ONCE YOU FIND A GOOD HABIT, STICK WITH IT. Last week’s Pesto Fest collaboration with the Dinner Tonight blog was so well-received by gardening and cooking friends that we’re throwing a series of events each Thursday through Labor Day.
This week: Cukes and Zukes, from tips for growing to how to take the bounty from garden (or farmer’s market!) to table.
Next week (Aug. 7): Beans (as in that Heftybag-ful of long green pods in my fridge).
Here’s how easy it is to participate (and what’s up in other weeks to come):
Aug. 14: The topic is Tomatoes.
Aug. 21: Corn.
The week leading up to Labor Day, Aug. 28: All harvest crops welcome…a veritable cornucopia of possibilities.
Here’s how it works (with thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for inspiring the structure, modeled on her Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day the 15th of each month):
Readers: Stop by Thursday and tell us what’s cooking in your kitchen or what’s growing in your garden.
Bloggers: Do a new post (or dig out the url of an old one), then come to A Way to Garden or Dinner Tonight Thursday to comment and share the link back to your place.
Just don’t leave us any giant zucchinis, OK? Trust me, there are enough of those already here to go around.
I’ll have to wait until the veggies are producing again–perhaps late September or October?
This is what I do lately with local, unwaxed cukes…wash, slice paper-thin and dress simply with pear balsamic vinegar. Slightly Asian, slightly Mediterranean and the most finicky of my son’s friends inhaled them.
Zukes: slice thin lengthwise, and sauté briefly (till soft – but not quite translucent)along with thin-sliced sweet onion and a dash of olive oil. A squeeze of lemon (maybe a hint of zest) and a dusting of parmesan. Oh! And fresh-ground pepper. Some salt, if it requires…
and yes, I know it’s only Monday…
@Kerry: Yum
@MSS: If you have posts on your site you’d like readers to come visit, from your archive, we’d love links to them on any of the Thursdays. Needn’t be fresh(ly) produce(d)!
Oooh! Maybe I’ll show you my Armenian yard-long cucumber!
Count me in!
Robin Wedewer
Gardening Examiner
Examiner.com
Great idea…I have just the thing for this week…gratin, anyone?
oooh! I’ll be there.
This will be fun! Count me in—and I’m looking forward to finding a few new ways to use up my zucchini…before it overtakes the house.
Welcome, Anastasia Are you by any chance related to the commenter named Banana? You sound so familiar… :)
@All of you: Looking forward to it (and searching everywhere in the house for my refrigerator pickle recipe…where in the world?).
Welcome, Jean Ann. To my mind, anything with cheese and some buttery breadcrumbs works. I will be looking for your tasty ideas on Thursday.
You’re so organized!! I’m there and thanks for doing this! :-) Have fun pulling weeds.
@ Mary Anne: Caveat emptor: Nobody here is organized, merely manic to the Nth degree. So glad you’ll be here Thursday w/me and Dinner Tonight…now yes, out to “harvest” the weeds.
as a flower rather than a veggie grower, and a total non-cook, anyone wanna donate the leftovers? margaret, you are a wonder woman!
Welcome, Jane, sister blogger. I feel the need to tell people that you and I worked together in the 1970s (yep, we were alive then, actually born already even!) in the Sports Dept. of The New York Times. And that we are now suddenly reunited, thanks to blogging. So there, outed! Now as for knowing something about the supposed “glass ceilings” for women, don’t get me and Jane here started (even though The Times started it again the other day in that damn story of theirs). So Jane, yes: We will be sending you a takeout package Friday, no worry. A girl’s gotta eat.
@Margaret — Please find your refrigerator pickle recipe! We’re getting so many cukes that even my daughter is complaining. I came in last night with a shirt full and she said, “We have cucumbers every night!” immediately followed by “Can I have one to eat now?”
@Writermom: I love the “shirt full” of cukes image…that’s how I harvest–always unprepared for the task, I use my shirt. Funny. Looking now for recipe…
Margaret,
Just when I thought I found gardening heaven you all turned into COOKS! I’m with Jane Gross, a total non cook and I’m too far for leftovers. But I still love the web site and the receipes might make me a convert.
Fear not, dear Kathy: It will just be Thursdays. And it’s about necessity, not culinary sophistication, at the moment. Even though I plant just a little of everything, it gets away form me and there’s always too much. But ornamental plants to come as well, no worry…speaking of which, I had better get writing.
Wow, what incredible timing. My heirloom lemon cucumber plant is now producing and has about a hundred blooms on it…..and I have no idea what to do with all of them.
Saturday last, dinner in the county…
Chunky semi-peeled kirbies splashed with rice wine vinegar, and a generous handful of torn mint leaves, grind of pepper—Nirvana!
I’m thinking perhaps buttermilk and the blender and a new “cool” soup…
Too many cukes? naaah
Welcome, Gardenden. I hope that you will come back on Thursday and delight us with more of your “never too many cukes” culinary approach. Thanks for visiting.
I really think that I am one of the only people with a garden out there without a successful zucchini plant. I try and without fail I end up in tears and en route to the farmers market to round up someone else’s bounty. Everything else grows? Last I checked there wasn’t a trick to growing zucchini.
I have the recipes – and I will be here Thursday with bells… and an address if anyone cares to dispose of any unwanted produce.
Welcome, Dayna. Part of my Thursday post will be about “When cukes and zukes fail,” and they do, lusty growers as they are. Dry weather can interfere, causing no flowers to set, or pollination can be interfered with by some weather conditions as well. So read: Not your fault, probably. More Thursday!
