Home grown gardens allow for much greater variety in your meal planning because you are no longer limited to what the grocery store can stock.  When planning a menu based on a garden harvest, I take a two-part approach: 1) evaluate what will be ready to harvest during the week, 2) have several basic meal plans that can incorporate many produce options.  For example, a meal plan that simply includes "vegetables" as a side dish can be filled in with most any vegetable that is ready in the garden that week.  Or, if you know that peaches are going to be ready this week, then you can plan to make peach crumble for dessert or include fresh peaches as a side dish.

I plan my garden to have several things ready to harvest all the time. Here are some basic menu ideas that can accommodate various food coming out of the garden:

Breakfast:

• green smoothies (any combo of greens & fruit)
• omelettes (filled with greens, onions, any veg)
• handfuls of freshly picked berries over cereal or granola

• salad/rice bowls (any greens or veg for toppings)
• vegetable or chicken noodle soup
• pad thai

Snacks:

• zucchini or any other squash muffins
• toasted seeds from the squash
• any veg from the garden with hummus or guac.

Dinner:

• pizza (piled high with greens, tomatoes, peppers, onions, basil)
• tacos or burritos or enchiladas (any veg can be chopped into or topped on these)
• haystacks (rice topped with chicken sauce) (all veg & fruit can go on this)
• spaghetti or lasagna (I make crock-pot sauce with garden tomatoes and finely chopped or grated veg coming out of the garden at the same time)
• grilled veg (eggplant, zucchini, onions, peppers, squash, etc. Slice into 1/4-1/2 inch rounds, brush with oil, sprinkle with salt, grill with or without meat, or make into kabobs instead)
• stir-fry is an easy, easy dish to mix any veg into
• Asian lettuce wraps (any green to wrap, any veg to top)

Dessert:

• simply prepared fruit:
• a quick peach or plum or mixed fruit crumble
• a bowl of cherries with a sprinkle of dark chocolate chips
• watermelon slices, etc. 

Sample menu from a long weekend in June: