Cooking from the garden

Vegetable gardening is always a mixed bag of success. One year you get buckets of tomatoes, the next year just a handful, but enough green beans to feed the neighborhood. Never count your vegetables until after the harvest. 

 After years of his vegetable garden, my husband seems to have discovered the secret to successfully cultivating green peppers. At least this year. I’m calling it benign neglect. We came home from a two-week trip to South Carolina and picked a bucket full. That’s more than we’ve ever had, but that was just one load. The pepper plants have continued to produce. So, we have had fajitas and stuffed peppers, which I had actually not made before. (Sorry, no pictures — they tasted great but were not remotely photogenic.) Here’s my current pepper stash (along with a few tomatoes and one lonely lime). 

I’m told I can just chop peppers up and freeze them to use later in soups and stews this winter. I’m going to give this a try. 

But basil is another story

When all else fails, the basil keeps coming. And coming. For that reason it’s fun to grow, but then what to do with it? Crank up the pesto machine. 

I made my first pesto last year. In the past when recipes called for a dab of pesto to finish off a soup, etc., I just used some from the grocery store. However, as I have learned more (and experimented more) with adding layers of flavor to my cooking, I’ve begun to appreciate this flavor booster.

Last year I made a small-ish batch of pesto and froze it by dropping tablespoon-sized dollops on a parchment-lined sheet pan, freezing them quickly, then storing the frozen tablespoons in a plastic container. I pulled the pesto out by the “tablespoon” as needed. What a great resource! It didn’t take up much freezer space at all and it was perfect to put a finishing touch on soup or add extra flavor to bruschetta.

This year I’m upping my pesto game with bigger batches. Right now I have one jar in the fridge and 4 more in the freezer for friends. We have so much basil, I’m sure I’ll make anther batch to freeze the tablespoon measures for this winter.

We’re calling this Porch Pasta

This recipe is a good example of cooking from the garden or the farmer’s market. It uses fresh tomatoes and zucchini along with the pesto.

I browned a pound of mild Italian sausage and added a zucchini that I had quartered the long way, then cut into half-inch dice. I stirred this combo around a bit until the zucchini was just lightly browned, then added a cup of roughly diced fresh tomatoes. While I was working on this I also cooked a box of rigatoni in a large pot of boiling water, just until al dente. I saved a cup of the pasta water (in case I needed it to loosen up the sauce), then drained the pasta and added it to the sausage/zucchini/tomato mixture. Depending on how much pasta you want, you may or may not use all the rigatoni. (I aim for the pasta to be about half of this dish. You may like more.) Next I added a generous tablespoon — make that two — of pesto.

The pesto adds a bit of creaminess to the pasta as well as flavor. I think the sausage and the pesto flavor the dish perfectly without blunting the freshness of the tomatoes and zucchini. But you could add a pinch of red pepper flakes to the browning sausage. With a green salad on the side, this was a simple and really fresh supper.

No pesto but still delicious

Finally, friends stopped by late Sunday afternoon for a casual supper and I served this Green Bean Caprese Salad  with burgers. The recipe is from Chris at The Cafe Sucre Farine  (whom you should be following whether you like to cook or just have to sometimes). She also included the recipe for lemon-basil oil to use as a light dressing. This salad was a big hit and such a welcome change from potato salad and/or baked beans. Plus, isn’t it pretty? 

And that wraps up August. I always consider this month bittersweet. Summer is sadly winding down but school is starting and I always loved that anticipation. August 31st was my favorite uncle’s birthday. Bill would have been 102 this year. (Yikes!) He taught me to swing a bat, ice skate and even can tomatoes. His simple, straightforward faith carries me along on the toughest days. He’s been gone for a long time, but then again he’s always with me.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week, and I’ll see you again soon!