Summer squash with pesto
We had a pot luck dinner last night for a friend who was leaving town. It was a perfect evening to sit outside, enjoy a couple of beers, good food and company.
My first contribution was zucchini, squash and baby eggplants grilled with the remaining vegan pesto I made the other day combined with the leftover cilantro chili sauce I made for the frittata. Mixed together they made a good marinade.
Irresistible baby eggplants
I also made my Quinoa salad, with black beans and mango from Veganomican which has been a staple this summer. I have to admit that I have been mildly obsessed with Quinoa since I discovered it earlier this summer.
My final offering was an adaptation of another veganomican recipe – Jicama salad. I make it as more of a slaw, with carrots and jicama and I didn’t have an orange, so I had to adapt the dressing as well. Jicama is a cross between a turnip and an apple. This is the only thing I have made with it so far. Last time I followed the recipe more religiously and served it with watercress and avocado as they recommend. The addition of roasted peanuts and mint really makes it.
My offerings
Dinner tonight was part leftovers, part long beans (first hot and then cold, they were so good). I was making a potato salad for lunch tomorrow and grazed as I cooked. The recipe is from 101cookbooks and it is the first time I have tried it. It contains new potatoes, patty pan squash, scallions (spring onions), and lemons. Luckily I had more potatoes than the recipe calls for, because I admit, not all of them made it into the salad. I haven’t tried grilling new potatoes before and it worked well. They were so crunchy and delicious, that another time I might just serve them hot from the grill. Grilling the lemons was also new and it would be great with a grilled fish. It definitely gave it an interesting flavor.
Grilled potato salad
Today’s exciting garden news. I planted some mesclun in my garden. So far all i had were tomatoes and herbs (chives, basil, sage, oregano, parsley, rosemary and mint). It says that it takes 40-60 days to harvest so hopefully I will have some salad leaves mid to late September. Better go and water the garden……
