Friday Night

 

It’s a gloomy Friday night, but I’m willing to give that a pass, since we so badly need the rain. Days like this remind me that fall is on its way, although we certainly have many, many warm days in our near future. Still, I pulled out my overstuffed file of clipped recipes featuring apples a pears in hopes of being ready when the time comes.

Until then…

**Tomatoes and cucumbers. Happily, they come together in my little backyard garden. (Literally, the vines are heavily intermingling with each other.) And whatever voracious nocturnal rodent is treating the garden like its own personal buffet is still leaving enough of each to make lots of Gazpacho.

I also like to toss together chopped tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes with chopped cucumbers, a bit of salt and olive oil, and whatever fresh herbs I feel like. Lately I’ve been going a bit less traditional with lemon verbena, borage leaves, and summer savory, and then drizzling the whole thing with a lemon-infused olive oil. It’s delicious!

I finally got a Roasted Cherry Tomato and Olive Galette on the table, but instead of waiting until I had time to make a pie crust, I baked it on puff pastry. I also added some feta cheese. Both new additions to this recipe were more than welcome!

**Zucchini. Oh, there’s still so much of it! This week, I revamped this casserole recipe, turned this chocolate zucchini quick bread into a big, indulgent coffee cake, successfully converted this zucchini bread into muffins (just portion into muffin pans and reduce the baking time to about 25 minutes), and made a loaf of Zucchini Wheat Bread for my frequent tomato sandwiches.

**Seasonal fruits. I’m still looking for ways to use them before I get distracted by first apples, then pumpkin. I like Seasonal Fruit Desserts by Deborah Madison for ideas, such as this tart/crumble hybrid I posted long ago. Actually, I recently made a cookie based on a recipe from this book. It might not look like it has anything to do with fruit, because it doesn’t. More on that recipe soon. (Assuming I don’t eat them all before I get a chance to photograph them!)

Reading…

**Fahrenheit 451by Ray Bradbury. I started this one today because the, “You haven’t read that?” part of the conversation I had yesterday had a little too much déjà vu in it. Time to finally read that book!

**The Scar by China Mieville. I’m almost finished reading this, but I’m stalling because I don’t want it to end. I love this guy’s stuff that much!

**To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams. I already know I love this book, so I don’t feel so guilty about setting its giganticness aside for a while.

Looking ahead…

**The day job. I refuse to look ahead. It could be that bad. Next…

**New recipes. I’ve got lots of tomatillos ripening (seriously, these are really a fun and easy veggie to grow), so I want to make a grilled tomatillo and chile pepper salsa. The rain today kept me from getting everything grilled. Maybe tomorrow. I’m also planning a puff pastry tart and more salads that can take on some of that lovely zucchini that just keeps coming!

And then there are these potatoes at Epicurious and these tacos at Food52. So many good things to eat!

Enjoy the late part of summer! There’s still lots of it there!