporting your local, like ecosystem was that where 

you're supporting your local ecosystem, supporting your local growers. Um, [00:11:00] and you just get some really delicious produce out of the mix.

Yeah. I think that. I'm remembering back to our spring seasonal episode that we interviewed joy Manning in. And she even said she does a lot of shopping at her local farmer's markets in Philadelphia. But she was saying that, you can actually kind of beat some of the like price increases and like inflation and stuff.

That's happening at the grocery stores by going to the farmer's market, because you don't have any sort of. chain situations. It's literally just somebody, you know, they're growing it on the plot of land. That's a couple miles away and then bringing it to the farmer's market. So 

Yeah. 

I think that's kind of a cool.

Aspect of it right now that like, maybe we don't realize necessarily is that like going to the ER, going to the farmer's market versus the grocery store could actually be beneficial in more ways than one, like, could support both ends of the spectrum. You know, it supports your local farmer, but then you could also potentially be a little more budget friendly by buying your produce there as well.

One thing I wanted to mention with the farmer's markets is that. A lot of farmer's markets. [00:12:00] We'll also do a lot of vendors at farmer's markets. Also do, um, what's like a CSA, which is like a community garden share. So a lot of times you have to sign up for the CSA in the spring. I know some of our CSA is around here.

It's April right now and they've already filled up. So, you might not be able to get it until next year, but just something to think about in the future is also getting. garden share. And they're really affordable, particularly if you are a family who eats a lot of vegetables or you want to focus on eating more vegetables.

I know when I've gotten a CSA before, uh, sometimes you get like, there's like so much that you're like, ah, we have to eat so many vegetables this week. It kind of helps you get creative and, um, kind of like incorporate different things into, uh, recipes that you might not normally, or maybe try new recipes because you're like, Ooh, what do we do?

You know, like an eggplant or this honeydew melon that, you know, maybe we wouldn't normally cook with. 

Yeah, that I actually was gonna bring up CSA also. Cause we got a few questions after Joy Manning's, after her episode went live. So I just want to quickly describe what that is. CSA [00:13:00] stands for community supported agriculture. And so basically what you'll do is you'll find a farm or a grower in your area, and you will pay in to said farm.

Um, and then you get a variety of. Like the, the, the bounty of the garden, shipped to you, or you go pick it up once a week, once a month there a variety of ways to do that. But so if you've never heard of that, and that's something that you'd be really interested in, it's actually something I should participate in because of where I live.

And I don't have the access to, I mean, I have access to building a garden, but because our growing season is so short, it's a lot of work for about like a month and a half. Maybe it's longer. Since I don't have a greenhouse where I live, um, joining a CSA is probably something that would be really great for me, but if you've never heard of that, it's something, that's really fun and, uh, could be a really great experience for you. So CSA, check it out, look at them up in your local area.

Yeah, absolutely. Just so you guys know while we love farmer's markets and CSAs and supporting local, it doesn't have to be the only place that you get your produce. Also getting produce from your grocery store [00:14:00] is totally fine. It's just, uh, one thing that we like about seasonal eating is that like, once you're informed about what's in season, you can make that decision wherever you're at.

So whether it's at the farmer's market or whether it's at the grocery store, if you know what's in season, you can. You know, by what's in season and kind of maybe not look at the stuff at the grocery store that came from, you know, across the world because it's not in season right now. 

Yeah. And while that's not a problem, mean we've Roni. And I both certainly eat foods that are out of season. 

Absolutely. 

just tastes better when it's in season. And so like, that's a big reason. It's, it's not. Yeah, there are other reasons, but that's a big reason. It just tastes better. The shortest distance, like, um, if it was like 50 miles from where you bought it or a hundred miles from where you bought it, or even 10 miles from where you bought it, the amount of nutrients they remain in that vegetable or fruit is higher. And then it just tastes better because it's freshly picked and you get to consume it very quickly.

It became from somewhere really long way away and was shipped to, you, had to sit in a truck for a really long time. Even just may not be as good. So.

Just to plug a plan to [00:15:00] Eat feature real quick. We definitely talked about this and at least one of the other seasonal episodes, but, one thing that's one great feature to use in Plan to eat is to tag your recipes with either summer, or maybe you could tag it with a specific month.

