Summer Food Prep – On the Grill!

Now that it’s summer (well not technically by the calendar but by the weather), you probably want more outdoor meals just like me. If you’re even more like me, you prefer to cook outside too! I don’t have an outdoor kitchen (it’s in the long term plans!) but the grill is just enough to take care of a majority of our food prep for the week! My appetite often increases in the summer due to race training and today was no different after I biked, ran and swam in preparation for the Tri Rock Philly in a few weeks. It helps when you can just take what would usually have been roasted or baked in the oven, and throw it on the grill!
I had lots of fresh veggies from the farmers market this past week (plus some just from good old whole foods).

The garlic scapes realllly wanted to become pesto so I whipped one up in the food processor with 2/3 C cashews, lots of fresh basil, crushed black pepper, Himalayan salt, 1/2 tbsp oil, 1/4 C water and a squeeze of lemon.

I knew I’d grill potatoes and the turnips from the market and use the pesto there and would also spiralize some zucchini to use up some more.

I didn’t want all of our food to taste like his pesto all week so I also made a quick jalapeno pesto out of one jalapeno, 2 cloves garlic, a handful of kale, cumin, pepper, salt, and 1/2 tbsp each of avocado oil & water.
This was used on tofu and some sliced seitan. The latter on the grill was a total gamble. I still had the sliced seitan Sweet Earth had sent me and was never a big cold cut person even when I ate poultry so thought grilling it lightly would be good-it totally worked!

In our first batch on the grill I also cooked our farmers market snap peas, the ends of the zucchini that didn’t make it through the spiralizer, roasted two red peppers, and sliced and grilled one of the kohlrabi id gotten at the farmers market. The grilled kohlrabi I do not recommend – maybe I did something wrong but, like the recipe I found called for, I threw a little oil & low sodium soy sauce on it with s+p and let sit for a few hours. It is edible but I want to make the most of this seasonal veggie and am happy I saved two others and will probably make some fries out of them later in the week!

Our second batch on the grill had lots of onions, sliced oriental yams, cod and bicolor corn. We ate the cod last night w/ some pesto turnips, corn (I saved 1/2 the ear) and some of the snap peas & onions.

For breakfast we had also prepped some buckwheat pancakes and a spinach frittata in the morning. Those will carry us through for breakfast, pairing the pancakes with nut butters and the frittata w/ oriental yams, a slice of Ezekiel w/ avocado or a banana.
What to do this week with the rest? We each have a piece of tofu, some potatoes and a salad packed for lunch today and I’m going to shell some edamame later to have with zucchini noodles, roasted red peppers and kale for dinner.

Half of the seitan was seasoned with the jalapeno pesto and half with the garlic scape basil pesto. We can have that torn into salads or on Ezekiel bread with hummus, avocado and tomato and a side salad.
The other pieces of tofu can pair with a stir fry one night. I’ve got carrots, purple abate and bok choy to sautee quickly and that can last another meal with edamame.
The veggies and potatoes are great sides for other proteins we will pull out like black beans and lentils, or can be mixed in with the latter and more lettuces.
All it takes is 60-90 minutes of chopping and grilling to get your week off to a perfect start!
What are everyone’s favorite summer foods? Is there an in season veggie you just don’t know how to use?
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