Every year that I've had a garden I've thrown some sort of a dinner party so that my friends could have an opportunity to share in the bounty. The first year, I was just able to contribute herbs for omelettes, but this year I'm trying to make most of the dishes with 50% or more ingredients from the yard.

We made chilled cucumber soup, bruschetta, scalloped tomatoes and grilled chicken (with garden herbs).



The chilled cucumber soup, sadly, was not a hit. I think most Americans aren't very familiar with chilled soups (myself included), and it feels a little odd to be gulping down a bowl of vegetables and cream. I desperately wanted to find a carrot of bag of chips to dip into my soup instead of drinking it. I usually love Martha Stewart Recipes, but this is one I probably won't be making again.



Still, it was satisfying to harvest two 1/2 cup measures of herbs without denting my total supply.



The tomato topping for the bruschetta was a super simple mixture of diced tomatoes, basil leaves, and a pinch of salt. The bread was a loaf of my favorite, the daily baguette.

I also roasted half a peeled garlic bulb in the toaster oven for 15 minutes, or until the cloves were translucent. I mooshed the cloves with a fork into a paste and had guests treat it as a spread. I should have made more because the dish of garlic was scoured clean after less than 30 minutes of serving as an appetizer.

I should probably get the recipes for the remaining food from Clark, as he made the scalloped tomatoes and grilled chicken. The scalloped tomatoes are especially beloved in our household and it's worth getting the actual recipes correct from the beginning.



Sadly, we ran out of time to grill the giant zucchini. I pulled it out of the garden this morning, but now it's going to have to spend some time in the fridge taking up most of the veggie drawer.

It's so big that it's an appropriate size for a vegetarian version of 'Lamb to the Slaughter'. You know, I could bludgeon someone to death with it and then feed it to the detectives investigating the murder. I'm going to keep that one in my back pocket...just in case.

Labels: food, gardening, projects

posted by Alison 8/12/2009 10:30:00 PM : (2) comments : splink