3 Simple Recipes for Harvest Time

With the change of seasons upon us, it is time to complete the harvest in my Garden that Feeds. It has been a good summer with a robust amount of tomatoes, lettuces, cucumbers. My herbs have been very happy too, especially my basil. Today I am focusing my energy on what to do with an abundance of fresh produce from my garden. I have to admit, I love to garden and I love to grow my own food; however, I am not so in love with cooking and figuring out what to do with it all. I dream about the day when I can pick fresh produce from my garden, whip up a fabulous meal and celebrate with a gathering. You can imagine, one of my goals is to bridge this gap and celebrate life around good meals that I cook.

My cooking goal is inspired by my passion for reconnecting children with nature. Like any good goal, I will start small and take simple steps. I have been exploring easy recipes for kids and also reached out to good friends that grow and cook their own food on a regular basis. I will begin with these 3 easy recipes and try my hand at freezing and canning.

ZUCCHINI BREAD

With a number of huge zucchinis growing like wild fire in my garden, I thought I would start here. I have allowed the zucchinis to grow especially big and have since learned that my options for cooking with this size zucchini are a bit limited to zucchini bread. I reached out to my friend Sara to find a good recipe and to learn a few tips. She recommends that you take out the seeds from these huge zucchinis because they can get tough to eat. She also shared a great recipe for zucchini bread and noted, “If I freeze the zucchini for this recipe I shred 4 cups of instead of 2. So much water is lost in the thaw and you get double the zucchini nutrition.” Include the skin in the shredding.

PESTO

One of my favorite herbs in the garden is basil. I love the fragrance, the taste and the look of fresh basil leaves. Our bees love the basil for pollinator food. My mother is a fabulous cook and I will always remember her whipping up batches of pesto with my two young children (at the time) and freezing it into mini ice cube trays. Brilliant! I love that Pesto is so very simple to make. Here is a great pesto recipe.

TOMATOES

The abundance of tomatoes that I am harvesting this year has me reaching a little out of my comfort zone. What do you do with this many tomatoes? I am catching myself putting many of my little tomatoes in the compost. Seems like a waste. In years past I have simply used all my tomatoes in salads and sandwiches. This year I am thinking about what else I can do with them. I am going to try this recipe for canning tomatoes.  

I will keep you posted as I embark on trying these 3 recipes. Now I want to hear from you.  Do you have vegetables to harvest in your garden? What recipes do the children like in your garden? Write a comment below and share.

Happy cooking,

Victoria

CUCUMBER

We have grown a lot of cucumbers this summer! My son loves to peal and eat them just as they are.