Summer is packed full of beautiful fresh ingredients, so I try to work as much of them as possible into my family's meals. But summer is also packed full of activities, scheduled and unscheduled, often leaving less time than I'd like to focus on dinner.

Those are the nights I stare into my pantry trying to find something quick, easy and hopefully healthy to pull together. Sometimes the task is easy; sometimes it isn't. I usually have myself to blame for the times that it isn't. No amount of staring can make dinner materialize if there's nothing in the pantry.

When I let those supplies run low, bad dietary decisions often follow. You know what I mean: "Let's go out to eat" or, worse yet, "Let's grab some fast food on the way home and call it day" kind of bad decisions.

For that reason, I try to make sure I always have a few things on hand, such as canned tomatoes, beans, broth or stock, onions, garlic, rice, pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes and more. With those staples at my fingertips, I find I can usually piece together something good with whatever fresh items I have in my refrigerator or frozen in the freezer.

My pantry saved me this week. It's been a busy, exhausting time, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the store at 6 p.m. As I opened my pantry door, I immediately spied canned diced tomatoes, black beans and brown rice. Hallelujah!

A quick scan of my kitchen counter and refrigerator revealed an avocado, with maybe one day left before it turned to the dark side, a ripe tomato and a few poblano chiles I had bought the week before when I foolishly thought I'd have time to make chile rellenos. A package of flank steak sealed the deal (although the dish would have been great as a vegetarian meal, too). Steak and Black Bean Burrito Bowl was born.

The entire meal took only as long as the time it takes to cook brown rice. If I'd had leftover brown rice or some kind of protein such as grilled chicken or steak lurking in the refrigerator, it would have taken even less time. So my family got a delicious dinner. I used some fresh ingredients that otherwise would have gone to waste, and I didn't have to break a sweat to make it happen. Whew! Saved by the pantry, again.

Meredith Deeds is a cookbook author and food writer from Edina. Reach her at meredith@meredithdeeds.com. Follow her on Twitter ­at

@meredithdeeds.