Christmas in August!

My friend Jessica visited her mom and mom's boyfriend Steve this weekend.  She warned me not to buy too much at the farmer's market because she would be bringing me veggies from Steve's garden, but I wasn't expecting this:

There are several kinds of potatoes, several kinds of tomatoes, beets, squash (both patty pan and cocozelle), beans, japanese eggplant, and lots of tomatillos.  This is on top of the large bags of whole white wheat flour, flax meal, sunflower seeds, and yeast that she bought in bulk for my bread-making adventures.  Oh, and also a few slices of Steve's homemade bread that is quickly disappearing.

Tonight I cooked the cocozelle, beets, and some of the tomatoes, as well as some yellow squash and zucchini that I already had.  I love sauteed squash with onions and greek seasoning, so that's how I cooked the cocozelle.  It was a nice change - still delicious, but with a slightly different flavor.  I sliced the yellow squash for snacks, and baked the zucchini with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and mozzarella.  I ate some of the cocozelle with leftover eggplant and zucchini lasagna that I had frozen (and was reminded of thanks to my last post).  I was so full that I couldn't even try the zucchini.  I'm sure it will make its way on my plate tomorrow.

Then I baked the beets for a nice dessert.  I thought I hated beets.  That's because I had only eaten them pickled, which I still think is quite disgusting.  But I went to Jess's house for dinner a few weeks ago and she was baking some.  She too thought she didn't like them, but couldn't waste what Steve had given her.  We were pleasantly surprised to find out that they are delicious!  Now that I've scratched that off the list, I think the list of vegetables I don't like is empty.

Now I'll have to figure out how to cook the patty pans (I'm thinking stuffed and baked?), and I'm planning to make some tomatillo salsa.

In "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" (a great book, by the way), Barbara Kingsolver describes her family's year of local eating (only eating what they produce on their farm or things they can buy that came from less than 100 miles away).  She tells stories of being inundated with squash and zucchini and trying to trick neighbors into taking some.  I think I finally understand what she means...