Summer sun, something’s begun
It’s been a beautiful few weeks of produce hauls, with some of our favorites, carrots and zucchini and herbs, cropping up. With each weekly visit to the farm, we’re seeing the tomato and pepper plants reaching up and up and up and reveling in the rows of colorful flowers.
Zucchini blossoms have been my latest flower-eating thrill. I prepared these two different ways this month, first stuffed with goat cheese and pan-fried. I brought these over to Mom and Dad’s for family dinner, along with a salad of cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and sugar snap peas and green and purple basil from the farm.
Another night, I tried a recipe I found online that had a stuffing of chopped tomatoes, egg, and parmesan cheese that was then baked in the oven, which was pretty delicious, too. Dangerously cheesy, as my man Chester Cheetah would say.
We had Mom over one weeknight and I introduced her to the glory of Chef’s Tableon Netflix, over a dinner of roasted veggies and feta, orzo and rice, and minted peas. Jon’s oven-roasted vegetables with olive oil, lemon, and feta are always so good I want to lick the tinfoil clean when no one’s watching. To me, it’s the best way to treat all the delicious carrots, zucchini, onions, and dill we’ve been getting.
I also discovered the magic of kohlrabi. Last year, we bought it from the farm once out of sheer curiosity and had no idea what to do with it, so we cubed it and threw it in the oven with some other veggies as usual. It pretty much got lost in the shuffle and we could barely tell it apart from the potatoes and beets it had baked with. This time, we were dead set on trying it raw, which is definitely the way it’s meant to sing. I sliced it thin with a mandoline (probably my third time using the damn thing in as many years), then sliced it into matchsticks and tossed it with some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and black pepper to make a quick and easy kohlrabi slaw. Super refreshing.
In non-cooking adventures, we’ve had some lovely first beach days over the last few weeks, and I’ve been rekindling my love of tango with an awesome 6-week workshop with Adam and Ciko. And yesterday I enjoyed a rad 4th of July BBQ with family and friends. We ate too much and laughed just enough. I threw our dandelion greens on the grill, Jon made Mexican grilled corn (#America), and we ended the evening with messy s’mores that I was manipulated into making by the checkout section of Target.
Check out that red, white, and blue.
Happy July, everyone!
