Another week of this fun…
In addition to the normal haul (potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini, corn, etc) we got some new things this week – including white peaches and long beans!
And more of these beautiful shelling beans, which I think I forgot to show you last week…
So pretty!
Kyle said this was the best chili I ever made, which is hilarious to me because it was barely a chili. It had tomatoes, beans and ground beef, but beyond that it was such a hodgepodge of veggies…anything I could grab to use up the CSA before our next one arrived. Leeks, red onions, garlic, and peppers that I had no idea of the spice level. I even threw zucchini, panpatty squash and corn in!!
The kids loved it too and it was gone after just a few days.
I made a big jar of pesto for the freezer since I didn’t have plans for basil in the menu that week (plus we have our own basil in the garden in case something came up).
Plus three jars of pico de gallo. One for now, two for the freezer.
And the rest just got incorporated into various meals.
Like this Mediterranean build-a-bowl situation, which I basically made up as I was cooking it.
I had already roasted some veggies in anticipation of using some portion of them in the meal, but didn’t decide what exactly was going to go down until dinner time came around and I really had to make a decision. We had been waffling back and forth about going to farmer’s market and in the end we decided to stay home and keep things mellow. Kyle had been traveling and had more trips coming up and so it seemed like more of a treat to lay low.
Enter pasta. The fastest option of all.
This box of banza was the only GF option in the house (I keep the bulk noodles on hand, but they are wheat based).
It cooked much faster than I thought it would, so it was actually super easy to pull the meal together once things got going.
Once it was cooked and drained, I tossed it in a ton of olive oil and some basil from the garden.
Then I began to layer…
- arugula
- olive oil basil pasta
- shrimp
- roasted summer squash
- feta crumbles
- pistachios
Until we all had these gorgeous heaping bowls of beauty to dig into.
Believe it or not, this is the edited down version! I had seeds and sun dried tomatoes and pesto all begging for their spot in the recipe too! But in the end, I decided less is more and kept it to the six components listed above.
Plus a touch more olive oil on top. Oh and a squeeze of lemon.
So many sides to photograph on this…and yet you can still barely catch a glimpse of the arugula and pasta!
Yummy.
Is summer produce not THE BEST!?
Ok, well, maybe not the best…because hello, Fall without butternut squash would be tragic, but you know what I mean. The stretch of time from July to October is truly the best food time of year. By November I’m cold and the novelty of pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that has worn off and I’m already anticipating summer, so I have to reallllly soak it up right now because this is as good as it gets!