So like in Colorado, cherries are best in late June through late July. So if I have a recipe that specifically has cherries in, I would probably tag. so that I knew to use that in that month, rather than just like maybe throughout the whole summer, because at a certain point, the cherries are not quite ripe. Or maybe they're going to be overripe if I'm getting them in August or something. So. you know, just a, just a little tip for using this in Plan to Eat. You can also add tags to your menus in Plan to Eat. So if you have like a summer seasonal menu that you make, you can also tag it with something related to that. 

Yeah. And if you're getting a CSA, um, I'll plug another feature. you may not be able to plan quite as easily because you don't know what's coming in the CSA. and so one way to kind of work around that is that when you get the CSA, you can use the [00:16:00] search feature. Let's say you got eggplant, um, and you weren't planning on eating eggplant, but that came in your book.

Well, and you can search to Eat account to see if you have any eggplant recipes. If you don't make a quick Google search import some, but that can help you utilize those CSA produce items without having to like, panic, you know, like, oh 

no, what do I do with this? Um, and you know, maybe you've already made your meal plan at that point.

Maybe you can start doing your meal planning around the day you receive your CSA. So you can work within that kind of like that system. You get the. Then you make your meal plan and then you're not spending as much as at the grocery store because you came in here, came in your box. So.

That's a great idea. Okay. So one fun thing that Riley and I decided to do for this episode was do, a little mini deep dive into a couple, produce items that are in season for summer. So Riley, why don't you tell us about what you decided to learn about. 

Uh, I chose eggplant. So my little example at the CSA box, came to mind quickly because I chose to learn more about eggplant. Um, [00:17:00] and pretty fascinating. So one thing I'll say is that, did you know that eggplant is actually a berry? 

I didn't know that. 

Yeah. Okay. 

what? Wait, like a, like a strawberry, like. 

It's okay. So they're technically berries, but they're regarded as vegetables. So, the Berry is a part of the night shade family, uh, with potatoes and tomatoes. But yeah, if you, you can go, we'll let, you can check me. You can fact check me right now. Is eggplant a vegetable? I'm typing it in, is I plant a fruit is what I meant.

Yes, eggplant's also known as Aberdeen's along, uh, belonging, the night shade family. They're technically a fruit as they grow from a flattering planet and contain a seed. 

Wow. Okay. Boom. They're in the fruit family. all squash does that mean that regular squash are also are technically a fruit 

Well, eggplants are not in the squash family.

Yeah, but they come from a flat, but like a. Uh, zucchini comes from a flowering plant and it has the seeds in the inside. 

I [00:18:00] did not do a deep dive on squash. 

Well, I know, but, 

Okay. 

be honest, I've always thought that I, a plant was a squash, so 

Let's see what else. They can come in a variety of colors, white, green, purple, um, and purple with white stripes, which is a personal favorite of mine, just because I think it's so pretty. They are 95% water and 50% of their volume is air. So, you know, if you've ever cut, you know, you cut it in, they're very kind of bouncy.

There's kind of squishy. 

Yeah. 

So it does make sense, but just interesting. They are regarded as the king of vegetables in India. And they contain nicotine. 

Oh, 

Yes.

oh wait. Cause they're in the night shade family. So that would kind of make sense. 

They are in the nightshade family, their seeds contain, it's called nicotinoid Alkin alkaloids, which gives it that slightly bitter taste. The concentration of nicotine is about a hundred nanograms per ML, per gram of eggplant. So very, very, very minimal amounts, but they do contain it. , uh, in my research I found that like a cigarette contains [00:19:00] two milligrams of nicotine.

So like in comparison, it's a really low amount of nicotine. But just something really interesting. Like I had no idea. 

Yeah. Wow. 

Yeah, let's see. Um, so eggplants are rich in fiber and antioxidants. They provide 5% of a person's daily requirement of fiber copper, manganese B six and diamine. So heavy hitters in the nutrient department.

They also can act as a antioxidant, and then the most fun thing. Uh, so when I was pregnant with my daughter, um, somebody told me that eggplant Parmesan could make you go into labor. So I searched back. I went all the way back in my plan to eat meal plan to April of 2020, which is when I had my daughter and I have, I took a screenshot and I'm not joking.

I planned, I wrote as a note, something with eggplant the week that I was due, because somebody told me that it's probably just a wives tale, which based on my research, it is just a word. There's a [00:20:00] restaurant in Georgia that claims that it's eggplant Parmesan will put women into labor. And apparently they've had like a substantial amount of women eat it and then go into labor after they had it.

