Garden Dinners

I think that one of the best things about growing veggies in your back yard is the garden fresh dinners.  You can't find anything fresher than what you pick in your own backyard and the farthest it will ever travel is to your kitchen.  Couldn't get more locally grown than that!

Tonight's main feature was a vegetable medley that I conjured up out of thin air (and dirt).  The summer crops are just beginning to be ready for harvest, so there isn't much in the way to pick yet.  That is the reason that I decided a veggie medley would be a good side dish for my steak dinner.  I could have just a little of everything and still have a filling meal.

Walking around the garden I found a handful of broccoli florets, five or six green beans, a small yellow squash, a couple of small onions, and a handful of small potatoes from a plant that was starting to turn brown.  I chopped them all into small pieces and fried them up with a couple chopped slices of bacon.  Made the most colorful side dish and was delicious to boot!

The garden salad I picked for my appetizer was also beautiful and delicious, but I was hungry and managed to eat the whole thing before I even thought to take a picture of it.  I made it with a variety of red and green lettuces, radishes, a white cucumber, and a purple carrot from the farmer's market.  I topped it off with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.  It was magnificent!

I am so proud of my little garden and the fact that I can have a really good meal from right out my back door.  Now that harvest season is here I will be eating like a king for the rest of the summer, and probably using all of my spare time to preserve the harvest.  It amazes me that the seeds to grow all these meals only cost me a few dollars.  If I bought all of these veggies from the supermarket it would cost me so much more and still not be as fresh or as nutritious as what I grow in my backyard.