TicTac

@Shelby - with your glut, you should try for some zucchini chips! Bet they would be good.... I did your (or Jaymes's) squash recipe the other night, kids dubbed it 'healthy mac n cheese'!

I have fell down the home-made tortilla rabbit hole. And I love it. The tortillas I am able to make with this Maseca corn flour are delicious! I ordered a tortilla press from Mexico (cast iron) and am wondering about my cooking apparatus - At the moment I am just using my carbon steel pan which holds heat very well, but a large flat slab of metal would be easier...for sure.

Your haul is impressive @Shelby!!! I know one thing that you are going to be making with those great looking zukes! I made a batch of Shelby's pickled squash and they were really fantastic. Gave me a bunch of ideas for further iterations. Picked about a dozen very large zucchini blossoms today, added to the other couple dozen, we will be stuffing and frying tonight! Couple snap peas eaten right at the bush by the little ones, and 2 husk cherries as well were quickly consumed. Aurora peppers are having a bumper crop this year.

Happy Birthday! Sorry to rain on the parade, but your crabs look dead to me - utterly delicious; but dead, nonetheless - 😛- probably better that way for the GI tract! @Franci - Great tip on the frozen flowers. Not sure I would ever have enough to freeze, but something to remember for sure. I probably could freeze some of the 2 dozen or so I have in the fridge ready to be fried tonight....but; why on earth would I!? lol @RWood - I have used goat cheese to stuff as well, comes out nicely too. I would urge anyone with a plant to try cooking some of the younger leaves. They are really delicious (and I bet super healthy too!).

Fantastic! Did you stuff them or just battered? One thing I learned this year as I continue to expand my zucchini/squash knowledge...the female flowers (with the fruit below them) need the male flowers to pollinate and grow that fruit (duh!). Taking no chances and wanting to eat flowers too, I have been meddling with mother nature and put on my scientific robe as I steal (what I have dubbed the Zuchenis) the little stamen in the flower (the bit covered with pollen) and then go and impregnate the females. It has worked 80% of the time this season and then I can without bad conscious, eat the male flowers, knowing they have served their purpose! Not to mention that Zucchini plants love to get a good hairleafCut! The growth on these things is unreal.

Now that I look closer I see that indeed there are bits in the sauce! Furthermore after I re-read my post and see how it could read like I was being a bit of a dick. Apologies if so... no harm intended! That's a pretty good deal I would say. I do not have one of those fancy truffle shavers, one trick I learned was to use a microplaner. Works nicely.

Gorgeous truffle! Great find. Curious as to what that costs 'down under'? Only comment is that you did not use enough! I would say perhaps thinner if you can manage, and about 4-5x as much Then we are talking!

While I do not eat Doritos, we do sometimes take them camping.... Why you ask? Well...let's just say that they burn for a long time and make great fire starters! lol

If you eat tomatoes, you eat MSG!

I have long held this belief. I am slowly converting my front 'lawn' into a veggie garden. Lawns are horrible for the environment. The emissions created by lawnmowers and negative impacts of fertilizers, pesticides and other similar chemicals is astounding. So much so that my wife and I have a running joke of the number of times my neighbour (obsessive about his lawn) will cut his lawn vs how often I will cut mine (for context, I have cut it twice so far this entire year vs. the 10-15 times he has, his!).

Egg Fried long grain rice - tobiko sprinkles

@JoNorvelleWalker Slice the jalapenos and salt them really well, let sit then rinse dry. Plunder some limes from your vast horde and cover with juice. Makes a great addition to many things and lasts quite a while.

Thanks @heidih! Truth be told, this was leftover grilled squid from the previous night - when I saw how fresh it was at the market I had to get a bit extra assuming I would concoct some oddity with it. It was either this, or squid fried rice. Apparently decade's old rolling skills are transferable....

Contrary to what one would typically think (myself included), even larger mid size leaves are fine to eat. Just like nettles, I suppose - the bristles break down completely upon contact with heat. The spines of the leaves certainly retain their texture more than most leafy veg I have encountered. It takes on a bit of a nutty taste when toasted in the pan. And I am guessing it's good for me too 😛

Light summery meal - Vietnamese squid cold rolls - MYO (make your own - or in my case, make 2/3 kids then my own!) fresh herb/peanut sauce, quick shredded carrot/cabbage pickle, mung bean noodles, griddled squid, zucchini sauté (garlic scapes, baby zucchini, zucchini flowers and leaves), green things (green onion, cilantro, deer tongue lettuce, shiso leaf, mint) - Nuoc Cham not pictured. assembled. rolling skills 😉

I have been learning a lot about zucchini this year. Everything from best ways to prune and tend to them to what else can be eaten! We have always enjoyed the flowers, but I learned this year that the leaves are edible (and quite tasty/healthy) too! Younger ones are preferred, no stalk, just leaves - a sautee with onions, garlic (I just did one with baby zucchini's, flowers and garlic scapes as well) finished off with some acid - really nice.

Reapplying another round of cure on the gravlax - tomorrow’s dinner!

Bay Leaf is a very easy plant to grow - quite hardy and happy to be taken inside during winter then thrown back out to Mother Nature as it warms up outside. I will take a shot at some point, but the new growth on my bay leaf (in its second year) is fantastic. I attribute it to the little tree rat who nibbled the ends off (and essentially topped the plant for me) and helped perpetuate the bloom. Like my grandfather always said, plants love to be chopped down - make's 'em good and strong!

The side stole the show last night...(as good as my pulled pork Hawaiian burgers were). bbq roasted whole potatoes cut into 1/8ths - but the sauce - oh the sauce! Pan sautéed garlic scapes pounded in the mortar and pestle with olive oil turned into a paste combined with a mixture of apple cider vinegar fresh mayo, chives basil and parsley. awesome combo.

@rotuts - A cutting will absolutely make your life (and your path to $$$ & stardom - as @weinoo eluded to) much easier and shorter. A guaranteed female from a known breeder will shave nearly a month off your process. Seeds are also fun, as you can hunt for various phenotype's within one particular strain. Now you are headed down a steep rabbit hole....so make sure your harness is on tight! Oh, and if you move to Canada, it is now part of your rights as a Canadian Citizen to grow up to 4 plants.

zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta, sautéed Egyptian onions, prosciutto and parm. no toes were harmed in the making of this dish.

Nothing against the broiler! Certainly would make it easier - though now that I think of it, you most likely will get different end products as I would think the pan method will reduce the overall salsa further. A recent chili order brought a new treat to experiment with, Morita peppers. Really smokey with nice fruity flavors. Roasted and blended, they make a great salsa addition.

The most important part of tonight’s dinner....zucchini flowers! This rendition sautéed with scapes, baby purple onions and a bit of lemon at the end.

Rather than roasting the tomatillos under a broiler, might I suggest treating them similarly to the first post, where the raw ingredients are 'toasted' in a pan - in fact, I continue to cook my tomatillo salsa in the roasting pan and turn it into a sweet/spicy salsa (caramelized tomatillos get a nice sweetness to them). Basic ingredients which can easily be added onto: Tomatillos sliced in half Some type of onion Garlic 2+ types of chili Cilantro Very basic, but many routes can be taken from that starting point.

I've heard storing onions in sand in a cold space for long storage is the best. Great haul @Shelby! Today I pulled about a dozen large zucchini flowers which will be stuffed with a ricotta/ramp mix and pan fried. Also got the first hot (Aurora) pepper of the year. Such a fantastic little purple powerhouse!