I am madly in love with this website… even though I live far away (in Carpinteria, CA) and grow such different plants and flowers. It is such fun to check what you are growing.
Veggies are a different matter…
I am overwhelmed with summer squash (green and yellow) and cucumbers. Can’t wait for everyones ideas. Also look forward to the refrigerator pickle recipe and some cold cucumber soup recipes!
Welcome, Cathy. Madly in love sounds good! Thanks for the nice words. And I found the pickle recipe. Phew! Writing it all up now.
See you tomorrow…
Hi Margaret
Cool idea to host the foodfests; it’s clear you’re going to hear from a LOT of vegetable growers and lovers.
Including me, of course ( zucchini post link coming on the appointed day).
Meanwhile, I must take exception to your putting quotes around “harvest” in the context of weeds. Many of them are delicious, including lambsquarter. Picture, explanation -and recipe for lambsquarter quesadillas here.
’till tomorrow
@Leslie: I only wish I were infested with something edible! Garlic mustard and bittersweet don’t sound like a very yummy dinner, but boy do I have a bounty of each. And crabgrass (or is it quackgrass, I can never recall). Ugh. Thanks for the recipe…I am going foraging.
quick zucchini pasta for two.
half a box of fusilli
small onion sliced paper thin
one normal or two small, just-picked zucchinis, grated
olive oil
Parm
s&p
lemon
red pepper (optional)
while the pasta cooks:
saute the onion
stir in the zuch and just melt it
sqeeze a little lemon over, stir again
combine with pasta
season
top with grated parm
eat with a salad if you feel like it and cold Gruner Veltliner
get back out in the garden where you belong
There goes that Dean Riddle, cooking his zukes on Wednesday (instead of waiting till Thursday’s ‘event’). I guess I now know what I am having for dinner tonight…thanks, Dean, for the earlybird submission. Now go pull weeds and mow and edge and water and and and and and…
sympathies of course on the quackgrass (even cows don’t like it) and – unprintable words here – bittersweet. Garlic mustard is edible, but it’s not something I’d recommend; in any kind of quantity it has what used to be called a “tonic” effect.
But you are truly cursed if ALL your weeds are unredeemable. I know from previous posts that you have dandelions (admittedly a mostly spring delight), and if you don’t have lambsquarter, what about chickweed, portulaca or amaranth?
oh well, enough! I have to go remove my own inedibles before they get out of hand. Zucchini comin’ right up tomorrow and thanks again for inviting us all to participate.
oops! thought it was Thursday when i got up today.
two words: zucchini bread.
zukes yield a very moist bread. any generally available recipe will do, though i always cut the sugar by half. plenty of great jams i can think of that make up for this in spades.
@Dean: I thought it was someone else’s life when I got up today. Oh my oh my.
@Chris: So, Chris…we’ll take that as a “Yes” RSVP, that we’ll see you again tomorrow with all the juicy recipe details? :)
details, everyone wants details….well, ok…hmmm, isn’t it thursday already somewhere…i know it’s cocktail hour somewhere almost all the time…
Thanks Margaret.
My zucchini ego would feel a bit better if it hadn’t been so rainy in these parts this summer…
I looking forward to more tips Thursday!
I have a yummy recipe for zucchini gratin and a pickling recipe for cornichons on Portland Foodie…come and check it out!
http://www.portlandfoodie.com/2008/07/zukes-and-cukes.html
This is a lot of fun…I also have a growing post up at Gardener to Farmer… http://www.gardenertofarmer.net/2008/07/zukes-and-cukes.html
ok, it’s thursday here, margaret, (and cocktail hour too), so inbound’s just a few tidbits:
first, recipes bore me, methods intrigue me. you can find a good recipe for just about anything on the net these days, but it won’t be your recipe until you have tried it, adjusted it to your taste, and most importantly figured out the method behind the flavors/textures etc.
as to method, par example, zukes need to be sweated before you saute or bake them…just cut them length wise, salt them (kosher or sea salt, SVP), let them sit, then wipe off the moisture…they will be meaty and not gushy when you cook them, or incorporate them into a dish…just like eggplant, but that’s another blog
as for zuchinni bread, take all of the zukes that you have picked that are not slender like models…we are talking the big and bouncy ones…the slender ones you sweat as per above and eat how you like…the giguntas you grate or food process and make zuke bread with…once you figure out how many cups of the grated mamma zukes you have, then you take any ole zuke bread recipe off the net, lower the sugar quantity, adjust for your given zuke production, and bake it up…freezes well…great vehicle for fancy shmancy jams too…
you didn’t ask, but i grew up on long island, south shore mind you, and learned veggie gardening shadowing my pop…for a copascetic description of south shore gardening in the day, read michael pollan’s first book, second nature.
Hooray! What a great idea. Can’t wait for this Thursday. As for zucchini, I like to harvest mine at about 6 inches long. Then I chop them into bite pieces, saute in butter until just tender and then toss with fresh pesto. Dust with pecorino before serving. Use this a side or serve it over polenta for a quick weekday supper.
Welcome, Willie. I think I will go saute a zuke right now…yum. Great ingredient list. Look forward to seeing you again Thursday.
I am really glad I found your blog, as I finally put in two raised beds AND planted them full of vegetables. NOW they are growing like crazy and I’m not sure what to do! I have found (about every time I go out) a giant cuke hiding in the foliage somewhere! The recipes are just what I need since the kiddies won’t eat them until they are pickles:)
Welcome, DarmaZ. Glad to provide pickles-in-the-making for the kids. Sounds like you are well under way on your vegetable-gardening adventure, congratulations. Hope we see you here soon again.