tons and tons of food

I have loads of food to blog about -- my kitchen has been a busy place, as always.

Dinner from last week:

Homemade spinach and tomato dal, over a brown rice pilaf with cardamom, black pepper, and slivered almonds. Frozen samosas and mango chutney on the side. Yum!

Baking fun:

I checked out Baking at Home with The Culinary Institute of America from the library, and have been adapting a few recipes from it. These blueberry muffins were the first -- I cut the fat down slightly, used whole-wheat pastry flour, and agave nectar instead of sugar. Dan and I gobbled these down in a couple of days.

Why the funny plastic cover on the muffins, you ask?

Oliver likes to eat muffins when I'm not looking.

Another delicious dinner:

Beets and greens tossed in homemade vinaigrette, sliced heirloom tomatoes, and homemade bread topped with local, herbed goat cheese. This is quickly becoming a favorite dinner, and will continue to be as long as tomatoes and beets are in season! (P.S. I used some of the scapes in the greens -- delicious!)

A fun treat:

Blackberry ice cream (storebought, but organic and on sale,) with blackberries!

I brought home quite a load from the Farmer's Market yesterday:

Clockwise from bottom left: sugar-snap peas, beets w/their tops, sweet corn, the hugest bunch of lettuce ever, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and roma tomatoes.

Not pictured in the above photo, 'cause I got so excited when I got home I started cooking and forgot to snap a picture of everything together:

I also bought cucumbers, green beans, and dill, which I promptly turned into refrigerator pickles. Spicy dilly beans, and normal garlic dill pickles will be enjoyed by Dan and I throughout the summer. That is, if they last that long! :)

I had to figure out what to do with most of that produce, since our fridge is practically bursting with goodness. I did chop and wash the lettuce so it is salad-ready, and I cut a bunch of the corn off the cobs and froze it for future chili and creamy corn soup use. :) I also had to put some of the zucchini to good use right away, since we were already out of blueberry muffins:

Zucchini bread, also from Baking at Home with the CIA. I'm less impressed with this recipe so far, but the bread may have moistened up a little bit overnight -- I found it a little dry yesterday. I did use organic, natural sugar in this recipe, and I think I should have used agave nectar. Whole-wheat pastry flour sometimes dries things out a little bit! Drat. Now I know for next time. :)

I should have another post for you all tomorrow -- Dan and I checked out a new (to us) state park yesterday, and I took some great pictures! Until then.