But there's no scientific evidence that it will work. But it's pretty funny. So there you go. If you, if you want to go into labor ads and eggplant into your meal plan, Yeah, so that's about it. Um, I learned a lot about eggplant, pretty fascinating. And hopefully you learned some things that you didn't know either.

That's really cool. So you don't know anybody who's gone into labor for me being a plant, right. Just, just, you're just you're from other people, right? 

Yes. I don't know. Personally, anybody who ate eggplant and went into. But now it's going to be on the list. Here's why my true thought about this is that nothing makes you go into labor before you're supposed to. Um, but you can try, 

yeah. 

um, and if you are pregnant and you were in the last week of pregnancy, you're going to try everything you can.

So.

Well, [00:21:00] I chose to do, um, some research on cherries. so cherries are part of the, I think it's called the rosacea. I think that's how you say it. rosacea family, which is related to almonds, peaches apricots in. So.

I think that's called a stone fruit. It's also known as like a stone fruit, cherries contain melatonin, which is the brain calc chemical that helps you sleep.

So, you know, if you want to get a little bit better sleep, maybe eat a few cherries where you go to bed cherries and their extract are also often used in skin care products and it's considered calming and clearing for your skin. So you can literally find recipes online for cherry face masks to make your skin look glowy and.

Cherries are also high in ax, antioxidants. Also high in boron and potassium, and they are low on the glycemic index. So, which is kind of astonishing for a fruit cause most fruits are a little higher on the glycemic [00:22:00] index, so they can actually help you maintain healthy blood sugar levels. The world's largest.

Um, cherry pie ever baked was in British Columbia and it weighed 37,000 pounds.

I would have been shocked if you said 37 pounds, 

37, 30 7,000 pounds. 

the picture of it. They have it on a tractor 

I was about to say you had to move it with a forklift or something like a 

crane

It's that.

it's basically like a tractor and a crane that they had 

Oh my gosh. That's crazy.

Yeah. Um, and then the last thing that I learned is that there are over a thousand different varieties of cherry trees, but of those 1000, they are defined in two different species, which is sweet and sour.

yeah, just a little bit information on cherry. Sorry. It makes me really hungry. Cause I love cherries and I found two really great recipes online, one for a sweet cherry and onion chutney. Um, which it would be like really great for canning, you know, and then like [00:23:00] you would have it throughout the winter.

You could, Could be a really great addition to a Thanksgiving dinner. You know, maybe if you don't like cranberries, it could be in place of cranberries or maybe just alongside, maybe just alongside the cranberry sauce. Uh, and then I also found a great recipe for cherry salsa.

Just like quick five ingredient, cherry salsa recipe. It was like cherry and lime and jalapeno and onion and maybe salted remember what the other ingredients were, but That sounded really good to me on maybe some like barbacoa tacos or 

That says sound great. I 

love like mango salsas or pineapple salsas. So yeah, that sounds great. 

Yeah, 

Awesome. Thanks for telling us about cherries. I, the deep dive was fun. I'm glad we did it. Um, I learned a lot, 

yeah. 

although I'd like to see a picture of a 37,000 pound cherry pie.

I'll send it to you. Maybe I'll, uh, I'll find the link to the article that had that. And it has a picture in it. I'll put that in the show notes because it's pretty crazy. 

Okay. Yeah, please do that.

Yeah. Okay. So we want to get into some summer recipes, but I [00:24:00] have one more thing that I want to share before we get into recipes.

And, uh, you know, couple of the things on our seasonal list are, um, melons. We got honeydew melon, we got watermelon, we have cantaloupes. And I hope that I'm not the only person who has gone to the grocery store or the farmer's market and been like, I literally don't know what the qualifications are to pick a good one.

Okay. And you just end up picking one and then you bring it home and you're like, that was lackluster. I'm going to give you the five criteria for picking a good melon. Number one is you don't want any exterior damage. So if you find a melon that has like bruises or bumps or any kind of like scarring, or obviously cracks, you don't want that one.

Put that one aside. You don't want that one for color. I thought this was surprising. Dull is. If you a shiny watermelon, it means it's overripe. And with honeydew and cantaloupe, you want it to not be green or white in coloring. [00:25:00] You want it to be more of the like yellow colors. Um, density is important.

So number three is density. You want to choose a melon that.

is heavy in comparison to its size. So if it's like a smaller watermelon, you want it to be heavy. If you want a bigger watermelon, you want to be really. 

