Years ago when I subscribed to an organic vegetable delivery, I learned that it was interesting and fun to plan my meals around the week’s delivery. I’m doing the same this summer and it has resulted again in discovering new ways to use the garden bounty. It is actually easier now with the plethora of food and cooking blogs.

I am not a fan of what odd ingredients can we mix in this week…BUT, then here I am with some unusual – at least to me – combos this week.

Carrots have been in the garden bag for the past several weeks. First there were a few baby carrots. They have been getting bigger but are still wonderfully sweet and flavorful. I have shared some with neighbors and the rest munched as a snack or added to my pasta salad.

This week, though, I remembered a potluck salad of grated carrots, raisins and ??? I looked at a number of recipes and then made a carrot-dried cranberry-chard-walnut mix with a pineapple ginger creamy vinaigrette dressing. Oh boy… I was glad to see in the garden email this morning that there were carrots again this week because this salad was goooodddd!

I paired it with some Copper River Red Sockeye Salmon and raw – fresh from the garden – peas.

Peas…there were still some peas. Fresh peas – so good and sweet.

My recipe searching turned up several variations of sweet pea pesto. You’d think I would have had enough pesto, considering I’ve turned every green thing from the garden into pesto…but no. I took from several recipes and ended up blitzing the peas, lemon juice, sunflower seeds, sunflower oil, parmesan, salt, pepper and garlic. And then… I used that sweet pea pesto on a pizza…

Sweet pea pesto, leftover salmon, Vidalia sweet onion, mozzarella…AND SWEET CHERRIES!

It was so good, I had 3 of the same this past week although the last 2 did not include salmon. The sweet pea pesto and sweet cherries was the bomb!

And last night, Wednesday, August 1…the first full moon in August night…I finished pitting my twenty pounds of cherries purchased last weekend. Some have been blitzed with basil and sugar into syrup and frozen. Some just frozen. Some used on the pizza and some in my cereal and some eaten as a snack. I hope to make either Cherry Preserves or Cherry Marmalade this weekend. The rest I hope are a wonderful surprise treat through the winter.

This Summer has been going well. It got a bit of a late start which is fine with me. Since then, the heat has been moderate and short-lived…broken up by cool spells. Eating from the garden – the research and planning has helped me enjoy a time that is not my favorite.

This morning was cool and beautiful. Bob and I have been having some time together on the front porch as Bear does not like to be out when the sprinklers are going. He has a thing about spraying water…

So, Mr. Bob and I have our quiet time together while Bear takes a morning nap.

The sun rose through a few clouds into a blue, blue sky.

Smile Bob!! Time to start Thursday… well… I think that is his “sit down and drink your coffee and stop pointing that darn camera at me” expression. So, I did. Happy Thursday!