A Cooking Post: Summer Vegetables

We’re spending the day with our wonderful friends in Sebastopol, and my assignment was a vegetable or salad. It’s so pretty, I had to share it:

It’s a combination of chopped zucchini, sliced asparagus, a bit of diced red onion, a cocktail mix of olives, and feta cheese. I made an amazing pesto vinaigrette to toss with it – I got the recipe from Food to Live By, a cookbook by Earthbound Farms Myra Goodman. It’s basically pesto: basil leaves, garlic, shallots, pine nuts, parmesan…, with a couple tablespoons of rice vinegar and 2/3 cup of a good, extra virgin olive oil.

Have you heard or read phrases like “bright flavor” to describe food? That’s what I’d use to describe that pesto vinaigrette.

I was nervous about the vegetables – raw asparagus can be bitter – and I was nervous about throwing the olive mix in there. I was afraid the flavors wouldn’t gel, but wow. The olives were the perfect touch.

I finished it off with a few cherry tomatoes from my garden.

I love saying that. “A few tomatoes from my garden.” Hee. It’s so unusual for my gardening efforts to actually produce food.

Anyway, we’ll be on the road soon. Really looking forward to a relaxing afternoon and lots of laughter.

How are you all spending your weekend?