Quintessential Summer Supper

 Cherokee Purple, Sungold and Pink Bumblebee tomatoes with some summer friends

I can't get through July without posting about this most summery of plates.  We've been eating some combo of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and snap beans once and sometimes twice a day for the past couple of weeks.  I do not tire of this grouping as I know it will never taste quite the same at any other time of year as it does when it comes fresh from the garden.

Some S&P, O&V and a smattering of feta or cottage cheese with some purple onion for bite and fresh basil for pizazz, its just hard to go wrong.

On the left up there is a zucchini stuffed with a custard made of fresh corn, egg, milk and cheese.  It's topped with fresh tomato sauce made of nothing but onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil with peeled chopped plum tomatoes.  It is so sweet and simple.

I added a pile of lentils last night for some more protein.  French lentils are great eaten cold, worth a try if you haven't and they cook up quickly too.

Best news of all.  It's raining.  Rained last night too.  A half an inch and I'm feeling maybe we'll have another half inch or more tonight.  Everyone, even non-gardeners, are breathing a sigh of relief.

 Corn Stuffed Zucchini (Calabacitas rellenas con elote)

           Adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico 

3 large zucchini- wash, trim the ends and cut in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the flesh and save for another dish, leaving a 1/4-1/2 inch thick "boat" to hold the custard.

Put in a blender:

   Scraped kernels from 3 ears of corn

   1 egg

   1-2 T milk (enough to free the blades of the blender)

   1/4 t salt and some fresh pepper

Puree

Add 1/2 cup of grated cheese, and give another zip in blender

(I like muenster but you could use jack or cheddar)

Put zucchini boats in a baking dish, pour the custard into the boats, top with more grated cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes-one hour.

Serve with fresh tomato sauce and some chopped fresh parsley or basil.

FIG-alicious August

Whoa- what happened to August?
Let's see....
There was a vacation.

Here we are with our peeps out in Missouri

We had an amazing visit and adventure in the Ozarks with brother Jon and sister-in-law Candy.  Together we camped and floated down the crystal clear and cold spring fed Current River in the Ozarks National Scenic Riverways.  It was good to go and see everyone, but after 2,000 miles in the car and 9 nights in 7 places, we were glad to get back home.  We've been back a week and I'm just now feeling like I might be getting caught up on things, though you know the reality of life in the country, you never really get caught up.  Everywhere I look I see another task that needs tending to.

Something else that's been taking up lots of time, surprise, surprise- harvesting and processing.

Figs were coming in like crazy before we left, this is a fraction of what we were dealing with. 

 Add cupfuls of the above, fresh sliced ginger and lemon...

 

 Bubble, Bubble Toil and Trouble

Ta Dah!! 

20 jars of fig and ginger preserves to stash under the bed with the canned tomatoes and peaches.


I made another 4 pints yesterday with the ones we harvested after we returned, they are coming in daily and if we don't pick them quick, they turn to fruit fly and wasp food, dripping sour juice or full fledged fuzz balls covered with fur.  I think they are slowing down.  They sure are tasty both fresh and cooked.

The tomatoes really are finished and it's time to pull out the dead and dying squash, cukes and early beans and plant the fall garden.  I am happy to report the forecast for this week brings a cold front on Wed that will usher in cooler drier fall weather. Pretty much from the first hot humid days in June, I wait eagerly for the moment when the weather cools again.

But now- I need to go out and mow the grass.

My fig preserves:
12 cups (after prepping) washed, stemmed and halved fresh figs
6 cups of sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 whole lemon; quartered lengthwise, seeded and thinly sliced
2 inches of fresh ginger; peeled and thinly sliced
1 stick of cinnamon

Put it all together in a large heavy bottomed pot and bring to a simmer.  Cook one to two hours stirring frequently over a medium-low heat until thickened.  If you have a thermometer, it should reach 221 degrees.  Be careful not to scorch or burn on the bottom.  Be careful when you stir, it can splatter and burn you!  Makes about 10 half pints.  To process, pour hot into sterilized jars, top with new canning lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.  Remove to cool.
OR put in containers in the fridge, give to friends and keep refrigerated until its gone.
Slurp,slurp.

The Lotus Pond

Last summer David brought home a black plastic tub and some tiny lotus plants.  He filled the tub with mud, brought water from the farm pond to introduce a few water creatures, nestled the plants into their new home and we waited.  Within a couple of months we had breathtaking, spectacular flowers.

D would visit the little pond daily to see what was up, who was hatching, growing, zipping in and around the floating leaves.  All kinds of frogs moved onto the scene.  The lotus pond became a source of entertainment and natural wonder.

During the first warm nights this past spring, when we opened the windows to let in the night air, along with the breeze came a deafening call of dozens of tree frogs just outside the bedroom window where the little pond sat.  David constructed a plywood sled that he hoisted the pond onto and then used to drag the heavy pool across the yard and settle the tub further away from the bedroom window.  He brought soil to pile around the edges and planted iris and ginger lilies to soften the black plastic rim.  Just this past week the lotus began to bloom again. 

They are ethereal.

Along with the frogs and whirly gig beetles, tadpoles and skimmers came dragonflies.  Nymphs that spent the winter in the mud began to crawl up out of the muck onto the stalks. Their backs split open and out hatched the winged creatures, filling up like butterflies coming out of a chrysalis, then taking wing around the yard, snatching up mosquitoes and other small flying insects.

Dry nymph shell above, dragon ready to fly below

Buddhists consider the lotus to be representative of the journey to enlightenment, from the murky mud rises a beautiful flower, its opening an awakening or rebirth.  I'm glad to see the fat purple buds and pink flowers gracing the yard again and its timely that they came at the summer solstice, I certainly have felt my own energy rising after the passage of the first day of summer.  I've not reached enlightenment, I'm far from that, but I do feel a release from things that were weighing me down, a renewal of my spirit moving me forward to new things. 

I'm trying to embrace summer as best I can.  

Swimming outside, riding my bike, long evenings drinking gin and tonics, playing croquet and watching the fireflies rise up from the lawn, suppers of tomatoes, corn, squash and cucumbers, and I picked our first ripe blueberry today.

Yep, summer has arrived.

Free Time

Here is an example of what can happen when a person has some extra time again.  Lemon-blueberry muffins from the last of last years blues, making room in the freezer for the new crop.  It'll be coming along soon now.  The berries are beginning to have a blueish cast to their greenness, I can hardly wait.

I have to admit I've been reveling in a bit of freedom for the first time in a while, doing things like swimming laps and walking and going to yoga class again.  Cooking, reading, hanging out with my honey.

I finally got some more beans planted this week, about a month later than normal, yellow Roc D'or and flat italian Pension and borlotto beans for shelling.   I also put in a row of okra and planted a row of purple hull peas on either side, we'll see how that works out but I think they should be able to co-exist in the wide bed I put them in.  I don't plant okra every year as it takes a lot of space.  You need a fairly long row to have enough to actually "make a mess'" as they say here in the south, since they only put on one okra per plant at a time and don't store well at all in the fridge.  My favorite thing to do is pick them small, about 3 inches long and saute them up whole, quickly in a hot skillet in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper, just till they are bright green, still a little crunch left and not getting too slippery.  If there is a surplus I will pickle them.

It's Memorial Day weekend, the political start of summer, and even though the longest day is still 3 weeks off, it's feeling pretty summery around here, both weather wise and mood wise.  Let me just say, I am ready.