Summertime Equals Zucchini Time

Even though the weather isn't helping it seem like summertime around these parts (it has been unusually wet and cold), the way the time is zipping by certainly makes it feel like summer.   There's been cherry picking...and pitting and freezing of course.I love  my old thrifted cherry pitter and can't imagine cherry season without it, it makes light work of cherry pitting and when you do it outside you don't need to worry about the cherry juice that splatters all over.

We enjoyed making homemade noodles so much when our friends were here that the boys and I decided to try making homemade ravioli with our garage sale pasta machine.  It works like a charm for rolling out sheets of noodles.  I don't have a ravioli maker yet so we improvised with a jar and a slightly wider drinker glass.  These we filled with spinach from the garden and ricotta cheese and then served them with sage butter and garlic scapes.  Yum!

I snapped a few photos of the garden this week while I was wondering why on earth I don't do a better job of keeping up with pruning tomatoes. Part of me wants to because I like how tidy the plants looked when pruned and because I plant so closely I don't want too much overgrowth but another part of me just has such a hard time pruning plants.  So, I pruned some here and there and then let myself be distracted by picking more beans and the last of the peas.

My late planted potatoes are quickly filling their cages and I need to get busy adding more mulch.

And, happily, there are cherry tomatoes ripening up outside - a very few at my house so far but lots at the garden at work.  Thank goodness for generous gardeners sharing their tomatoes, a few of these added to any dish makes it delicious.

There has also been lots of zucchini eating going on.  Last year I was quite convinced that I would plant less plants (8 is really too many for one family) and yet....somehow....I ended up with 8 again.  If the boys question me on it I'll use the excuse that with two gardens at separate locations it gets a bit confusing and somehow I ended up with 4 at each. ;-) 

Today both boys started looking for recipes themselves rather than leaving all the zucchini prep up to me, they know that they will be eating lots of this over the summer and the get pretty sick slightly tired of my same old, same old methods of preparing it (although in my defense I have loads and loads of ways of making it, it is just that when you're eating it at least once a day for months...).  E found a recipe for thin crust zucchini mushroom pizza that we tried tonight (I'll share it next time) and he declared it a two thumbs up success.

We even took zucchini away with us on the weekend to enjoy with friends during a weekend of hiking and mountain biking.  When it comes to zucchini I guess my motto is....don't leave home without it.