What I’ve Planned – Week 15

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With all we’ve received from last week’s and this wee’s basket, half of our kitchen island is covered in tomatoes. I don’t mind that they come a little under ripe, because when we get this many at once, I like to save them up for a big batch to can whole or diced for storage. This week they’re destined for sauce that I’ll freeze to use at a later date. Here’s what I have planned this week for the rest of my veggies.

I’m also planning to try my hand at making some hot sauce with the ground cherries!

What I Made – Week 14

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The most visually impressive meal of the week is these blackberry almond sweet rolls. I recommend straining the blackberry filling after cooking it down to keep out the seeds. It’s an extra step but makes the outcome much less crunchy!
Even though it looks like green peppers in this shrimp quinoa pilau, that’s just the color the purple peppers turned when cooked!
A quick no-recipe meal made from leftover roast chicken, purple peppers cooked with seasoning, and a fresh tomato-onion-cilantro salsa is wonderful for a hot summer evening.
Cheesesteak stuffed peppers are a very fast meal – just layer a slice of cheese, some deli roast beef slices (and I added sautéed onions) and top with another slice of cheese, and bake 20 minutes. I used about a half pound of deli meat here.

This zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe was a new one for me. The oats help absorb some extra moisture from the zucchini, but it’s still definitely soft, even if the edges looked crispy. Next time I would refrigerate it per the directions instead of a quick dip in my freezer!

I STILL have some zucchini to use up, as well as lots of watermelon and cantaloupe to eat, but the cucumbers are slowly becoming dill pickles as we speak!

What I Made – Week 13

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The sauce for this Thai style tofu fried rice was lighter than some stir fries, but still gave a good balance of salty and sweet.
The biggest part of the basket the past few weeks has been the dreaded summer squashes. This squash crust pizza almost makes you forget it’s there! You have to keep the crush dry and thin, but reminds me of a cauliflower crust.
Perfect for a hot summer day, this corn salad with shrimp (instead of crab) comes together quickly and with minimal ingredients, but packs a lot of flavor.
Orzo and squash is a mid summer go-to in our house. Ricotta and basil keep this dish light and makes plenty of leftovers!
With a rare rainy and cooler day, we fired up the oven for some Moroccan-spiced roast chicken with carrots. The warm spices are perfect matches for the sweet carrots.

I forgot a picture of my cheddar squash bread, which collapsed in the center like a cheese soufflé but was excellent warm!

What I’ve Planned – Week 13

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A true summer basket this week! I couldn’t be more excited about corn (all 8 ears!), but won’t say the same for all this squash! Let’s see how many recipes I can hide it in this week.

We’ll eat all our fruit as snacks. I may have to make some additional squash breads to use up everything we got this week!

What I Made – Week 12

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I tried a new recipe for these blueberry lemon scones, substituting regular milk for the plant-based and was sure I was going to regret it. The dough was so soft I dumped it in a puddle on my baking sheet for the chilling step! But somehow it baked up perfectly, and the crunchy sugar topping was a definite must. Consider adding more sugar to the dough if you don’t have any for sprinkling.
Salmon with wilted chard and a tarragon vinaigrette is a true 30 minute meal with flavor that tastes like it’s much more complex. Four salmon filets will leave leftovers for the next day, but we always eat one bunch of chard in a single meal.
These pitas are stuffed with more veggies than you might realize – oven roasted sun gold tomatoes, cucumbers in the tzatziki yogurt sauce, and zucchini in the turkey meatballs! Don’t skimp on the herbs in the meatballs, they give great flavor.
This colorful salad is just beets, avocado, and a puréed onion dressing, but is a nice light way to enjoy beets in the summer.
This dish looks veggie-free, but it hides 3 sliced and then caramelized onions! This is Adas Polo or lentil rice with chicken from the Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat cookbook. I didn’t have raisins or dates, so I used craisins. Samin would also be disappointed that my dish turned out unseasoned. She says to salt the rice cooking liquid until it’s “uncomfortable” and I thought I was probably just short of that but that it would be close enough. I was wrong and should know better than to not trust her instructions…
The recipe for these wok cooked Romano beans seems too easy to be true: char beans and dried chiles, add 1/4 c water to steam until crisp tender, then toss with garlic and ginger, soy sauce and sesame oil, and top with scallions. I’m here to say it was delicious and much more flavorful than you might expect!
This zucchini chocolate orange cake is pretty much perfection (and a great way to use up zucchini). I swap chocolate chips for the pecans and concentrate the glaze and only use about a half cup of powdered sugar since the cake is plenty sweet without it.

We also ate (more!) sunchoke gnocchi with sautéed spinach and polished off the peaches and cantaloupe as delicious lunch time snacks. We still have more onions and cucumbers to use up.

What I’ve Planned – Week 12

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Even as hot as the days are, we’re still getting leafy greens along with our beans and squash, so I’m not in full casserole mode yet! Here’s what we are planning to make this week

Well probably eat the peaches and definitely the cantaloupe for breakfast and snack on the cucumbers throughout the week. I’m still hoping to make a chocolate zucchini cake, if I can stand to run the oven that long this week!