One Local Summer challenge - week 5

We raise a lot of our own food so keeping to the OLS challenge isn't a hardship most of the time. This is prime gardening season in our region and we're having to put in more hours weeding and, unfortunately, watering these days. (We've watched storms move around us for the last couple of weeks but still haven't gotten more than a few drops of rain.) The kitchen chores fall in importance this time of year -- well, except for preserving what the garden produces, that is. So many of our meals are all about quick preparation and, where possible, providing really good leftovers for other meals. Saturday's lunch fit both criteria besides being just plain good.

I made a frittata with eggs from our own chickens and a few vegetables and herbs from our garden along with a little local chevre. I used my "Anything Goes Frittata" recipe adding leftover boiled new potatoes, a walking onion and the very last of our asparagus -- no more fresh asparagus till next spring. A handful of garden-fresh herbs comprised mainly of parsley and chevril went in to the mix right before I poured it into the iron skillet. The frittata tastes great hot but is also good as part of a cold meal for another day.

A choice of pickled beets (homegrown and pickled last month) or cucumbers in vinegar (from my sister's garden -- our cucumbers are late this year) and a plate of steamed green beans (homegrown) drizzled with olive oil and dashed with kosher salt completed the main meal. DH and DS had glasses of grape juice to go along with their lunch, I opted for water. The juice, which we canned last fall, came from my mom's grape vines.

No dessert as we still had a lot of work to do -- DH went to work setting up a larger rainwater collection tote so if it ever does rain here, we'll be able to hold onto some of it. Hope to have pictures up later this week.