The Minimalist Foodie Challenge - Summer

Yum

Today we’re diving into the Summer Edition of the Minimalist Foodie Challenge! If you’ve just found me, or don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, you can read more about the year-long challenge here.

First, a bit of an update. It’s been quiet around the blog the last couple of weeks, but with good reason – we’re in the process of buying our first house. Whee! While this is a really exciting process for us, it’s also an exhausting one. Between house-hunting, getting our current rental home on the market, packing, purging, keeping up with freelance work, and managing two tiny humans, we haven’t had a whole lot of time (or energy) left for blogging. But we’ve been cooking and shooting away in the background, so we’ll have lots of yummy recipes to share in the coming weeks as we get settled into our new home at the end of July. More on that in the coming weeks.

The Ingredients: Minimalist Foodie Challenge Summer 2017 (July, August, September)

PRODUCE (21)	PANTRY (12)
Fruit Banana Berries Lemon Lime Mango Stone Fruit Vegetables Avocado Bell Pepper Carrot Celery Chile Peppers Corn Cucumber Grapes Greens Melon Onions Potatoes Radish Summer Squash Tomatoes	Grains Cornmeal Quinoa Rice Whole Wheat Pasta All-purpose Flour Whole Wheat Flour Fats Avocado Oil Olive Oil Nuts & Seeds Pecans Hemp Seed Other Corn Tortillas Tahini
PROTEIN (9)	DAIRY (8)
Meat and Eggs Chicken, Whole Eggs Ground Beef Steak Pork Shoulder Salmon Shrimp and Scallops Beans Black Beans (dried) Chickpeas (dried)	Cheese Cheddar Parmesan Blue Cheese Fresh Mozzarella Other Butter Cream Whole Milk Sour Cream
TREATS (2)	DRINKS (5)
85% Dark Chocolate (Me) Ice Cream (Cameron)	Non-Alcoholic Whole Coffee Beans Alcoholic Beer Wine Gin Tequila (plus the occasional accent liquor)

Paring down my list to 50 foods was hard, y’all. Summer produce abounds and I literally want to eat everything I see. My Wild Card will most definitely be used on a weekly basis, and so far I’m planning to incorporate figs, tomatillos, eggplant, okra, crab, tuna and a few other ingredients we love but that didn’t earn a permanent slot in the rotation. I’d also like to throw in a grain or two that we’ve been missing, like bulgar, wheat berries, or freekah.

Once again, you’ll see that I’ve included a general catch-all for “berries”, “stone fruit”, and “melons”. Those seasons are short, particularly for berries, so we’ll consume within those categories as the availability for blackberries, apricots, honeydew, and other specific fruits allow.

I’ve used this crazy busy period in my life as an opportunity to slip back into the habit of meal planning. It helps keep me on task both personally and professionally, and it definitely contributes to the MFC intentions of reducing waste, spending less, and maximizing variety. I’m considering launching a monthly Minimalist Meal Plan, and if that’s something you might be interested in learning more about, please leave a comment or send me a message. I’d love to know what’s important to you when you meal plan. Is is the variety of meals you consume? The time investment? Budget? What ticks your meal planning boxes? I’d love to know!