WHOLE FOODS August 2012 Menu
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I can’t believe summer is winding down already! But it is great to know that some of the best produce comes in at the end of the season. Tomatoes, basil, okra, peppers, eggplant, and peaches are all at their best in August. I have always thought of them as a fall fruit, but pears start to come in this month too, so I gave you a taste of fall in the Pear Streusel Muffins to whet your appetite for cooler weather and new fall recipes.
Poppy Seed Chicken Pinwheels
Speaking of preparing for the fall, all of our lunches are perfectly suited to stuff in a lunchbox. Poppy Seed Chicken Pinwheels would be adorable in a bento style lunch, but great finger food for adults and kids at anytime. Keep them in mind for an easy and pretty appetizer for showers and end of the summer parties. Maple Pecan Bars would also make a great meal on the go when the school schedule gets going.
Last, we may all be thinking about preparing for our new fall schedule, but we’re still sweating in the late summer heat. So you have three dinners that will require no cooking on your big day (see those marked with ** below). We kept our add on section fairly light this month to keep you cool as well, but also because you may want to add some canning/preserving to your big cooking day at the end of the growing season. We didn’t include any of those recipes here, but our Get Real contributer Marisa from Food in Jars will be sharing with us in the next few weeks, so watch out for those posts on Sundays.
First of all, this isn’t for the grocery store Whole Foods, it is a menu for those that want to spend more time making their meals from scratch. For a detailed explanation of what is involved in creating this menu we have a post welcoming you to this menu. If you are new and not sure how to get started we have a wonderful series starting with 5 easy steps to get you on your way to once a month cooking. Good luck! 
Is your family making the transition to whole foods in 2012? Or maybe you have set a New Year’s Resolution to eat healthier in 2012? Or perhaps you find yourself curious about the whole foods/real food lifestyle? Whatever the case may be, you should consider joining us for our year-long journey to help families transition to real food if they so desire through Get Real 2012!
Looking for some other great ideas for back-to-school breakfasts, lunches and snacks? Check out our 31 Back-to-School Freezer Meals. Or the Back-to-School Mini menu!
The Whole Foods menu is designed for you to enter the NUMBER OF PEOPLE you are cooking for. The menu will yield you approximately 6-10 breakfasts, 8 lunches and 14 dinners. Throughout the month you will be eating each entree 2 times. No, this is not enough to feed you for every meal, but it should be enough to get you most of the way, after all, we still do eat out or eat with friends on occasion.
Pear Streusel Muffins
Breakfasts
Lunches
Dinners
- Simple Stuffed Peppers
- Basil Eggplant Parmesan
- Gingery Chicken With Peaches**
- Flank Steak Fajitas**
- Ginger Cilantro Baked Tilapia**
- Chicken Caprese Sandwich
Add Ons
**Indicates meals that require NO COOKING on your OAMC BIG DAY aka “throw and go” meals, perfect for the family who needs to adjust to just do the quick meals!
Recipe Cards
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Grocery List
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Instructions
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Labels
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Test Cooks
Each month we have some wonderful volunteers who “test” out the menu prior to publication. They do an amazing job of helping to eliminate confusion and mistakes. They may not catch everything but they sure do catch A LOT! If you are interested in test cook, feel free to volunteer. Here is a little bit about this month’s test cooks:
- Fleur Phillips - Make Ahead Mum is a fabulous resource full of great recipes, tips and ideas on how to make fabulous foods in advance. We believe cooking should be great fun! Our philosophy is to create inspired recipes that can be cooked in advance, so you can prepare meals at a time that works best for your busy schedule! Make Ahead Mum can show you how cooking for your family or friends can be super simple. www.makeaheadmum.com
Pinterest:
Are you a person that likes to see the menus visually? Perhaps you should check out the August 2012 Whole Foods Menu via Pinterest to see the yummy goodness you will be cooking up on this menu. Not sure what Pinterest is all about, check out what Once A Month Mom has to say about it.
Get Started
Are you new to Once A Month Mom or once a month cooking (oamc) in general? If so, you might want to spend a few minutes (or hours) on the Get Started Series. If you are in a real hurry to catch on we have written some simple steps for getting started. Welcome! If you are feeling abundantly blessed and generous feel free to donate. 
And don’t forget you can always go back and use August 2011‘s menus if you are looking for something different!
