ElainaA

@huiray I would love to use the squash flowers but sadly they are magnets for cucumber beetles - rendering them uneatable, at least to me. And the weather this year is making the insect problems huge. The squash vine borers have not shown up yet but I expect they will. The squash grow so quickly that it is difficult to catch them all small. And I like some large ones for stuffing and for zucchini bread. And the local food pantry and Loaves and Fishes are very glad to get the excess - to me that is a better use than putting them in my compost. Although if we go away for more than two days there will be some so big they are worth nothing but compost.Also - can you really be a country gardener if you don't have a plethora of zucchini?

Kerry - Just how big are they? I can't really tell from the picture.

This is probably the only thing about my kitchen that is even mildly innovative - but I love it. The faucet is swivel mounted. Cold water only, sadly. It is great for filling canning kettles and pasta pots. When we built our house the plumbers (who work for my husband) were all "She wants a faucet where?" I am pretty sure (26 years later) that the idea came not from a cooking or interior design magazine but from one of my husband's issues of Plumbing and Mechanical. Now if there was only some way to drain the pots without lifting them off the stove....

I must have blinked - I swear I checked yesterday. The zucchini explosion has begun. (spoon for scale). I'll make applesauce today so that i can bake zucchini bread tomorrow.

Crate and barrel have some kitchen islands - some on wheels - that I think are attractive. http://www.crateandbarrel.com/furniture/dining-kitchen-storage/1?a=784&campaignid=346481333&adgroupid=27189255413&targetid=kwd-4074774204&adpos=1t1&creative=97871259653&device=c&matchtype=e&network=g&gclid=CLXCrYqu9c0CFQlahgod8v0Ohg My daughter has the Sheridan in stainless steel. She was living in Princeton NJ, very near the C&B outlet store and got it for less than half price.

Pasta with shrimp, the last of the garlic scapes and garlic. And a salad.

@HungryChris My summer squash (both green and golden zucchini) ae just getting underway - which means by next week I'll be overwhelmed. I want to replicate the crustless zucchin and ricotta quiche that @liamsaunt recently posted in the dinner thread. And then every other thing I can think of. And the big ones get shredded and made into zucchini bread, We only recently finished the last one that I froze last year. I am going to search out the recipe Anna mentioned also. (Do you know why people in the country lock all their doors in July and August? If they don't when they come home their house is full of zucchini.)

Deep fried eggplant 'sandwiches' filled with ground beef and onions seasoned with curry powder and a few other things. (From Irene Kuo's Key to Chinese Cooking). I have no idea if these are at all authentic (any opinions from those who would know?) but they are criminally addictive. with rice and mixed stir fried vegetables - zucchini ( green and golden), sugar snap peas (both from my garden), red pepper, carrots, red pepper and onions with minced ginger and garlic and a little sesame oil. Also Barbara Tropp's ma la cucumber fans ( but mine were spears).

The result of the pesto marathon #1 - ready to go into the freezer for a few hours until solid and then popped out and put into freezer bags. Two batches of jam- strawberry with raspberry juice and balsamic vinegar. ( Raspberry juice frozen from last year's fall bearing raspberries) and sweet cherry with cabernet sauvignon. Both from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures. Both the strawbery and cherry crops have been seriously impacted by weather here - very cold/snow in April and drought through June and July. The local 'pick your own' said no cherries and closed very quickly for strawberries. So the strawberries are local but not the cherries. This is act I of my preparation for next Christmas -I send my large extended family, and give many friends, packages of preserves and home made candy (that I make in a marathon in early December.) The two jams look pretty much alike in the picture but, I assure you, they taste radically different.

Today is the first pesto marathon of the summer so I cut lots of garlic scapes and the basil. I usually get 3 cuttings of basil (I also have basil in pots near the kitchen for when I need just a little for cooking - the garden basil is mostly for pesto. If we run out of pesto before the next year's harvest my marriage might be in trouble.)- this is the first. This was about a quarter of the garlic scapes. Arlo likes to help in the garden. He especially likes fennel. The outside tomatoes and some of the squash. I picked the first zucchini today. In the very front you can see a few stalks of cracoviensis lettuce - also called red celtuce. Beautiful green leaves with a purple overlay. It bolts early but that's ok because it never gets bitter and you peel and cook the stalks. The green house tomatoes - its a jungle in there. I am clearly not as careful about pruning the suckers off as i could be. And I don't prune the determinate varieties at all. The ugly: The June honeymoon is over and the flea beetles have arrived in force. This was a very nice planting of red mizuna only a few days ago.

