Lunch from the Garden

Over the course of the week, I had harvested onions, red potatoes, green beans, and yellow and zucchini squash. I had SO many squash that I made squash pickles yesterday - I'm tasting them chilled later today and I'll report in with a taste-rating. I made watermelon rind pickles, and they taste great, but are mushy. I have some ideas how to make that better.

Monty and I washed all the veggies, and I snapped a pound of beans and peeled red potatoes while he sliced up the 3 pounds of squash I harvested this morning. I had already thinly sliced a vidalia onion from the fridge and began sauteing it in schmaltz adding the potatoes as I peeled and quartered them. When all the potatoes were in and sizzling with onion, I added the snapped green beans and about 3 cups of water. A little kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, and a pound of smoked sausage cut up into half inch medallions and a stewing one-pot meal began to simmer. On the side, I sauteed more onion in more schmaltz and tossed in the yellow and zucchini squash with some kosher salt into the new wok. Sizzling squash on the right, stewing sausage veggies on the left, and we were all getting hungrier by the second. After the squash was finished cooking, I emptied the wok and added butter to sizzle the beets I'd roasted yesterday.

I served green beans cooked with potato chunks and smoked sausage, sauteed squash with onions, and sauteed roasted beets. For dessert, we had watermelon rind pickles. Of all this, only the smoked sausage was bought from the grocery store!! How cool is that!??

Tonight we'll have a roast with carrots and potatoes (all done together in the roasting pan), and a squash casserole (using sauteed squash from lunch), and yeast rolls for the family (not me, I'm gluten-free). I hope to cut up another watermelon this afternoon between meals for a snack and use the rind for new and crunchy pickles.