An Abundance

I love this time of the year when the veggies in the garden are ripe and delicious and I can get food for dinner right out of my back yard. Right now we have a lot of zucchini and peppers. I've been trying to work them into our regular meals. I've been pretty creative.

• Last Friday, I added sauteed peppers, onions and zucchini to our chili.
• Saturday, we cranked up the air conditioning and our friends came over to hide from the heat. Using some peppers and onions the husbands whipped up some awesome Ginger Beef.
• On Sunday, my dear husband sauteed chicken, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, and artichoke hearts in Zesty Italian dressing. Normally we serve this over pasta but we were in a hurry and ate it without the noodles.
• Monday for dinner, I added sauteed (it's a theme) zucchini, peppers, onions and mushrooms to the spaghetti sauce.
• Wednesday night I made omelets with sauteed zucchini, peppers, onions and jalapenos.
• And tonight, hiding under the cheese on the individual-sized homemade pizza--you guessed it--sauteed zucchini, peppers and onions.

We'll just keep eating it until they're gone or until the kids go on strike. I should probably just make a zucchini cake at this point.

Oh, and if you have ripe tomatoes already (mine are still green), here's a great recipe for easy fresh restaurant-style salsa (courtesy of my dear dear soon-to-be-a-famous-chef niece):

In a blender mix tomatoes (I use a can of tomatoes), some jalapeno (depending on the heat you want), an onion, some garlic, some cilantro, and maybe some cayenne pepper if you want it hotter. Turn on the blender and chop it all up. Enjoy.

For some reason, I have been unable to create a really hot salsa this summer. I added an entire jalapeno pepper and an Anaheim pepper this weekend and it was still mild. Those darn, wimpy peppers.