Week of September 2

So, I was going to start this post with a paean to vegetable gardening: how wonderful it is to pull nourishment from the earth, circle of life, blah blah blah. I had just dug these potatoes (French fingerlings, seed taters came from Fedco) and I was so pleased with myself.

Then I checked out my tomatoes and saw the very obvious signs of tomato hornworm activity. Then I saw the hornworms. For those of you not familiar with these exceptionally icky pests, a link to info is here (yes, they are enormous) Hornworms cause me to do the "heebie jeebie dance" (as in: those totally NASTY worms make me lose all ability to act rationally so I dance around the yard, going "ew ew ew YUCK ew!"). Usually takes ten minutes for the goosebumps to go down.

Vegetable gardening's still pretty awesome, but it was nice to get that reminder that it's not all roses (or Rose Finn potatoes) out there.

With the three-day weekend, my normal cooking plan is a little more spread out.

On Sunday I:

• Made a batch of oven-roasted tomato sauce (I swear I will post this recipe soon).
• Made melintzanasalata (Greek eggplant salad). I promptly spilled half of it in the driveway (don't ask) and so I'll make some more on Monday.
• Made Sunday dinner.

On Monday I will:

• Make more frickin' melintzanasalata (good thing it's wicked easy to make).
• Make fasoulakia (Greek-style green beans stewed with tomato, onion and olive oil).
• Make tabouli.
• Make zucchini and arugula soup (inspired by 101 Cookbooks - she uses spinach instead).
• Make pizza dough.
• Make Monday dinner.
  

The fasoulakia takes some time to cook, but is very hands-off. While that's cooking everything else will come together easily.

Menu for the week of September 2
Sunday
Pan fried haddock with chervil and dill flowers
Oven roasted new potatoes with garlic and lemon verbena
Oven-roasted ratatouille (idea and technique completely lifted from Smitten Kitchen)

Monday
Dirty steak (steak grilled on hot coals - see this link for technique and video, click through "Dirty Steak with Hot Fanny Sauce")
Corn pudding
Tomato salad
Green salad
Peach tart

Tuesday
Greek Night
Melintzasalata
Fasoulakia
Tabouli (not Greek per se, but ...)
Feta & olives

Wednesday
Zucchini and arugula soup
BLTs

Thursday
Turkey burgers (patties are in the freezer, will take them out to thaw on Wednesday night)

Friday
Grilled pizza