SOMEONE'S IN THE KITCHEN...

Here's little inspiration created via Polyvore. I've been feeling a little antsy for winter-time, and these items fit the bill perfectly with their silver, white, and all-over neutral tones. I love it! I can't wait to have my own kitchen someday soon to fill with lovely things, and lots of yummy cooking.

Happy weekend everyone!

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!

LOOKING FORWARD: SUMMERTIME FEASTING

There have been some really great posts on Design*Sponge lately (one of my absolute FAVORITE blogs). This past week, Ashley English did another one of her Small Measures With Ashley features on Design*Sponge. I always love her beautiful and simple ideas. This week she had a lovely post about making herb-infused vodkas. I'm not too big on spirits, but I always love finding new ways for using fresh herbs from the garden! Plus, I absolutely LOVE the way the herbs look floating in the bottles with the hand-written tags... what a lovely idea!

 

Design*Sponge

They would make such perfect gifts! Plus she added some flavor pairings form The Flavor Bible. My favorites?

Lavender paired with peaches, lemon peel or fresh berries

Mint with cardamom seeds and peaches

Rosemary with orange slices, apricots, or plums...

YUM!

I just can't wait to start getting fresh produce from the garden and from the Farm Share we signed up for this Summer! Ashley's post really got me excited about all of the amazing and innovative ways we can use the abundance of plants that the Summer harvest will bring. This is our first time trying a farm share but I just couldn't resist the idea of picking up a fresh bundle of produce weekly. We signed up for the regular vegetable share but will also be getting a fruit share as well! I'm looking forward to sharing all of the lovely fruits and veggies we get, along with some great recipes and ideas for using them. I'll start posting those in June or July so stay tuned!

Here are a few other simple culinary wonders that I just can't wait to make:

Pumpernickel Bread (My favorite bread in the world! So excited to try this recipe form Smitten Kitchen)
Tomato Jam (One of my family's favorite summertime recipes... perfect for using up the hundreds of tomatoes from the garden! I can't wait to try it with Cypress Grove Humbolt Fog Chevre... an aged goat cheese with edible vegetable ash.... it's one of my favorite cheeses in the whole world.)
Homemade Butter (Another great post by Ashley on Design*Sponge. She also has another lovely post that I am going to have to try for making beautiful and delicious sounding compound butters. Check that out here.)
Sun Tea (Yet again a post by Ashley... I might be obsessed with her ideas, I'm not sure. For more tea wonder and plenty of gorgeous recipes take a peek at the aptly named Teaspoons & Petals. That's right, its a tea blog!)
Vin d'Orange (I found this recipe in the New York Times' D.I.Y. Cooking Handbook. I want to make pretty much everything from this article, but especially the Fresh Cheese, Horseradish Beer Mustard, Crème Fraîche, and Maple Vinegar... I'm definitely going to be a busy bee in the kitchen this summer!)
Cardamom Scented Oatmeal Pancakes (another New York Times find. I can't wait to serve these up for an al fresco weekend brunch with some honey and butter and plenty of fresh squeezed ginger-grapefruit juice!)

I also am so excited to get a copy of Heidi Swanson's new book Super Natural Everyday. It's been everywhere lately. Design*Sponge and bunch of other blogs have all had recent features (and giveaways that I wish I had won!) on this gorgeous book. I can't wait to get a copy of my own and revel in all of the delicious recipes and beautiful photos. Heidi also has a blog, 101 Cookbooks, full of amazing and inspiring recipes and ideas.

Well it looks like I have my summer set out for me, cooking-wise anyway. Feel free to share some of your own favorite fresh and simple recipes, I'd love to hear about them. And don't forget to stay tuned this summer for pictures and original recipes and ideas from my own cooking adventures.