I was unable to take a picture for week 6 and we were out of town for week 7. Here’s week 8 for you.

Orient Express Eggplant-2
Peppers-3
Early Jersey Wakefield Cabbage-1
Walla Walla Onions-2
String Beans-1 pound
Genovese Basil-1bunch
Slicing Tomatoes-1
Summer Squash-2 pounds
Boothby Blonde cucumbers-2
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket

Shiro Plums
Peaches
Apricots

I’ve had big plans for these eggplant (eggplant roll-ups) but I haven’t gotten around to making the recipe yet. I’ve also dreamed up an eggplant parm-ish pasta and if I end up making it, I will definitely post about it. We’re getting more eggplant this week so it’s definitely possible.
I made gazpacho yesterday with one of the onions, a pepper, the tomato, and cukes from my garden. The boothby blonde cucumbers were gone the first night. They’re a perfect snack size. I also made a fantastic basil vinaigrette with the bunch of basil, plus some more from my garden. Here’s the recipe:
BASIL VINAIGRETTE
1 garlic scape
1/4 medium onion
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1/4 lb basil
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup orange juice
salt and pepper

Place all ingredients in order in blender and process. Makes approximately 1 pint.

Last night I made a feta and tomato salad with the sungold cherry tomatoes, some grape tomatoes and basil from my garden, parsley from the farmer’s market (I never got around to starting parsley from seed this year). We also ate the whole pound of green beans, lightly steamed. They were very good on their own and I really liked them with a bit of the vinaigrette from the tomato salad.

Summer Squash- 3 pounds
Cucumbers-long green-1
Boothby Blonde Cucumbers-2
Summer Spinach-1 bunch
Scallions-1 bunch
Oregano-1 bunch
Red Leaf Lettuce-1 head
Buttercrunch Lettuce-1 head
Orient Express Eggplant-3

Apricots
Blueberries
Currants

Yesterday evening I picked 3.6 lbs of delicious Kirby cucumbers from my garden. I decided to take three of these tiny giants and make a jar of refrigerator pickles. In the past I’ve used smaller cukes and when left whole, they usually take about a week in the fridge to pickle. Since these were a bit larger, I cut them in spears and I expect they’ll be ready in a couple of days. All that’s in the jar is cucumbers, kosher salt, dill and water.

cucumbers and dill

cucumbers and dill, with salt and water

I really hope they turn out well!

beep beep beep … beep beep beep

Everything is growing like gangbusters. Here’s how things started out, a mere 5 weeks ago. This is from yesterday:

The “upstairs” patio garden

There are lots of little tomatoes but I think we’re still a couple of weeks away from having any ripe tomatoes to eat. Over and over, I’m amazed at how much water the EarthBox wants every day. The tomato plants and the basil I planted in there are positively giant. The kirby cucumbers are starting to grow very quickly and there’s been a couple ready to eat every day. Yum.

Garlic Scapes-8
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch (really 2! see below)
Genovese Basil-1 large bunch
Grand Rapids Lettuce-1 head
New Red Fire Lettuce-1 head
Napa Cabbage-1 head
Summer Squash – 4
(English Thyme-1 bunch)

Yesterday was my first Swap Box win of the season! There was one bunch of the Bright Lights Swiss Chard in there so I swapped it for my bunch of English Thyme, since I have thyme in my garden and I love the Swiss chard.

The Grand Rapids lettuce head was small this week and we polished that off last night along with the rest of last week’s romaine. Now we have only one head of lettuce in the fridge and I feel quite relieved. I also made angel hair pasta with olive oil, fresh basil, parsley, and summer savory. It was quite delicious. As for the rest of the veggies, there will need to be a big batch of asian coleslaw in our future. I think I’ll make roasted summer squash for dinner Friday night and then either some salad or sauteed greens, along with chicken soup and roast chicken. So many possibilities!

It was a rainy 4th of July. We had Jeremie’s sister from Michigan and Jeremie’s cousin from Belgium visiting and everyone was in the mood to relax. In the fridge we had a big tub of hummus but no pita. What is one to do in that situation? Why, make pita of course. Oh. My sources tell me that, apparently, one only comes to that conclusion if one is CRAZY.

No, seriously, it wasn’t that bad. I followed the recipe from Secrets of a Jewish Baker. It uses about 40% whole wheat flour and %60 white flour. I have a new dough rising bucket (super fun) and a new, large rolling mat from King Arthur Flour, and that made the rolling out process much easier. I had been using my regular baking silpat for rolling things out and it just wasn’t big enough.

Homemade pita is tasty pita! I’d do it again.

Shortly after the winter holidays I was browsing through Williams-Sonoma and I found these great cookie cutters. I picked up a set for my cutie nephew Ethan and a set for myself.
This past weekend we went to Minneapolis to visit the family. I made these cookies with my set, as I wanted to bring finished cookies along with the cookie cutters.

We also brought a new book, The Pout Pout Fish. It’s fun to read and the illustrations are great. Most important, Ethan really likes it!

Bok Choi-2 heads
Chinese Cabbage-1 head
Bright Lights Swiss Chard-1 bunch
Grand Rapids Lettuce-1 head
Red Sails Lettuce-1 head
Red Tide Lettuce-1 head
Mizuna-1 bunch
Garlic Scapes-8
Summer Savory-1 bunch

Things are still pretty green this week. I asked the Magic 8 Ball and the outlook is good for salads. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the summer savory. It smells fantastic so I’ll have to hunt up something good. There’s definitely more garlic scape pesto in my future. Mmm.

One of my more favorite food sites to read is King Arthur Flour – Bakers’ Banter. It features good recipes and pictures, but the part that really gets me is at the bottom of each entry, they tell you how much it costs to make the particular item vs. the price of the comparable store-bought item. I love that all my baking is really Saving Me Money. Or something. Frugal Franny, that’s me. We won’t talk about the Shinzi Katoh bento that’s on it’s way to me from Japan.

With all the good basil in the garden and the garlic scape pesto in my fridge, I was jonesing for panini sandwiches. It was kind of, sort of, cool enough on Sunday for me to justify turning on the oven to bake bread.
I mixed up the sponge Sunday morning and had just enough AP flour to do it. I saw King Arthur AP at Trader Joe’s earlier in the week for $3.99/bag but I foolishly didn’t buy it. At the Grade A, all their King Arthur flour was $4.99/5 LB bag. I am quite curious as to how/why TJ is selling it for so much less. Anyway. Since all the flour was the same price, I decided to try the King Arthur bread flour. Given that these loaves are about 65% AP and 35% bread flour, I can’t vouch yet for the performance of the bread flour, but these loaves turned out very well. Good sourdough flavor and a good crumb. Not too holey, which is good for sandwiches. The warm house was good for dough rising.

On a recommendation from Bill, I got “The Perfect Scoop” by David Lebovitz out from the Library last week. Jeremie read through it and decided we should make the Vietnamese Coffee ice cream, partly because it doesn’t involve any cooking. It was quite easy to put together and the ice cream is delicious.

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream
Makes about 1 quart
Adapted from “The Perfect Scoop” by David Lebovitz.

12 oz sweetened condensed milk 12 oz cups brewed strong coffee 4 oz half-and-half 1 tsp ground coffee Whisk together the condensed milk, coffee, and half-and-half. Add in the ground coffee, whisk briefly. Chill thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. The ice cream will be soft. Transfer to a covered container and freeze until firm enough to scoop.