What to Make with All My Garden Harvest.... Dinner Ideas and Recipes

My girlfriend recently brought over a delicious salad from her garden. It was diced tomato, cucumber, mozzarella and basil...with balsamic vinegar....yummy!

we do gardens too, but we do them to help provide food over the winter as well as have the delicious fresh garden grown over summer. I am so going to have to try some of these ideas, but once you really start getting the harvest you may want to consider freezing and canning it. Cucumbers are the hardest to save unless you want to can them as pickles, green beans we can, tomatoes we can as salsa and juice,zucchini we blanch and freeze in slices for the younger ones and the bigger ones I grate and freeze for breads, bell peppers, we dice and freeze to cook with or blanch and fill with a meatball stuffed inside for stuffed peppers later. One of my neighbors makes relish out of squash and zucchini as well, and you can do that with cucumbers and peppers. I love this time of year, and nothing feels better than watching your cubbard fill up with your hard work knowing you can feed your family with it. Oh yes, and my favorite idea is to make a huge pot of vegetable soup and freeze it into ice cream buckets for a quick healthy meal on the run during winter, or just to warm up with on a cold day when you dont feel like cooking. Love it.

You have the makings for a delicious feast. Being creative is the key. Personally I love fresh cucumbers sliced in a bowl with Italian dressing or just plain. This makes for a refreshing snack on a hot day. This will also work well with the tomatoes. Really any dressing will do. Don't be afraid to try some new dressings. We love a sesame orange ginger dressing or raspberry vinagrette.

The green beans, zuccini, bell peppers, tomatoes can be sauted in a pan with some (2-3 table spoons) olive oil, garlic and onions. I would put everything in the pan except the tomatoes. Once all the vegetables are tender, then add the tomatoes and squeeze fresh lemon, lime or orange juice over the top. Let cook for another minute for the tomatoes to cook then serve. This can be served as a vegetable dish by itself or over some pasta or rice.

Simple, delicious and nutritious.

Hey J.,

Get this book:
"Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things: A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes" by Lois M. Landau and Laura G. Myers

It's great, and you can find good, used copies of it for less than half the cover price online!

A scrumptious dinner from your garden veggies that kids will love is Zucchini Crusted Pizza. You can google the recipe. It is in the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. I just made it out of an extra large zucchini from the garden and my husband and very picky toddler loved it. You essentially grate up a zucchini and mix it with flour, egg, and parmesan to make the crust and then top it like you would a pizza, with sauce cheese and toppings. It comes out more like a thin lasagna, not so much like pizza but it is really good!

My fave green bean recipe is a South Beach recipe. You just boil ad blanch some green beans, then toss them with soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, a couple cloves of minced garlic, some toasted sesame seeds and a pinch of crushed red pepper. We typically eat it a t room temp or cold. We love this recipe so much we just snack on the green beans straight from the fridge!

Enjoy your harvest!

go to a site like http://www.allrecipes.com - you can type in "zucchini" or whichever item you want a recipe for and you'll see loads of different recipe ideas

My favorite use for the tomatoes and bell peppers is the recipe "Stephanie's Freezer Spaghetti Sauce" http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Stephanies-Freezer-Spaghetti... - uses the crock pot and it's super easy :)

One thing I make with peppers, onions, zucchini, squash, tomatoes and basically, you could add any other veggies (maybe not cucumbers!) is sauté all in a large skillet with olive oil until soft then add tomato sauce. Serve over rice. My Italian grandmaother made this and called it jambot ("mixed up") and it is YUMMY!
Here's a link about it:
http://ericademane.com/2007/08/12/lost-recipes-found-what...

I have just made a zuccini casserole. Search a cookcook. You can also fry zuccini that you have tossed in an egg and tossed in flour/corn meal mix and fry in butter until brown. Yum. The cucumber you can peel and slice and put in a quart mason jar layered with sliced onions. Pour about 3/4C vinegar and fill up with water. Add about a cup of sugar. Put in refrigerator for a day and they turn out crispy pickles. Yum....Good luck with your garden!!!!

Sounds like you'll be needing a good recipe for some home-made vegetable beef stew/soup! Throw it all in the crockpot, and you'll have a scrumptious meal by dinnertime. :) Also, zucchini bread is a great idea! Do you Can your veggies? My girlfriend does...she makes salsa, pickles her cucmbers, and even makes a homemade tomato sauce. Granted, canning isn't for everybody, but she loves to do it, and her family reaps the benefit all year round. P.S. cucmber salad is awesome....peel & slice the cumbers, and marinate in a bowl of vinegar & sliced onions...yummy! Good luck!

I know this is really late--sorry. I've been meaning to respond forever. We have discovered a cucumber salsa that is a hit with my two-year-old, my husband, me, and all of my neighbors!!
Chop up and mix together all the following ingredients.
2 cucumbers (the less "seedy" the better)
5 small tomatoes with juice squeezed out
1 small yellow onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
2 T lemon juice

I would chop up any extra bell peppers and freeze them. Then you can saute them and add to eggs or top a hamburger later.

Best of luck with your harvest!! The dreaded squash vine borer got my zuchini this year. :( I'm doing a second planting and I'll stagger plant next year!

Green beans, especially with a small batch, is easy! =) Snap off the ends, and then snap the beans into bite sizes. Clean them (just rinse thoroughly in water a couple times) and put them into a pan. Add whatever you'd like (bacon, salt, and pepper, or we do onion or onion powder and a boullion cube a lot) and cook slow for 3 hours or so. Give it time to absord the flavor from the things you've added.

Our green peppers actually aren't very good for just eating (I don't know if it's the variety or what this year), but they're great for cutting up and adding them to omlets, or adding green peppers & onions to your burger.

Zucchini - so much to do! Zucchini bread, zucchini pie (like a cream pie), you can put it in cake or brownies as the shortening (much like you would substitute apple sauce), you can slice it and steam it with seasonings on top, you can slice it and cook it on the grill, too (directly on the grill or in aluminum foil).

I hope that helps! Great job for having a garden. We love ours!