Bounty

Way ahead of schedule, I'm going to have to start preserving vegetables, with snow peas and green beans needing to be blanched and frozen. In the meantime, I'm searching for creative ways to use the same vegetables over and over. Eating from your garden means you eat what's ripe, when it's ripe and if that's snow peas and raspberries six days in a row, so be it. This week I picked everything in this picture-- a pound of snowpeas, two small broccoli heads, about a half-pound of green beans, a sizable bowl of mixed greens, 5 enormous radishes, a quart of nasturtium blossoms, and 2 quarts of raspberries.

Of course, the produce at the market is also spectacular, so I broke my "no store-bought produce" rule today and got apricots, cherries and avocados (all things which I don't grow). The apricots will go in an apricot-raspberry preserve, and also in the salad below, and the avocados will turn into guacamole and sandwich fixings.

My son got a pint of raspberry-mango preserves, and will also get some of the pound of snowpeas I've picked this week. With the rest of the bounty, a lovely summer salad with a nasturtium vinaigrette.

Summer Salad
Garden greens, blanched (chard, mustard)
Lettuce (Simpson and Merlot leaf lettuces)
Wild greens (lamb's quarters, sorrel, purslane and unidentified mache-looking thing)
Radishes
Snow peas, sauteed
Apricots
Uncle Lajos' walnuts
If you simply must have animal protein, throw in some bacon or strips of ham, and/or a hard-boiled egg.

Nasturtium Vinaigrette
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
1/4 cup shallots, finely minced
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
3/4 cup chopped nasturtium flowers
1/4 cup chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons olive oil

Whisk together balsamic vinegar, shallots, 1/2 cup olive oil and dill weed until combined. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in nasturtium flowers and chives. Drizzle on salad.

Thanks to Springfield Illinois' State Journal-Register for the recipe.