I was picking up some cat food for the real Queen of the house, and I bumped into a friend who said, "My tomatoes are getting ripe. Can I put a bag of them on your porch?" I said, "Sure!" in anticipation of a salad with them, and feta cheese, some pink onions, cubed and stale French bread, some olives, with Balsamic vinegar and locally grown first cold press virgin olive oil. Man, my mouth was watering. So when I came back from downtown yesterday, there was this bag on my porch. I was totally stoked. I hauled the bag into the kitchen and breathlessly looked inside to find...sixteen zucchinis, four yellow squash, two crookneck squash, and one tomato. YMMV, but watch out for the bait and switch. I suppose I'll be baking zuke bread today, and tomorrow, and...

CDF

Water is expensive down here, so few grow vegetables or have flowers or lawns. The water company needs more money so our rates will be going up next month. I miss living in an area where people grow at least some of their vegetables. Maybe my next house outside California.

I eat a lot of tomatoes this time of year, generally from Wally's or Aldi's. The on-the-vine tomatoes or beefsteaks if I can find them. For dinner I often have sliced tomatoes and sometimes other greens, dried or fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil, occasionally feta cheese or chicken and sourdough bread from a bakery in SGs town, SLO.

Our raised beds have done much better this year than last with regard to the tomato crop and the okra crop. I hope we do more of each next year.

Not so many that I have bags of them to share, but enough that we can have okra with dinner once a week or so and some tomatoes every day.

The zucchini crop failed (again) for some reason, which doesn't bother me because I don't eat the stuff.

Gardening is rough with so few bees. Our lemon cukes did well. Our Jerusalem cuke gave us 4. My FIL didn't get more than 1. We didn't bother with maters this year. Japanese eggplants did well

cdf- reminds me of the record of the month club. You're probably getting more bags...

It's sort of lucky that grated zuke tastes like air, so you can add it to just about anything for an extra infusion of vitamins without hurting the taste. It grills up pretty nice and takes grated cheese like a champ. It goes great in quiche along with mushrooms. I use crimini as the white ones taste like air, and you take only so much air in any dish.

CDF

CDFingers wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2024 1:05 pm ...looked inside to find...sixteen zucchinis...

ROFL! Yes, we have the same issue here. Of course, part of the problem is if you plant three zucchini plants, you get enough zucchini to feed the neighborhood. And everyone here grows some zucchini. So we have a rule on our produce swaps: NO ZUCCHINI. Don't even ask. We all have it. We all have more than we need. We are instead swapping minestrone soup recipes so we can use the stuff. OMG.

My wife works at a farmstand. I am inundated with veg, yet they haven't made any hot sauce this year. How is that fair?

When I unpacked the gross of zukes, in the bottom lay two of those long skinny hot house cucumbers. Ermuhgerd, are they divine! Immediately I made that salad with feta, pink onions, those cukes, garlic, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, locally baked sourdough French bread, and some mint from the garden. So, next year I'm'a gonna try growing those cukes. I have a wire grid I put up for beans, and I'll try it with the cukes; I also have tomato cages, so I may grow two plants to see which works best. Never thought to try growing them up here until that salad.

CDF

I don't like raw onions of any type, but I do like cooked onions. I like yellow onions, they're the best tasting when cooked or just lightly sautéed. I often take a yellow onion, a green pepper and garlic and chop them up and sauté them in olive oil. I let it cool a bit and pour it over a bowl of salad greens and shake on Romano cheese. A slice of La Brea Bakery sourdough, a perfect meal.