My Favorite Simple Summer Garden Dinner
August is when the garden really shines. May is when you do your prep work and get everything in the ground, June is all about nurturing your little seedlings and keeping up with the inevitable weeds and pests that pop up, July is keeping everything watered and tended to in the summer heat, and August is when you finally get to start enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Between the crazy amounts of rain we got in June and July and me being away for about 6 weeks over the course of the season, my garden is honestly kind of a mess this year—a productive and bountiful mess, but a mess. Looking back at photos from last year, things looked a lot more tidy and I was able to do a better job at staying on top of everything, but this year between the weather, my travels, and of course, being pregnant, I had to let up a little and just let things be.
I planted my tomatoes too close together and that bed is completely wild and overgrown. My zucchini plants got about 10x bigger than they did last year and took over everything in their path. Half of my flower seeds just never came up (or they washed away in one of the biblical rain storms that we got), and I just couldn’t keep up with the absurd amount of weeds that took over.
But…that being said, a lot of plants are thriving. My kale is enormous, the zinnia bed is perfect and the lisianthus are beautiful, my tomato plants look pretty scrappy but they bore a good amount of fruit, the herbs are doing great (the lemon balm is insane, any recs for what I should do with it?), I enjoyed plenty of zucchini and summer squash before those plants called it quits, the leeks and onions are about ready for harvest, and a bunch of random plants self-seeded and popped up out of nowhere.
I’ll get in there this week now that the temps have finally cooled down a bit and try to clean things up (and maybe even get some lettuce and spinach planted for fall), but in the meantime, it’s time to enjoy the bounty!
Now, I’m not a recipe developer or a food photographer so don’t expect too much here, but I thought I’d share my go-to, simple summer garden dinner that I make a lot this time of year. Spoiler Alert: It’s basically just pasta primavera with pesto, but it’s delish and a very easy way to use up a bunch of garden goods and sneak some veggies into your pasta.
Danne’s Garden Pasta Primavera
Ingredients:
Homemade pesto: 3 cups basil, 6 tablespoons pine nuts, 2 cloves garlic, 6 tablespoons olive oil, salt to taste
Pasta of your choice
1 small onion
1 zucchini or summer squash
3 large kale leaves
Handful of cherry tomatoes
Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste
Parmesan cheese
Steps:
Make the pesto: Combine all pesto ingredients in a food processor and blend, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary until everything is combined (you can have it be as smooth or chunky as you like).
Prepare the veggies: Chop the onion, zucchini, and kale (I like to finely chop the kale), and half the cherry tomatoes.
Sauté the veggies: Starting with the onion, then adding the zucchini, and once they have softened a bit, add the kale followed by the cherry tomatoes and cook a little longer. Season with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if you want to add a little heat.
Cook the pasta per the instructions on the package, drain, and return to the pot.
Add the sautéd veggies to the pasta pot and stir.
Mix in the pesto.
Top with a sprinkle of parmesan cheese and enjoy!
And p.s. Using fresh pasta makes it even more delicious. If you’re local to Ann Arbor, this guy makes a great pasta and sells it at a bunch of places around town, including Arbor Farms and Argus Farm Stop.
