This week your basket contains: snap peas, SNOW PEAS, zucchini, cucumber, spring onions, new potatoes, garlic, mint, beets, and lettuce

If you didn’t get a large squash for zucchini bread last week, you probably have one today!  We’re doing our best to keep on top of the crazy growth that squash is capable of but sometimes they get a bit ahead of us.  Our web site has a lot of good recipes for summer squash, but this one, which is new for us, seems perfect for this week.

MARINATED ZUCCHINI WITH MINT

3 zucchini, thinly sliced lengthwise

2 tablespoons plus 2 more tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 minced garlic clove

1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. On two large rimmed baking sheets, toss zucchini with 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil; season with coarse salt and ground pepper. Roast until zucchini are tender and undersides are browned, 10 to 15 minutes.   On a serving plate, sprinkle zucchini with minced garlic and drizzle with 2 tablespoons oil and white-wine vinegar. Let stand 1 hour (or refrigerate, up to overnight; bring to room temperature before serving). To serve, sprinkle with torn mint leaves.  Adapted from Martha Stewart

Snap peas are, amazingly, still producing (they hate heat).  This week it would be best to cook the snap peas.  Snow peas do better with heat, but they are probably best cooked as well.  Both types of peas need to have the strings that run down the edges of the pods removed by snapping off the stem and pulling down the inner edge.

This is an odd sounding recipe that is actually very good.  Our daughter Kate was very skeptical of it until she tasted it. Her verdict was “it is much better than it sounds”.  The baby beets in your baskets are fine to use instead of golden beets (we’ve always used red beets), and any onion works instead of a red onion.  This is a great side dish or topping for fish.  It can also be eaten alone as a salad or expanded into an entrée salad by adding lettuce and/or other salad greens.

BEET AND ORANGE SALSA

1 medium golden beetroot (100g in total)

1 medium orange

1 small lemon, halved widthways

30g pitted Kalamata olives, quartered lengthways

½ small red onion, finely chopped (40g in total)

15g chopped flat-leaf parsley

½ tsp coriander seeds, toasted and crushed

¾ tsp cumin seeds, toasted and crushed

½ tsp sweet paprika

½ tsp chilli flakes

1 tbsp hazelnut or walnut oil

Salt