An Almost All Homegrown Dinner!

By P.C. Zick – @PCZick

Last night we managed to eat a meal, mostly provided by our garden, with a table graced with flowers from plants and herbs gone to seed, along with a very few wild irises growing at the edge of the woods in our backyard.The tall purple flowers are radishes; the long drooping yellow flowers come from our oregano plant leftover from last year; look very closely to see the basil leave peeking out from the front of the vase. Beauty graces our home and our plates.

A zucchini greeted me yesterday morning when I did my daily walk around the perimeter of the garden. At eight-inches, this lovely vegetable was the perfect size for grilling. I found one small cucumber to provide a little bit of crispness to our meal.

We picked enough beans for a small serving each. The onions are just popping up out of the ground so I decided some of the sweet “Vidalia” type would be great on the grill. And in the big sink, I soaked the last of the leaves of spinach for this year.

The spinach and beans I put on the stove to steam and then prepared the zucchini and onions for grilling (I did use one sweet red pepper with these purchased from Giant Eagle – it will be more than a month before peppers are ready for eating). As a marinade, I used olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, tarragon and thyme. Next, I prepared the salmon for grilling. No, I didn’t catch it from the ocean out in the backyard. I purchased this salmon on sale in the Strip District in downtown Pittsburgh. I used the last of our zucchini relish from last year as a marinade and then plopped a few springs of our parsley on top before loosely wrapping in aluminum foil and grilling along with the vegetables for about 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees. After the grilled items cooked for 15 minutes, I turned the burners on the other vegetables. And then I prepared our cute little cucumber – a delicacy at this point in the season.I presented our “almost all homegrown dinner” to my husband as a thanks to all his hard work for growing this bounty. I forgot to mention (and forgot to take a picture), for an appetizer, we ate the first peas from the garden. We were probably a little premature, but they are very close and very sweet. We managed about ten peas each as a preview to our coming attractions.

What are you eating from either your own garden or from the farmer’s market right now?