Instead of going out to dinner, buy good food. Cooking at home shows such affection. In a bad economy, it's more important to make yourself feel good.
Ina Garten
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In addition to November and December, August is traditionally a busy month for me in the kitchen. Usually, the tomatoes have begun ripening towards the end of July which means prepping and freezing gallon bags of tomatoes for canning. Our grapes and blackberries ripen in late July to mid-August; I steam and can the juice for making jelly or flavoring kombucha. All summer long, I’ve been steaming and freezing green beans, carrots, and zucchini with the work continuing through August. Some summers I have cucumbers to pickle.
Since I cut back on the vegetable garden this year, plus the drought and frost affected our harvest, I have less canning to do. I’m okay with that because I’ve had more time to do daytrips with the kids. However, I’m still planning on putting local peaches and apples in our freezer and on our shelves. If I have time, I may do a batch or two of cucumber relish and pickles.
August is also my back to school month. Since the first few weeks of September are filled with paperwork, covering books, and fall sports, I spend some time in August making and baking for the freezer. I also do several stock up trips at Costco and the Pepperidge Farm outlet.
Since my kids have loved our cooking adventures in the kitchen, they’ll continue to help me with putting away the garden harvest, and we’ll start trying out recipes for school lunches. 100 Days of Real Food has a good snack list to work off of, plus my kids have their own ideas. I also want to check out the lunch ideas in Eat Like a Dinosaur
KerryAnn of Cooking Traditional Foods has a list of what’s in season in August.
My August Plan
- Prep and freeze tomatoes
- Prep and freeze red cabbage
- Harvest and steam juice grapes
- Stock up trip at Costco using my usual list
- Stock up trip for meat at Whole Foods
- Bake gluten-free recipes using coconut flour and freeze
- Bake chocolate chip cookie muffins and freeze
- Bake zucchini muffins and freeze
- Bake bread and freeze
Is August a busy month in the kitchen for you?
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Due to a cool summer, I have no tomatoes whatsoever to can or freeze right now. I’m envious of yours! I’ll be buying canned tomatoes in large institutional cans for making my salsa this year. Hopefully we’ll still get some green tomatoes. I ripen those slowly in the fall, all wrapped in newspaper, and stored in the garage.
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Hi Barb,
What types of meat do you buy at Whole Foods? I’ve been buying my chicken there.
Question about school snacks…are these for your children only or to share with the class? Reason I’m asking is, at Nate’s school the snacks must be store bought (ugh) due to sooooo many allergies.
Hope you had a great NY trip.
I’ve been buying the family packs. I think I’ve bought the thighs and drumsticks. I haven’t looked at the pork or beef. I did buy nitrate-free hot dogs.
Have you been to the new Whole Foods on 202? It’s bigger than the Wynnewood store, plus the parking lot is SO much better.
The snacks are just for the kids, though our school is not on top of creating an allergy-free zone. Have you tried Amazon’s Subscribe and Save? You may be able to buy some snacks in bulk that way, or BJ’s and Costco’s. I’m going to Costco tomorrow. I’ll see what they have.
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