I mentioned earlier the politics, esthetics, and ethics of food. But to speak of the pleasure of eating is to go beyond those categories. Eating with the fullest pleasure — pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance — is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living from mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend. ~Wendell Berry

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

And the list goes on

Zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, green beans, purple potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes of various sorts, green peppers, habanero peppers (much hotter than I anticipated, even at a very unripe stage), butternut squash, eggplant, pattypan squash, beets, okra, multi-colored carrots...I think that pretty much covers what I've been getting from my CSA subscription and the community garden.  Needless to say, I haven't been buying much in groceries lately except for eggs, milk, and the occasional bag of sugar for canning.  Speaking of which, I bought a half bushel of peaches the other week which I--besides simply canning a large portion of them--made into preserves as well as this delicious peach barbecue sauce (a great recipe that you could simply make fresh).  There are still a few boxes of jars sitting around waiting for an apple-picking excursion followed by applesauce making.  Hopefully they're not bothering my roommate too much!

So what does one do with all the aforementioned produce? Especially when extra, unanticipated zucchini show up on your doorstep?  Well, I've made buttermilk zucchini soup, ordinary zucchini soup, chocolate zucchini bread, pineapple-raisin zucchini bread, cucumber salad, cucumber and basil slush (I was incredibly skeptical of this, but it actually tasted fairly good), ratatouille, roasted root vegetables, sauted squash, okra and tomatoes, and borscht. For the latter (a great soup that utilizes a lot of mid- to late-summer vegetables), Mary and I used a conglomaration of a few recipes, and it turned out well.  We actually only used one beet.  One beet, which yielded 4 cups when grated.  No joke.

The beet which became the borscht:


I hope you're enjoying the bounty of summer as much as I am!

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