Summer Squash and Zucchini

I harvested the first of my summer squash and zucchini tonight and if you can't tell by the picture -- they're HUGE! As I mentioned in a post earlier, my garden came under attack by the so-called cucumber beetle, which love to munch on, you guessed it -- cucumber plants. But they also went after similar "runner" plants in my garden like the squash and melons. Luckily, I was able to ward them off with some pesticides (so much for organic) and it seems the plants haven't suffered at all. I still find that I need to spray the pesticides every few days, as I'm finding the dead beetles in a pile on the plants' leaves.

Also in my colander are my green beans, which are at the peak of their harvest. That colander is pretty big and it's almost filled to the top with beans -- and that's just from one picking! I've been harvesting the beans for about two weeks now.

Nick decided to grill half of the zucchini on the grill, along with some chicken, and then he also fried up some of the potatoes that I harvested a few days ago. What a great dinner!

While Nick was getting dinner ready, I was cleaning, cutting, and freezing the other half of the zucchini, the squash and my green beans. If you don't have a Food Saver device, I recommend you go out and buy one immediately. Nearly everything that we don't eat right away gets vacuum sealed with the Food Saver. I can't tell you how much I enjoy eating veggies from my garden in March. The Food Saver is also great for freezing your meats, or in my house, Nick's catch o' the day.

Dinner party!

This past weekend, I got the chance to host the Kastner Cousin's Dinner. We girls try to get together every month or so, usually under the pretense of celebrating someone's birthday -- and in a family as large as ours, it's always someone's birthday.

To start, I served bruschetta made with basil from my garden. (tomatoes aren't ready yet!) For the main course, I put together some chicken kebabs with cherry tomatoes, pineapple, pepper and onion. I had just harvested my potatoes, so I decided to make a traditional potato salad with hard boiled eggs, celery, onion and mayo. I can't tell you how excited I am about the potatoes! I was expecting only one potato per quarter planted, but you actually get five or six per quarter. According to What'sOnMyFood.org, potatoes are treated with about 37 pesticides. I also read recently that they are so harmful, that many farmers grow a separate crop for their own consumption, versus the ones that they sell commercially, so I'm really happy to have some of my own on hand. I quickly planted some more that should be ready to harvest by the end of the season, as well.

Also fresh on the menu was the green bean salad. After boiling the beans until slightly tender, I tossed them in a homemade vinaigrette which includes basil, balsamic vinegar, oil, diced onion, salt and pepper and a little bit of freshly grated pecorino-romano cheese. Yum!

The best part of the menu was that I was able to prepare everything the night before, which gave me more time to enjoy my company and my martini (s).