This summer has flown by quickly in a rush of parties, camping trips and other festivities. This coupled with things being crazy at work and Randy being in summer school has led to less time enjoying our garden and more take-out. In order to get back in the garden and start eating the frits (or in this case vegetables) of our labor, I came up with the Garden Challenge. Basically, the challenge is to eat only what's growing in our garden or what we can trade our friends for from their gardens paired with what we have in our fridge and pantry, no trips to the market for anything besides absolute necessities and no meals out. Here's more or less what we are working with:
From the harden:
kale
spinach
tomatoes, seven different varieties randing from romas to chocalte cherry tomatoes
zucchinis
Cucumbers( hopefully ripe by end of week)
green beans
strawberries
chives
basil
rosemary
mint
cilantro
jalepenos
In addition we have these things on hand:
bell peppers
sugar snap peas
spring greens
Parmesan, cheddar, white sharp Irish cheddar
chicken breasts
chicken sausage
pinto beans
black beans
onion
pasta
rice
couscous
milk
eggs
tofu
spices
bread
flour, etc.
Sunnday was the first day of our challenge and we started with a brunch of kale, caramelized onion, and Dubliner cheese frittata with some french baguette. Healthy and pretty tasty. Later that afternoon I whipped up some pesto with 2 cups of fresh basil, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 cup of olive oil and 1/4 of a cup of Parmesan cheese tossed in the blender. Some of this with some elbow pasta, and sauteed cherry tomatoes, spinach and chicken breast became dinner. (This would have been equally good with zucchini in place of the chicken).
On Monday, Randy created a delicious hash with potatoes, kale, basil, rosemary, red onion, garlic, and chicken sausage with fried eggs. The fresh herbs really made this dish and the kale helped stretch the ingredients we already had. Using what we have on hand along with what we're growing makes us plan our meals more carefully, eat more fresh produce and consume less food from non-organic, far away sources. We realized that we are out of eggs two days in and will try and get them from the farmers market rather than the grocery store.
This challenge also leads us to be more creative in the kitchen, finding new ways to use the veggies we have growing. If we had more things growing, I would like to up the challenge a notch by only using things we grew in our garden or what we could get from our friends, neighbors that they are growing, and get rid of the meat and cheese part (unless our friends/family were raising it.)
Stay tuned for more on the challenge and what kind of crazy concoctions we come up!
Cheers!
