If you tend a summer garden, then you are likely confronted with the same joyful dilemma that greets most of your fellow gardeners. When the tomatoes begin to ripen, they come in force! What to do with all these tomatoes? One of my favorite recipes for making use of fresh, ripe, garden tomatoes is this Italian inspired tomato salad with red onions, parsley, oregano, and avocados. Continue reading "Tomato, Onion, Avocado Salad" »  You know what my favorite kitchen gadget is this summer? A spiralizer, or a spiral vegetable slicer. It’s basically a lathe that lets you turn a cylindrical vegetable such as a zucchini or sweet potato, into “noodles”, or in the case of zucchini, “zoodles”. I love pasta as much as anyone, but the truth is my body will not cooperate and let me eat as much pasta as I want without undesired consequences. So, the idea of making noodles with zucchini? Tempting, but could it possibly be as good as pasta? Continue reading "Cheesy Baked Zucchini Noodle Casserole" »  Have you ever had blueberry buckle? Think blueberry muffin meets coffee cake and you’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of a blueberry buckle. It’s a blueberry cake with a dense batter and a streusel topping that “buckles” as the cake cooks. Continue reading "Blueberry Buckle" »  When it’s summer’s high season, and the garden is overflowing with more vegetables than one can reasonably consume, a great way to make use of the bounty is to make minestrone soup. A few zucchini here, a couple chopped tomatoes there, some beans, grab the lonely leek that’s sitting in the fridge, add some chicken stock, a handful of pasta, and in a few minutes you have summer in a soup. Continue reading "Summer Minestrone Soup" »  I still remember the first time I encountered zucchini bread as a teenager. I had a hard time getting my mind around the concept. At the time, zucchini was something my mom made me eat, and not anything you would bake into something sweet. Fortunately, the pathway into my naturally resistant-to-new-foods teenage mind had already been cut with carrot cake. Heck, if you could get something that good out of carrots, why not zucchini? After one bite, I was sold forever. Grated zucchini, mixed into the batter, brings moisture and tender texture to what is essentially a spice cake. Continue reading "Zucchini Bread" »  | | |