That's awesome.

And then number four is when you tap it, you want it to make a hollow sound. Uh, which was all I think I kind of knew already, but I was always like, I know, I see people tapping and my tapping for, I don't know exactly which sound I'm tapping 

So it's heavy and hollow.

heavy and hollow.

which I know doesn't make any sense, but somehow it makes sense. 

Yeah, but that little phrase will help people. Remember 

they'll heavy and hollow. 

dull, heavy, hollow. that? 

Yeah. 

then. For the last one, particularly with cantaloupe and honeydew, you want it to smell fresh and sweet at the site where the stem was. So you actually want it to be a little aromatic for those melons. 

Awesome. 

now you can go to the farmer's market or the grocery store.

You could be [00:26:00] prepared to get the very best Mellon possible. 

That's really helpful. Thanks Roni. Hey, so before we move on to recipes again, I have some more information for you. so there are 12 vegetables that you can regrow on your counter. So you grab, uh, some romaine lettuce. Okay. Well, when you chop off the end, like where it was growing from, like the base of your romaine lettuce, when you chop that off, you can actually take that and put that in a shallow dish of water and it will regrow another.

Plant. So you can basically like get it's so affordable, right? Cause you're buying it one time and you can regrow it, um, to have a whole another head of lettuce.

Oh, and if like in your case, uh, you don't have much garden possibilities for outside, but Hey yo, here you are gardening inside. 

Yup. So there's a lot of reasons why you should start doing this, particularly if you don't have a garden or if you don't like, maybe you don't have a yard at all and they'd be [00:27:00] living in an apartment or something like that. Um, Not only is it budget friendly, but it also really fun experiment to do. Not every vegetable that you get will do this. You can put it in a shallow dish of water, for like up to a week. And if nothing sprouts, if you don't see any new. Growth or anything like that, it's probably not going to regrow.

Um, but for a lot of them you can, but you just kind of have to check, wait and see. So if you have kids and you ended this fun summer project and indoor little indoor counter garden, try that, it could be really fun. So the list of items where you can do this pretty successfully green onions, celery, romaine lettuce, garlic, ginger potatoes, sweet potatoes, basil cilantro, and other herbs, um mushrooms.

Carrots beets and other root vegetables, onions and pineapple. , some of these like the potatoes or the root veggies, once they've sprouted new, like new roots and you'll see them coming off of the vegetable. Those do need to be planted in the dirt. But some of them like celery, romaine lettuce, green onions, those don't need to [00:28:00] be, put into dirt.

They can just grow a whole new plant on your counter.

Wow. That's really cool. And I'm interested that you can do that with ginger. I guess maybe ginger is also a root, so you would have to plant that one as well. 

I'm guessing ginger. Yeah. You'd also have to replant that one, but you could essentially sprout it on your counter., and just continue, um, continue regrouping from that. 

Oh, I love it. What a 

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think my mom did this when I was a kid I've had experience with doing it, but it's been a while. So I think I'll try it this year.

Um, and see what I can come up with.

Cool. Well then hit us with a couple of recipes that you have now that we can move on to our recipe section. 

Okay. So of course, I'm not going to tell you about eggplant without giving you a recipe for eggplant. So I have one for garlic Parmesan, baked eggplant. Um, so it's kinda like a little, like you cut them into thin slices and then you batter them, put them on a baking sheet and bake them in the oven. So kind of just a unique way to eat a eggplant.

I think that, You know, creative ways is also [00:29:00] always good. You don't have to like make it into a casserole or something like that. And that will be a really nice side dish with something that you've grilled. So I also found a recipe for corn fritters, which just, uh, you know, it's, if you don't like eating corn on the cob, this is a great way to like, use up your corn.

Cook your corn. so you make like a little batter of corn and egg and flour, and then once you've got that kind of mixed all together, you put it into an, uh, a skillet with oil, and just fry them up little like kind of crunchy, I guess it's kind of similar to the eggplant, but it 

sounds really good. I haven't made that one.

What kind of like a latke, right? Or a 

Yeah. Yes. Very similar to that. Um, another recipe that I have, and I already mentioned is that strawberry cream cheese pie. And it's so good. My husband and I, there's a restaurant that we love, uh, in Hawaii and they have this. Uh, just amazing strawberry cream pie. Um, and we ordered it the first time that we were there and we went back more than once to get it before we left.

