Last Week I Cooked….

This was our third week of farm camp, which is a wonderful but exhausting experience. I left most of the meals this week unplanned, and just allowed the wealth of produce guide them. Not planning led to much simpler endeavors, and just about every dinner this week was made in under an hour (who am I?!?!). It was great to let the veg do most of the work, and spend the rest of my evenings recuperating and preparing for another day of excited campers.

Roasted corn, zucchini, and black bean enchiladas. It was in the 90s when I turned on the oven to make these. During the cooking process I questioned my sanity multiple times. But once they were on the table, all the sweaty cooking was forgotten. Still one of my favorite zucchini dishes.

Pesto pasta with green beans and tomato salad. I followed the pesto recipe from The Art of Simple Food, threw on some pasta, and in the last minute of cooking added in a pound of halved green beans. The tomato salad was a simple affair of basil, olive oil, mozzarella, salt, and pepper. This whole meal felt like summer done right.

Frittata with sauteed collards, roasted cherry tomatoes, and feta with buttermilk biscuits. This was a develop “dinner idea that requires no shopping on the 3-minute drive home and execute in an hour” situation. I halved the cherry tomatoes and roasted them at 400F for about 30 minutes (basically as long as it took me to pull the biscuits together and harvest, wash, and chop the collards). The collards went into the bottom of a cast iron pan, were covered, and sauteed for about 5 minutes until wilted. Then I scattered the tomatoes on top, covered that with 1/2 cup crumbled feta, and then poured 6 eggs that had been beaten with a dash of milk, salt, and pepper over everything. That went into the oven (still at 400F) for 10 minutes.

Tacos with black beans, corn, zucchini and feta. This was yet another dinner made without shopping. I simmered a large can of black beans with onion and garlic which the corn broiled. Then I used this taco seasoning to coat the corn once I cut it off the cob. Inspired by this other corn taco recipe I made a quick slaw with zucchini and lime, then topped the whole bit with feta and hot sauce.

Grilled chorizo verde with grilled zucchini, summer squash, and peppers, and cilantro slaw. The real star of this meal was the sausage (as usual). I made a quick green sauce with chopped cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper to brush over the veg before they went on the grill (and saved more for after too). The slaw was red and green cabbage, sliced tomatoes, a handful of cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper. As was the surprising trend this week, this was all pulled together within an hour (with a little chopping help).