Summer Veggies & Cheese

Summer time and the living (cooking & eating) should be easy. Produce is abundant everywhere. I advice growing your own or buying from your local farmer who gardens without the use of any chemicals. Summer enjoyment of the bounty needs to be fresh and in simple preparations so we can get back outside ASAP.  Grating and quick stir frying veggies is easy and a speedy way to get dinner on the table.

For last eve's quicky, get back outside dinner:

• 1 medium yellow squash
• 1/2 large red onion
• 3 medium cloves of garlic (yup, dragon breath here I come!)
• Goat's milk cheddar from Nature's Storehouse, Canton, AND from Goats living and lactating in Candor, NY! How awesome is that?
• Goat's milk Manchego cheese from the Potsdam Coop, maybe it was sheep's milk cheese??? That is what wikipedia tells me manchego is made from and who am I to argue with wikipedia?
• any fresh herbs from your garden or your farmer's garden (basil, oregano, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, thyme, sage, lemon balm... use your imagination here to mix and match fun flavors from Mother Earth)
• butter or ghee from pasture raised, lactating animals

1. heat an appropriate sized pan for the amount of veggies you are grating to feed the crew who will grace your table 
2. add some ghee or butter
3. chop onion into any size or shape you desire and saute in the above warmed up pan
4. while onion is gently cooking, use the above cheese grater contraption and grate the yellow squash
5. when onion is soft but not over cooked, add grated yellow squash
6. while yellow squash gratings are gently cooking, grate your cheese chunks on same said grater contraption            
7. peel garlic and put into your garlic press or finely chop garlic
8. fine chop the herbs you have gathered
9. spread cooking veggie mix into even layer in pan
10.  sprinkle garlic across top of veggies
11. sprinkle chopped herbs atop this mix
12. top with cheese
13. cover pan and turn off heat; you want cheese to melt but do not want mushy, color drained, over cooked veggies (trust me on this one)
14. in 5 minutes or so, uncover pan and place appropriate amounts of food onto the plates of the crew gracing your table

Options to play with this veggie mix: 

• use a zucchini in the grated veggies
• use any seasonally & locally available produce in the veggie gratings. If the veggie is not appropriate for grating (tomatoes), then just finely chop them
• try any kind of cheese that you have on hand or suits your fancy
• add chickpeas, lentils, or whatever bean you crave
• add chunks of chicken, sausage...
• toss some raw nuts or seeds on top of your veggies
• sprinkle with unrefined sea salt (depending on the saltiness of the cheese) and fresh ground pepper
• olives?
• roasted red pepper chunks

Fun, Easy Food with Lentils and Seasonal Veggies!

1.  Start with a tbsp. or two of yummy, grass-fed butter 2.  Put an amount of the cooked lentils you are willing to eat

on your plate.  (Lentil cooking instructions below.)

3.  Add butter to lentils and mix in.

4.  Sprinkle curry powder, to taste, over lentils and mix in.

Like so!

5.  Then I add raw nuts or seeds of choice.  Any nut or seed is yummy: pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, poppy, walnuts, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, pine nuts, hazelnuts....

Tonight's taste sensation was slivered almonds and chopped cashews. Yes, I know these are far from local.  I figure 85-90% of my food is from local farmers.  A little nuts, once in a while, is a delicious indulgence! 

I served it with a shredded carrot and purple cabbage salad that I dressed with some raw sauerkraut.  Sorry, forgot to take a picture of the salad before I ate it!  It was so yummy, I could not wait!

EASY COOKING OF LENTILS:

Boil 1 1/2 cups of water.

Add 1 cup of red lentils.

Bring water back to a simmer, gently.

Keep pot covered, shut off heat, and allow lentils to "steep".

Shred your carrots and cabbage to make your salad.  Add shredded beets too for color, healing food, and another sweet taste in the salad. Chunks of chopped apples are fun too!

When you are finished preparing the salad, put the lentil dish together, and enjoy.

THOUGHTS ON SEASONAL FOODS AND SEASONAL EATING:

Eating seasonal foods makes meal preparation easier.  When your choices are only what is growing locally, in season now OR what can be stored and eaten over the fall and winter, you save yourself from the tyranny of choices in the supermarket.

When we change our food with the seasons, meal preparation becomes simpler! No more standing in the supermarket, overwhelmed by every fruit and vegetable that grows in every season, from every corner of the Earth, available to us every day.  It makes our heads dizzy with what we are supposed to create for a meal tonight and every night this week.

Go with local and seasonal.  Your choices each season are slimmed down; planning and cooking becomes easier.  The process, including eating, becomes more enjoyable.  You will look forward to each season and what new taste sensations the season has to offer.

I also find myself looking forward to the end of seasons:  NO MORE asparagus! (But I so look forward to it again next spring!)  Funny, I am not certain I would ever get tired of fresh, local strawberries...

I am also ready to say goodbye to "green" salads in the fall and I welcome the hearty taste of cabbage and root vegetable slaws.  When spring comes, I crave those green salads again.  The cycles of life are a beautiful thing!