A loaf of ciabatta, sliced horizontally, hollowed out, brushed with olive oil and toasted under the broiler. Painted with garlic scape-basil pesto, filled with roasted veggies - eggplant, tomato, onion - and topped with fontina. Back under the broiler just long enough to melt the cheese. This is a summer staple when it is time to make pesto. With salad, of course.

I also listened to this interview. I have a similar response I think - I NEED to read this. Do i really WANT to read this?

Pork tenderloin, seasoned with homemade 5 spice powder and grilled. Pepper and onion relish with rice vinegar , chili-garlic sauce, brown sugar and garlic dressing. With Trader Joes's brown rice medley that was recommended on the Trader Joe's thread. I was at Trader Joe's in Syracuse this week, stocking up on pine nuts and olive oil for my yearly garlic scape-basil pesto marathon (it will go in the freezer in ice cube trays. We've almost finished last years production.) and decided to try this. We both liked it a lot. Also a pitifully small amount of sugar snap peas because I got very poor germination this year. And, of course, salad.

If you figure out how to do that please let me know!

I'm not posting much because my harvests right now always look pretty much alike - lots of salad greens. But today was the first watermelon radish. I posted the garlic scape and basil pesto that I cut today in the dinner thread.

Garlic scape and basil pesto (both from the garden) over fettuccine with grilled shrimp and salad. Eaten out in the gazebo because it is a beautiful night and I wish it was raining.

Now he admits to be confused. The whole base could be a contact. Other than that he has no other suggestions.

My husband took one glance at these and said "They're flashlight bulbs." I trust him.

Tonight was an early dinner out - at Dano's on Seneca, a heuriger. Comparing it to heurigers at which I have eaten in (or just outside of) Vienna, it is very authentic - not surprising as Dano is Viennese. They do not make their own wine but the are located on the Finger Lakes Wine Trail - meaning that there are multiple wineries close by. Most of their wine is local. However we went for the 'house wine' - an Austrian Gruner Veltliner. First, a bread basket with 4 different breads from a local bakery and 2 spreads - tapenade and artichoke-lemon. Followed by smoked trout with horseradish beet salad and cucumber,tomato, feta salad. (We were boring and ordered exactly the same thing.) Finally, their seasonal fruit strudel - this one with local black caps, and coffee. All this looking down on Seneca Lake. A really delightful evening.

Saturday night: Perhaps the fasted dinner I have ever made. Even if you count the time husking the corn and getting the water to a boil it took under 20 minutes. Cooking time: about 8 minutes max. Grilled tuna, snap peas a la @HungryChris (Thanks! delicious!), and corn. Not local corn yet but acceptable. Sunday night. I can't take any credit here - Barney cooked. Mixed garden greens with a dressing of soy sauce, rice vinegar, fresh ginger, chili-garlic sauce and oil, topped with sauteed mushrooms and steak that was brushed with sesame oil and seasoned with s&p and toasted sesame seeds. With a plate of tomatoes, cucumber and red onion with oil & vinegar. Not from my garden yet but local farm stands are bringing in almost local produce from the farms and orchards up on the lake where the season is ahead of us. No cooking tonight as we have a reservation at a heuriger on Seneca Lake. (Dano's on Seneca). Dano was born and worked in Vienna until coming here in midlife so it is quite authentic. And a gorgeous setting.

So glad you were there to eat it.

Actually I get a pretty good view from the gazebo behind out house. It looks straight down the hill to the garden. We've had some hot weather here (well, hot for this area - high 80's, a few 90's (F)) and it is VERY dry. Some of my greens - arugula, spinach, mizuna, Persian cress - have bolted. But When I choose my lettuce varieties I try to get ones that are tolerant of heat. I usually have useable lettuce into August.

This was supposed to be part of my above post. These beans are supposed to be Tongue of Fire - beans for drying, that, in everything I can find about them (I have never grown them before) are bush beans. Yet the plants are looking more and more like pole beans - thrashing around for something to climb on. So, either these are atypical Tongue of Fire beans or the seeds were mislabelled. Tomorrow i am putting in some poles and trellis for them to climb. And, in time, I will see what I have.

Some garden pictures: These are my experimental dwarf tomatoes. They seem to be doing very well so far. Fennel, basil and radicchio. Need to cut the basil soon - basil/garlic scape pesto to freeze! The tomatoes in the greenhouse. I am pruning the indeterminate varieties but probably not as assiduously as I should. They are half again as tall as the tomatoes in the outside garden. Leeks and onions. And a red romaine lettuce that managed to plant itself among the endive.

We are not vegetarian but I do meat-less dinners 2-3 times a week. Usually risottos or pastas. There are lots of great options. The dinner I posted last night on the dinners thread was really good - orzo cooked as risotto with garlic scapes, mushrooms and spinach/arugula. (use your bolting rocket/arugula)