Creative Uses for Garden Bounty

[clairebeautiful]

Okay - it is finally June in North Carolina, which means my garden should be giving me daily offerings of a few things to add to the lunch or dinner table.

I'm a sucker for sticking to the usual tomato + basil + moz. cheese, and I think I could never grow tired of it. But every once in a while I throw something new together that I just have to share.

Yesterday I went to make a tortilla pizza and realized I had no tomato sauce. So instead I topped a tortilla with a 6 cheese Italian blend (something shredded in a bag), fresh garden tomatoes sliced thin, and whole basil leaves. I left it under the broiler about 4 minutes and folded it on itself.

It was sort of like a tomato basil Stromboli but with a VERY thin crust. Delicious.

Okay - your turn. Give us some of your more creative uses for the abundance of boring summer veggies your garden has to offer....

 

[Morning Glory]

One obvious thing to do with too much fruit and veg is to make pickles or preserves. Recently I made Mango pickle (no Mangos don't grow in my garden, of course not). I got a tray of them in the 'reduced' section of the supermarket.

 

[Berties]

any gluts after we have shared out produce either gets frozen first,or gets turned in to jams or pickles ,sauce for the freezer
we make rhubarb pickles,apple pickles ,green and red tomato pickles,even a runner bean pickle

 

[Corzhens]

Over here, we don't have much of an excess since we are always budgeting our plants. You see, we have a small backyard garden that is around 50 square meters only so we have to plan what to plant. But in case of an excess in harvest, say cassava, we cook it and give some to the neighbors or sometimes I would bring it to the office to share with my colleagues. But with vegetables, we also cook everything and save some for the next day.