One Local Summer Week 7

Wow, 7 weeks already! The garden is nearly in full swing, and it is hard to keep track of the local food we've been enjoying lately. Our squash and peas are ready daily, and the broccoli and cauliflower are getting bigger everyday. I am trying to be patient before harvesting those, it would be nice to see how big they can get! Fortunately with the broccoli, after the first harvest, you still get the nice shoots they grow in after (and for which you pay a lot of money for at the grocery store). We have tasted one of our carrots, and one beet, but again, I'm trying to hold out and let them grow a bit more. The lettuce is still growing nicely, I suppose the one good thing from that long rainy month of June. I am certainly not happy about the fact that I am still waiting on our first tomato! (The sungolds should be ready in a day or two.)

We've been able to enjoy at least one or two locally grown (or garden grown) side dishes this past week. I am hoping this makes up for in a small way the terribly non-sustainable entree we had tonight: grilled swordfish. Oops. At least we served our own cauliflower and the potatoes we found growing in the compost pile.

One of my favorite dinners this week was pizza. Well, that's always my favorite. In any case, the dough this week was not the best we've ever used; I tried the no-knead version, and my husband had a difficult time working with it. It also didn't have quite the same texture that my usual recipe does. From the reviews I have seen of the no-knead recipe, it seems there must have been something I was missing. Luckily enough, the toppings made up for what lacked in the dough. We used some freshly harvested zucchini and squash blossoms, canned tomatoes, mushrooms, and some homemade mozzarella.



To make the pizzas, I used the no-knead pizza dough recipe found here. Because the dough was so soft, we decided to grill the pizzas a bit first before adding any of the toppings. We like to use a wooden peel to transfer the pizzas to the grill, so any toppings added must be done quickly otherwise the dough will begin sticking to the peel. The dough we used was so soft, it began sticking to the peel right away. After grilling the dough for a minute or two, we put it back on the peel and added the toppings. Then, back to the grill to finish cooking the dough and melting the cheese. Just be sure to have some great beer to wash it all down with!