GARDEN!

Our monstrous zucchini, cucumber, and tomato plants! Aren't they beautiful?

I'm finally back home in Brooklyn after a six-week stay in Northampton. It's crazy to think that I'll be here for a while, now that college is over. At the moment, I am trying to make the best of being unemployed by doing lots of the things I love to do but don't usually have the chance to. This means I'm spending most of my mornings in the garden-- watering the plants, weeding, and picking veggies. In the afternoons, I've been trying to find new and creative ways to use all of the delicious fresh vegetables we have from the garden and from our CSA.

A basket full of vegetables from our garden! The last of the rhubarb, hot and sweet italian peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini

Yesterday, I picked four ENORMOUS zucchinis. It must be the heart or something because the size of these are uncanny! We were worried we had let them get too large, since we had been away in Northampton and Saratoga Springs for the weekend and therefore, hadn't had a chance to harvest. But, much to our surprise, the zuchinni were super delicious! So far, my family and I have eaten zuchinni in some incarnation for breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday and today. For starters, I made scrambled eggs with zuchinni, kale, chives, and sage from our garden, and with some onions from our farm share. With a little white truffle oil drizzled on top it was delicious! Then I grated the rest of that enormous zuchinni and used it to make two loaves of zuchinni bread. We used some of the smaller plants for our dinner: zuchinnis stuffed with onions, herbs and quinoa. We baked the boiled zuchinni with the filling and with some mozzarella and Parmesan cheese on top. I added some cut up red and orange heirloom tomatoes from the farm share and some extra rosemary. My favorite!

 Quinoa with olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon juice and some zest. I added some heirloom tomatoes and fresh herbs for the perfect summertime quinoa salad.

 

This morning, its back in the garden. Right now, I'm roasting some beets with garlic scapes (both from our CSA), sprinkled with some fresh picked oregano. I'm about to cook up some zuchinni pancakes-- made with onion, flour, bread crumbs, eggs, mixed herbs, salt, pepper, and Parmesan. I just used the rest of the heirloom tomatoes to eat with the quinoa, tossed with some lemon zest, basil and rosemary. Here are some pictures below of the garden, and what I've been cooking! Enjoy!

 

Beets from our farm-share. Ready for roasting with olive oil, garlic scapes, oregano, sea salt, and pepper.

Eggplants just starting to grow!

 Another view of the garden. I'm so excited for the vines growing on the fence. They have beautiful flowers on them that should be blooming very soon!