Garden Bounty

Yes! I have been waiting to make this meal all summer. It is the culmination of my hard work, the hours or standing idly by the garden plot with a hose, etc, etc. I started with this:

Aren’t eggplants pretty? I should grow more purple vegetables. Purple-sprouting broccoli, purple cabbage, purple carrots. . . purple potatoes. But then maybe the eggplants wouldn’t feel special. So many things to consider — gardening is hard!
That tomato is from my Mr Stripy plant. Note its distinct lack of stripes. Maybe it will continue to ripen and get red stripes? It went from green to bright yellow to this vivid orange, and it feels ripe to my fingertips, but I’m planning on letting it sun itself on the window sill for a few days before I eat it.

I originally thought I would make ratatouille once I had tomatoes of my own ready. But after eating that first one, I realized that that was just crazy — tomatoes will go straight from the garden to my mouth. I suppose I might grow tired of them after a while, but I’ve got lots of other tomato plans (soup, sauce, ketchup). So I used local tomatoes that somebody else grew for my dish.
Everything else, though, came straight from the garden — eggplant, zucchini, onions, green peppers, carrots, green beans, and all the herbs. I chopped it, threw it in the skillet, and let it cook. It’s funny that some people get such anxiety about cooking (although I do understand it), when the best tasting stuff pretty much does everything on its own.

Of course, best tasting doesn’t necessarily mean best looking. I had some of this with some vegan mac’n'cheese I thawed (from back in June) and cauliflower. I cooked almost an entire crown of cauliflower until it was tender, and what I didn’t have for dinner, I threw in the pickling brine from my refrigerator pickles (which are now gone. More cucumbers are in the works. Waiting. . . ). I love pickled cauliflower. . . and pretty much pickled-anything-else.
Ah, so now I can just sit back and let the garden go to seed (but not really). I think I’m slightly high from all the phytonutrients in my sort-of-ratatouille. From the garden to the bloodstream in under an hour — that’s potent stuff!