Summer Lovin'
- Colleen Orozco
- Aug 3, 2023
- 3 min read
..."Happened so faaaaast!" Pardon me while I sing a little tune thinking of all the veggies that are in full bounty now that summer is here! Thanks to so many of you for sharing recipes, this makes my day to see how you all are using this stockpile of delicious nutrition!
We are now entering tomato, corn, potato, and endless zuchinni, eggplant and pepper season! And don't forget the string beans in abundance, and gorgeous fruits like nectarines and peaches!
Julie's peachy green bean Salad
from Julie Busher Keating
(Thanks Julie!!!)
One medium, sweet onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound, green beans, trimmed
1 teaspoon snipped, fresh rosemary
one clove of garlic, minced
two peaches or nectarines or three plums
1 tablespoon of lime juice
1/8 teaspoon of salt plus more to taste
And a 12 inch skillet cook onions and hot oil over medium heat for five minutes or just until beginning this often. Add green beans, rosemary, garlic, and salt. Cover and cook for 10 minutes or more until beans are crisp–tender. Remove from heat and toss in peaches with lime juice and salt
Zucchini flour
from Lee McGirr (thanks, Lee!)
With rising concerns on wheat costs, just thought I’d share it. There’s probably fancier ways of doing this out there, but here’s how I learned. Easy peasy. Nothing to it. We love and make tons of zucchini flour every year. You may have heard it called Amish flour or troops flour before. It’s a Staple in Amish and Mennonite household for generations here. It was also embraced in the 1940’s during rationing.
You let your zucchini grow, oversized is actually better. Large to extra large. Marrow sized. I peel mine with a carrot peeler, into thin even strips for less drying time. Or slide it through a mandolin for speed of prep.Run it through the electronic dehydrator or just thread it. .No large seeds if possible for finer texture. Everything else is fine.
It must be absolutely dry. It’s essential. If in doubt always dry it more, any moisture will ruin it during storage. Then run it through a food processor or hand grinder until you have a powdered consistency. It will be a marbled green looking power.
Texture is similar to a good quality whole wheat flour. That is zucchini flour.
Three large zucchini is about four or five cups for me finished. It can be used to replace 1/3 of flour in most recipes without any change to the finished products, acts as a thickening agent for gravies, great for breading fish but we really tend use ours for tortillas and bannock since those are our quick go to breads. It also makes great dumplings and brownies.
Store in air tight jars , or we often vac pac ours!
For us, we still purchase grains from a local family owned grist mill. So this is free, sustainable, easily produced on site and it has a mild taste. Most people wouldn’t pickup on it. It cuts our flour usage by a third . You can do the same with sweet and regular potato, other squash acorns, and pumpkin. I just find myself zucchini is the least flavoured. Plus we get overloaded by the darn things!
Great idea Lee! I will be making some! There's always a rogue zuchinni in the garden!
Paleo Zuchinni Bread
shared from Moira Horan (Thanks, Moira!!!)
Recipe here!
Tomatillo Salsa
shared from Moira Horan (Thanks, Moira!!!)
Don't be scared to use those tomatillos! they make EXCELLENT enchiladas, and salsa verde! It's easy too! Check this out!
Recipe here!
https://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/roasted-tomatillo-salsa-2/
Cherry Tomato Salsa I just made this yesterday with my cherry tomatoes. It's so delish and pretty easy! Great way to use up those tomatoes that you just can't possibly eat all of! and you can preserve this for winter when you wish you had those tomatoes!
All these Herbs!
Are you using the lovely herbs we are getting from CSA? There's so many ways to use them -
toss into your fresh salads,
pastas and sauces
freeze them in olive oil ice cubes
dry them and blend to store!
use them in beverages!!! that's right! Drink them!
I tested this out. it's DELICIOUS. I made with Basil, Rosemary, and mint. The family loved it@ Swap for any herbs you might like - cilantro for example!
And pro-tip: make the simple syrup ahead while the herbs are still nice and fresh - then you can keep the strained syrup in your fridge to make lemonade anytime!
Well, that's a lot of yummy recipes to give a shot! We will be back next week with many more!
Thanks and enjoy in good health!
Colleen
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