Summer eating from the garden

Having been more or less in lockdown for these months I have to honestly say I am heartily sick of cooking.  Or maybe I should say I'm sick of my OWN cooking.  But since Pete doesn't cook, it's my own or nothing.  The one saving grace has been all the fresh produce from the garden.  Here are a few recipes I've tried this summer that are keepers.

Fresh tomato tart.  This is from the Midwest Living website and so simple.  Made with meaty heirloom tomatoes and lots of basil fresh from the garden it is just delicious.  I like to use the less juicy Amish paste or Brad's atomic tomatoes but Cherokee Purple would knock the flavor out of the park, too.  The only tweak I might try next time I make it is to crumble some bacon in it.  We eat a pretty clean "whole-foods-plant-based diet" but when summer comes with the heirloom tomato riches I can tell you...we eat bacon with those tomatoes!  Served with fresh sweet corn, this is summer eating at its best.  

Panzanella.  I use Ina Garten's recipe from the Food Network website.  The only changes I made are leaving out the capers (none on hand) and using green peppers from the garden instead of the red and orange ones the recipe calls for.  The vinaigrette that goes with this recipe is perfect and you might just find yourself tipping the bowl for the last delicious drops.  This uses heirloom tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, peppers and onions from the garden and makes a wonderful summer supper.  Cherokee purple and Costoluto Genovese were my tomato picks for this dish.  The chunky fried bread cubes soak up the juices.  Yum.

Probably the most unusual recipe I've tried this summer is baked cucumbers.  I have never eaten a cucumber except RAW in my entire life but I read this recipe a few years back in Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Cookbook and thought I wanted to try it once before I die.  We have some unusual white cucumbers (McNeely's White) in the garden this year and they are delicious cukes.  They are short and stout and I thought they'd be perfect for stuffing.  Cut the cukes in half and scrape the seeds from the center with a spoon.  Set them on a rack in a pan and steam them over water until just slightly tender.  Remove and stuff the centers with whatever you like - I used seasoned cornbread stuffing.  Top with cheese and bake until heated through.  Pete and I both approached them rather cautiously but were digging in with gusto after that first tentative bite.  He carefully removed the skin while eating his, I just cut it up and ate it all (kind of the same way we each approach a baked potato!).  

I also have discovered the joys of blistered green beans!  I don't think I have a photo of these but they are soooo good.  I stir-fry the fresh green beans in a large frying pan, using no oil.  They will blister and scorch slightly.  Maybe a drop or two of balsamic vinegar or soy sauce at this point but not enough to wet them too much.  Throw in some french-fried onions and stir them well with the beans and that's all there is to it.  The heat and blistering brings out great flavor in the beans.   The beans below got preserved by canning but there are plenty more where these came from!