I am excited to start once a month cooking. I have never tried it before. I will be starting with the July Whole Foods menu, and I was wondering, since we try very hard to minimize white flour in our home, if I could substitute some or all of the white flour for whole wheat flour or spelt flour or anything else? Thanks!
Yes you can certainly make substitutions as needed. My favorite substitute for white flour is white whole wheat because it has a nice light texture.
So happy to have discovered your blog! What a great lineup = where will I start???
Welcome! We’re happy to have you here and start anywhere your taste buds lead you!
I started this menu tonight. It looks great. I noticed that my recipe card for 2 people for the Maple Pecan Bars didn’t come out properly. They didn’t stick together. When I looked over the original recipe,I noticed the calculations weren’t correct on the recipe card. you’ll need a little less pecans and a little more of some of the other ingredients. Also, the servings are a bit off. I’ll have to get more pecans and start over, but no worries. The quiche came out great and the quinoa salad tastes amazing!
Thanks for sharing Emily! Our test cooks didn’t mention any issues with the ingredients. I’ll take a look though.
I had the same problem with the pecan bars with 4 servings. To me it seems like the pecans got doubled but nothing else did? They still taste good, but we might just crumble them up and eat them more like granola I think.
Sigh. It appears the original amount needed (start of the equation) was entered wrong. It should be .5 cup for every 1 serving in the yellow box – so it should be 2 cups for 4 servings. It is fixed now. Thank you and sorry.
I am organizing our second freezer cooking day! We loved the menu last month, but found some problems with the grocery list being off. This month, I am comparing your recipe with the original author’s recipe just to make sure.
That leads me to a question about the Basil Tomato Quiche. 6 servings of your recipe seems to equal the recipe as written on the author’s website. However, she calls for 1 onion and you call for 7.5 cups of onion. I am assuming that is a typo, so I thought I would let you know :)
Thanks for the input. Our menus currently go through a rigorous process (http://onceamonthmom.com/get-started-the-life-of-a-once-a-month-mom-menu/). We are currently working to also “audit” these menus a bit closer but it is taking us some time to get it caught up.
The above post should say 12 servings. I set the number of people to 6.
That leads me to another question. Is one 9×13 pie enough for 12 servings?
Looks like there is a typo on the Maple Pecan Bars. When I set the # of people to 4, all of the ingredients match the original recipe except for the pecans. The original recipe has 2 cups of pecans and your recipe has 4.8 cups of pecans.
Also, your recipe shows that this makes 8 bars and the original recipe shows 15. That isn’t a big deal to me though, just means bigger bars :)
It has been fixed, sorry about that.
Simple Stuffed Peppers: when set to 4 people, the Cooked Beans should be 1 cup. Instead it reads 1/2 cup.
Thank you so much for all of your hard work! I love your recipes and the fact that you guys organize everything is a dream!
Wow! There was an obscure formula problem. The brown rice might have been off too. Sorry about that.
Flank Steak Fajitas: when set to 2 people, the red onions reads 1/4 red onion diced on the original recipe.
However, your version states 2.5 cups. Shouldn’t that be closer to a 1/4-1/3 cup?
yes, it was, a little extra onion never hurt anybody, right? (I fixed it just the same).
Oh My Gosh the Poppy Seed Chicken Pinwheels might be the best thing I have ever made!!! And my toddler loves them! Awesome!!!
Hi! I have a question about the pears. It the directions, it’s telling me to puree them? I guessed it just meant throwing them into a blender or food processor? This question is for anyone really as I have never done this before. Thank you so much!
Yes, just blend in a blender or food processor until smooth. If you don’t have either of those, you could probably get away with using a hand mixer.
[...] Fajitas with Lime Beer Marinade Recipe — Andrea MeyersWHOLE FOODS August 2012 Menu body { background-color: #c0c0c0; } body { font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "Nimbus Sans L", [...]
Okay, this all looks fantastic, and I’ve been playing around with concocting my own menu. LOVE all your detailed resources! And the recipes are brilliant.
One question I can’t seem to find an answer to easily anywhere on the site: how do you plan ahead for side dishes with this menu? Do you have suggestions somewhere? I can always fall back on easy baked or mashed potatoes, or steamed veggies, but just curious if you have a resource related to this and I’m somehow totally missing it!
Thanks!
We don’t have a side dish menu, we usually suggest fruits and veggies. We do have side dish recipes/suggestions on our recipe page, not all of them are whole foods oriented though – http://onceamonthmom.com/recipes/ OR http://onceamonthmom.com/oamm_meal_type/side/
Thank you!
