Using that Garden - A week of recipes

"One cannot

think well,

love well,

sleep well,

if one has not dined well."

-Virginia Woolf

(from A Room of One's Own)

I want to share how we have been using the bounty of our garden.  You have to get creative when you have such a lot of food that needs to get picked and used each week.  It has been so much fun to try to eat from our garden and to only have to buy things that we really can't make or grow ourselves.  I am going to try to post our menu and recipes each day this week.

Sunday Dinner Menu 
Summer Vegetable Pasta
Bruschetta and French Baguette
Watermelon

Summer Vegetable Pasta
1 lb. corkscrew pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 cup Italian style breadcrumbs
3 zucchini (about 1 lb), thinly sliced
4 ears corn, kernels cut off
6 oz. Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Salt & Pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil

1.  Cook pasta in salted boiling water.  Drain, reserving 1 cup of cooking water in the pot.
2.  In a small skillet heat 2 Tbsp olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, and breadcrumbs.  Cook about 1 min. and remove from heat.
3.  In the pasta pot, heat the remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil.  Add the remaining garlic, cook.  Add the zucchini and cook until crisp-tender, about 5 min.  Stir in the corn, cooked pasta, and reserved pasta water.  Add 1 cup cheese, salt, pepper.  Toss.
4.  Stir in remaining cheese, basil. Sprinkle breadcrumb mixture on top of pasta. 

Bruschetta
4 tomatoes, cored and chopped
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil
Salt & Pepper
1 baguette (crusty French bread), sliced 1 inch thick
1 garlic clove, peeled and sliced in half
3 Tbsp olive oil

1.  Mix the tomatoes and basil together and season with salt and pepper.
2.  Place bread on baking sheet and broil in oven for 2-7 minutes, turning once.
3.  Rub garlic clove over one side of toasted bread and brush with olive oil.
4.  Drain the tomato-basil mixture and spoon it over each slice of bread.