Gazpacho, zucchini saute, and charred cabbage

This week has been a little tough eating enough veggies, because Ed went to VT on Thursday night and didn't bring any veggies with him. He didn't get back until Tuesday, and then I was out of town over the weekend, too, so all of a sudden I'm having too-much-food-not-enough-time anxiety. Anyway, we're back now, and of course Ed stopped by the farm on the way home and picked more green beans and basil and parsley and husk cherries, because clearly that's what we needed. Eep.

So anyway, first order of business was using up some zucchinis. Smitten Kitchen just posted an excellent idea of a recipe, involving lightly-sauteed zucchini matchsticks with buttery fried almonds and some peels of parmesan cheese. While I think maybe a squeeze of lemon would have been good, I'll be saving that for the next one.
https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/08/quick-zucchini-saute/


The other thing I made to go with my pile of zucchinis, besides some steamed corn on the cob (can't go wrong there), was a charred cabbage dish. I like the deep flavor of broiled brassicas, especially when paired with bacon and toasted walnuts. I decided to lighten things up a little and mixed in some lemon zest and cilantro, and the end result was delicious and balanced. Couldn't get enough!

Also, fresh corn. mmmmmmm.



I also cooked up some beet chips. I declare this a most excellent way to consume beets. Simply peel, slice into ~1/8" rounds, and bake a 300F until they start to curl. I dunno, 20 minutes? Then flip, and cook another 20min or so, with a little salt. You're essentially dehydrating them. I took them out to eat them when there was still a little chew, and they were quite tasty. I'll make this again.



Salad of sliced raw beets, cucumbers, savory, and red onions and poppy seeds. Refreshing and sweet.



Gazpacho! It doesn't get any simpler, if you have a blender. You can get all sorts of crazy with gazpacho, but this is a pretty basic one. Two tomatoes, two cucumbers (peeled), about half an onion, a clove of garlic, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste.

You can't have gazpacho without croutons, so I toasted up some leftover sourdough bread in butter, and chopped that up. And then browned some corn kernels from a cob, and chopped some parsley. I mean the gazpacho was pretty amazing on its own, but the additions certainly helped!





New flowers!




It may be sideways, but this was a pretty good one by Ed - salad of cooked onion, garlic, and carrot, then sauteed some green beans on top of that, and combined with boiled beets and raw tomatoes and husk cherries and topped with a poached egg.

Tasty and sweet.

We still have to use up half a cabbage, a head of kale and a head of collards, and three more zucchinis. Tonight will be a very green dinner... or maybe I'll blanch the collards and freeze for later. We'll see.