Summer Day in the Kitchen

Summer Bounty

 

Usually most people tend to stay out of the kitchen on a hot summer's day including myself. But now that our garden is coming in, and I mean REALLY coming in, what's a girl to do? This food won't get put up or cook by itself! So early this morning, with coffee in hand,  I started in on what turned out to be a pretty successful day in the kitchen.  After putting up peas and squash for the winter, I began with our fresh tomatoes and turned them into a batch of home made salsa. This is very easy to make, and it makes approximately 2 pints.  Keeps in the fridge for about 2 weeks, but ours never lasts that long! This recipe was adapted from The Pioneer Woman. 

 

Add all the following to the blender and pulse till well combined.

4 medium sized fresh tomatoes (whole -boiled for 1 minute to remove the skins)
2 cans of Rotel tomatoes
1 small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, diced
Chopped jalapeno pepper to taste! I used a tiny, tiny, bit.
1/2 tsp. of sugar
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
juice of 1/2 a lime
fresh cilantro - This is also to taste. Some like less, some like more.

Next up was cucumber dressing. It's a bit tart, so adjust the ingredients with more or less cucumber according to your taste. I also added a bit of sugar to add a touch of sweetness. This recipe makes just under a pint, so if you want more just double or triple it. *Hint* Taste your cucumber first. Sometimes they are bitter and can ruin a batch of dressing. 

Creamy Cucumber Dressing

1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

1/2 cup peeled, diced cucumber

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1 clove of garlic

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

fresh ground black pepper

Add all to a blender and blend until well mixed. 

Then comes the sweet stuff! I am always overloaded with zucchini. Just go back and look at my last post for one of my fav lunch recipes for using up loads of the green stuff. I have several zucchini bread recipes, and this is one of my favorites. It reminds me a bit of fall because of the spicy smell while it's baking, and the taste; well just try it and see for yourself!  These muffins are adapted from a zucchini bread recipe from the following link:  http://www.marthastewart.com/318960/zucchini-spice-bread

We have had a bumper crop of blueberries this year! This is the first year EVER that I have been able to have enough blueberries for cooking/baking/freezing without having to go to a u-pick farm. So far we've picked 3 gallons. One bush we have that is another variety is just now getting ready for harvest. I know it has at least 2 gallons on it! Man, it's loaded! So I found several blueberry recipes that I wanted to try and this is the one I started with today.  It's a recipe for Blueberry Pie Bars and it came from this link: Blueberry Pie Bars

Hopefully you have spent some time in your kitchen this summer with all the yummy stuff that's available from your own garden or local produce stand. Enjoy!