WIAW 73

And the vegetables roll in…

It’s hard, now, to remember that 2 months ago I felt as if I’d never see a really fresh vegetable again…  When the harvest started, the floodgates opened. Armloads of greens, yes, but corn, and zucchini, and we just got the first tomatoes! Can peppers be far behind?

I will confess, though, that I haven’t really gotten on the veggies for breakfast bandwagon. Fruit, though… I don’t really eat very much fruit, but this is the season. We’ve split a peach each morning, the last few days – Rich puts his half on his cereal (and only wants half a peach for that) so then I eat the other half. Isn’t it beautiful?

Otherwise, yes, my breakfasts go in streaks. I wake up functioning on autopilot, so breakfast cannot take a brain, and the easiest way to handle that is to just eat the same thing all the time… And right now, it seems to be tacos. On Tuesday, I had beans I’d cooked with some pork, rather than my refried, so I had some of that with cheese, instead of egg, for some variety. With coffee. (Without milk… I’d forgotten that I had finished it… Ran out after breakfast to get milk for my second cup – but I needed to eat before I could do anything that energetic!)

Despite the heat, I made soup for lunch… I had chopped and blanched a couple of heads of escarole (which were taking up most of one shelf in the fridge!) And I had cooked a big batch of chicken legs in a slow cooker, and then made broth from the liquid that had cooked out and the bones and scrap left. So everything just really needed to be heated, not cooked any length of time. And – I have a slightly scratchy throat…

It rapidly turned into that great classic of home cooking – Use Up Odds and Ends Soup. I had some beans with a lot of cooking liquid. I had the greens from new onions. I had a smidge of leftover meat/rice/green beans which had all been put away together. In the end, I didn’t even use the escarole… It tasted good, it felt good, it made some space in the fridge for the next batch of vegetables… And I had some of the multigrain crackers. (I need to get to work on making my own crackers…)

I used some of that cooked chicken for dinner, too. Sauteed some onion and lita squash, added chicken, leftover rice, broth, and fresh basil chiffonade. (Which is a fancy way to say I shredded the basil leaves.) I’d cooked a big bunch of collards earlier, so heated them, and had dinner ready in about 10 minutes. Not bad.

I wonder what I’ll do with greens next week…

So, again, we seem to be partying alone… but that’s OK. I don’t have a formal link up – but as long as you are here, why don’t you tell me what you are eating? Do you have peaches, corn, and tomatoes yet? Do you live in the South, where you’ve been eating them for months? Or  further South – next hemisphere South – where you are more interested in that bowl of soup?

I’d really love to hear!