Slave (Cook) to the Garden

You would think with a four day weekend, I could get a post up here but I tell you dear readers, the pool, baseball and the Wii take a lot of time and work! Of course there has also been cooking--and the more time consuming "planning to cook" activity which these days amounts to looking out at the garden and seeing what we are overrun with and must eat and eat now.

It never fails that when we plant a garden, I tend to think of it all coming on at the same time leading to thoughts like: "we'll have fresh lettuce and tomatoes for salads, sandwiches and what not" or "doesn't a fresh pea and eggplant dish sound good?" Of course the reality is that it comes in waves. First came the lettuce (which is still coming in piles), followed by peas and then cucumbers and now peppers and squash. Really--no complaining here. It is great to buy virtually nothing for dinner and to eat these wonderfully fresh veggies. Here are a few dishes from the last week.

First up is your standard fresh veggie dice with peas, peppers, zucchini and summer squash.

Then you got your quick cesar salad out of our fresh lettuce with garlic crostini.

Lastly here is a zuchinni / summer squash ricotta cheeze cake which is more of a quiche.

This last one might be of interest, so here is the recipe as I did not just breezily whip it up out of thin air--although I did modify to use the many herbs we have growing using primarily oregano and rosemary this time around.

Now I will be gone for a week and when I return expect to thinking about what to do with our giant chard, the malabar spinach, eggplant and maybe, just maybe a tomato--oh let there be tomatoes!