This is my first month to try this and I can’t wait!
Let us know how it goes!
Has anyone had experience buying produce ahead when it is on sale, and using it in the recipes already frozen? I have seen indications that meat can be frozen, but I didn’t know about peaches or peppers for instance.
Thanks
Hi Stephanie! I have done that in the past with peppers and other veggies and it’s worked pretty well actually. It depends on the recipe but most of the ones where you are just throwing all of the ingredients together in a bag to freeze and cook later, like a stew or crockpot recipe, they work great!
Thanks!
I cannot locate any of the actual recipe cards. The document I see only gives the instructions up to the conversion chart. I don’t see anything past there. Can you help?
Please disregard my earlier message. I noticed the tabs. oops!
This is my 1st month to try this & I did all my shopping last night. However when I started chopping I noticed I didn’t have enough of some things. My grocery list for 4 people said to buy 2 pears, 4 jalop, 6 peaches & 1.32 c of quinoa while the recipes call for 8 pears, 8 jalop, 8 peaches, & 4 c of quinoa. Most of the conversions were correct though. Is there something I entered incorrectly? Thanks so much for providing this service!
Well, because we do all of these lists by hand at times human error enters in. These recipes had formulas to make them work well that were right on the recipe cards and on the grocery list but got overlooked on the chopping list. The chopping list is actually the one that was off so if you bought what it said on the grocery list and used that you should have had enough.
Had the ginger/peach chicken tonight. LOVE! :)
At one point the instructions mention waiting for the maple pecan bars to cool…but the only baking I note in the recipe is for toasting the pecans. Is this correct? So excited about my first foray into once-a-month cooking. Your website is amazing.
Disregard my question re maple pecan bars—I see that it is supposed to be a no-cook recipe per your asterisks in the description. Sorry about that. It’s a lot to take in!
This will be my first month completing an entire menu, and I am excited. I have a question regarding the basil tomato quiche. I set the recipe to feed four people, but it says I only need 4 eggs. Upon further inspection, none of the ingredients seemed to calculate to the correct amount… It might be user error on my end, but thought you should know. Thanks for the recipes!
According the recipe, that is correct. Best of luck on your first cooking day and we can’t wait to hear how it goes.
I just discovered you, and was checking out the spreadsheet, I’m thinking of trying it out come September, but I can’t get the number to change? I have 6 people in my family and for some reason can’t get the number in the yellow box to change from 1, I tried every page… any ideas?
Ahh… never mind, I think I may have figured out the problem!
Hi I can’t seem to find a link to the recipe cards for members? Not sure if its just me or anyone else?
Rebecca are you logged in?
I see recipe cards for each month except August. Where can we find the excel file with these? much easier to download, format and print. Thanks!
Please see this post it will explain the big changes we made just this weekend. http://onceamonthmom.com/once-a-month-mom-membership-updates/
I have a paid membership, and I still can not find the August recipe cards. I can access the grocery list, labels, etc. but just not the cards. Were you ever able to find these?
If you are a paid member and logged in it should show you a paragraph below the “recipe cards” banner with a link to them. If you are not seeing this it means you are not logged in. If you are having trouble with log-in please email me at info at onceamonthmom.com so we can troubleshoot the issue.
I have not paid for a membership, in fact when I printed my trial month, I had no idea this was going to PAID. But now I’m running into SO many issues with my recipes and grocery list.
One huge issue is with the formatting. I’m finding areas that say like 6.25 cups – chopped …..
Chopped what?! I tried double checking this before I printed all out, but apparently there were a ton more I missed. Also, my version if the poppy seed chicken recipe doesn’t even have how much chicken I need for it. I am so frustrated right now, and the very last thing I want to do is buy this, just to get it figured out.
Clearly my first full month of meal planning is a fail.
Brittany, Sorry to hear of your frustration. It sounds like when you downloaded your menus the formatting messed up and caused issues. You can either follow the directions in this post (http://onceamonthmom.com/all-menus-saving-printing-google-document-grocery-lists-recipe-cards-instructions/) or better yet, just copy them and use Google Docs instead of something like Excel so they don’t get unformatted. If you continue to have membership frustrations you can ALWAYS email us at help at onceamonthmom.com and we will be more than happy to assist you.
I just noticed on the instructions that the Poppy Seed Chicken Wraps are missing. I thought I had just skipped over making them!
I’ll correct that Vonita thank you!