Let inspiration take hold with fresh produce
Farmers’ markets are brimming with vegetables, and home gardeners are also harvesting. Standing at the market and looking over a vendor’s beautiful produce, it’s easy to feel ambitious. The challenge arises once you enter the kitchen with your bounty.
All of the austere preparations are fine for freshly picked produce. Saute zucchini with little more than salt and pepper, steam corn in a few inches of boiling water, and grill slices of eggplant. You’ll enjoy yourself - until boredom sets in. Then it’s time to jazz up the harvest with something dressier. Look to traditional dishes for inspiration or mix your own flavors. Try to find a balance between dressing up these vegetables and overwhelming them with superfluous ingredients. Our harvest boasts beautiful produce, so there’s no need to get fancy. Let a few good flavors guide the preparation.
Summer vegetables need high heat or very little cooking. The idea is to keep those intense tastes and textures. Yes, slow-roasted tomatoes or grill-roasted corn are wonderful, but they’re the exception. High heat caramelizes sugars in the vegetables without turning them to mush. The raw route is also practical (who wants to cook when it’s nice outside?). Slip raw corn kernels into salsa, toss thinly sliced zucchini with ribbons of pasta, or layer strips of bell pepper in sandwiches.
Traditional preparations beg for a little twist. Succotash, a fine dish that settlers learned from Native Americans, is transformed in a saute pan with green beans. The sweet corn kernels, along with scallions, red onions, and chopped parsley, turn into a lighter, fresher dish. Similarly, rework the Italian bread salad panzanella, made with tomatoes, by grilling the bread to give the salad some smokiness. Then arrange the sliced bread with cucumbers and tomatoes on a large platter, drizzle with good olive oil and red wine vinegar, and finish with basil and olives.
Make up your own pairings. Treat these vegetables the way a kid goes after Crayolas, letting inspiration take over. Saute zucchini strips and sweet onions with smashed garlic and fresh thyme. Stack grilled eggplant slices with shaved Parmesan, fresh herbs, and tomatoes for a free-form eggplant parm. Pair sweet peppers and goat cheese.
These are quick preparations. Within minutes of hitting the fire, the vegetables will be in their serving bowls and you’ll be heading out to the patio to dine. If you’re facing your own garden, ignore the weeds. Soon the sun will set, and no one will notice.