Um, and then when, since we've been back once before we had it again, it's so [00:30:00] good. So I've been trying to recreate it here in our lovely home in Colorado, since we don't live in Hawaii. And I finally found a recipe that's pretty close and so I love it. It's delicious. It's from, let me see who it's from.

It's from the recipe rebel. is the closest that I found. Um, and then I'm gluten free. So I use a gluten-free crust. Um, so, uh, I'll make some notes in my recipe and plan to eat. So if anybody is also gluten free, they can make that super easily. And then the last recipe that I have is a tomato avocado, pasta salad.

I'm a big fan of like a fresh veggie salad with some like mozzarella and avocado and stuff. I'll mix together. Some, a lot of herbs, love that such. I mean, it's a staple Summerside dish for us. I'm sharing that one can use up, you know, you can honestly use a ton of vegetables. You can add in some cucumber.

Um, you don't have to use pasta, but you could, um, lots of herbs, tomatoes, uh, all sorts of stuff you could just throw in there and, kind of add a sauce too. But this is one that I really liked. So I'll share that with one with you guys.

Yummy. I'm going to add those to my meal plan. Yeah. So some ideas that I had, I [00:31:00] have some, uh, specific recipes here, but I also just thought about like a great summer staple is just like a classic BLT, like coming on, like the end of summer. And you get those like big juicy tomatoes out of your garden. And just being able to like, pick one and add it onto a sandwich.

So satisfying, so delicious. And then I also, I really love zucchini and yellow squash. And one thing that I grew up eating is just like sliced squash and onions. And you sautee them like butter oil, and then you can buy this specific seasoning blend it's called Chinese five spice and putting That on.

I don't know what it is about that on the squash and onions, but that was how my mom made it growing up. So good. And her and I both are just like, we rave about it. We tell everybody about it. It's the favorite. I love it so

That sounds really good 

Yeah. 

and different. Like you're mixing it up with that unique spice blend.

Yeah. It's and it's, it's like a warm spice blend. Like it has kind of like cardamom cinnamon flavors in it.

I'm not really what you would expect to [00:32:00] be good in less summer dish, but it's so good. I really love it. And so then I have a recipe that I really love that's for, corn and zucchini salad. Everything is, I'm pretty sure everything is. Well, you boil the corn, but then like the zucchini and everything is all like raw and you just toss it together with a vinegarette that you make in some spices.

Um, it's really yummy. Uh, as I said, with the other salad, I love salads that are a little crunchy. While I do like lettuce salads, I, I like to have some variety and have salads that have crunched to them too. So having like zucchini and that kind of stuff in a salad is always really yummy. And then I have a recipe in my account for chicken burgers, with avocado corn salt.

The avocado corn salsa is out of this world. It's ridiculously simple. It's just literally like avocado, fresh corn from slice from an ear of corn, like salt and pepper and lime. And, but it is so good and I could eat it on everything. It's so yummy. And then 

Sounds really good. 

yeah, it's awesome. And then finally, I have a, [00:33:00] uh, watermelon salad with habenero, pickled onion.

Which is really good. So if you're looking for a way, I also just love to get my watermelon plain, or just like maybe with a little pinch of salt on it. But, If you want it, if you're like go into a, you know, a potluck or a barbecue or something, this would be a great side dish to take that. I think everybody would love.

It's like the sweet watermelon, and then you have a little bit of spice with the habanero flavors, and then there's like lime and apple cider vinegar in it too, to kind of just like liven up the flavors. Uh, so good.

That reminds me of something. Somebody brought us dinner one time and they brought us a watermelon salad with mint. 

So it was just bald watermelon and then chopped mint, um, amazing those flavors together really delicious too. So that's what that made me think of that recipe.

yum. Yeah. that sounds awesome. I love watermelon pretty much any way possible, but you could eat it so good.

Yeah. I think that's one of my. Most exciting things for summer coming. 

awesome, this was fun. I hope that people got a lot out of [00:34:00] it. I hope that you learn some new things about different vegetables and fruits. Um, and I hope most of all, but you got some really delicious recipe inspiration. 

Yeah, I know that I am salivating waiting for summer fruits and vegetables waiting for my cherries and my watermelon. So we hope you guys enjoyed it. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, we would appreciate it. If you would share it with somebody so that they could listen and get on the Plan to Eat podcast, train as well.

And we'll see you guys.