Beyond Rice and Tofu

Although we had our first snow this week (only at higher elevations, thankfully) and a freeze warning, I am still wallowing in end-of-summer vegetables and haven’t really turned the corner into the fall foods yet. Soon enough, right?

Today I had a thought that I might take the dogs to the top of the mountains to wallow in the fresh snow. But then, I thought, why rush things? The snow will be here – down at our elevation – soon enough.

The first snow as seen from our front porch this weekend. Luckily it was above 7000'.

So last night when my friend Jennifer, over at The Gluten Free Advocate, messaged me to say that there was a freeze warning in our neck of the woods, my husband and I hurriedly put on our head lamps and ran out to harvest the more tender items still growing in the garden. I should have taken a picture of it all. Basil, sage, parsley, cukes, tomatoes (both the red and green), tomatillos (even the tiny ones), okra and peppers of all kinds. We covered both counters in the kitchen with it all. And of course it didn’t freeze. But I am still glad we harvested it all. Although in hindsight I wish we would have left a lot of the tomatoes on the vine as I already had a pile of ripe ones on the counter top and now I have to figure out what to do with all these green tomatoes, besides feed them to the chickens!

So today, I made a ton of tomatillo salsa and it all went into the freezer next to all of the other containers of it. (After two years of bugs eating my tomatillo plants, this year they finally grew and I have had tomatillos coming out of my ears all summer, so I have a lot of salsa in the freezer. My husband says that now we need to make more tamales. Maybe. )

And I made pesto. Then for lunch I had a pesto-tomato grilled cheese sandwich. And I have cucumbers in the frig to be eaten. So I am stalled in summer. And I am okay with that.

I noticed that this week’s theme for the Gluten Free Menu Swap is cranberries. I almost bought some this week. (So I am feeling the pull of fall, just a little.) I had them in my basket but the price was still too high in my opinion and so I put them back. Soon enough. Fall is indeed coming but I am in denial still… (Be sure to read Cheryl’s story about her cat and cranberries. Our dogs love them too, even frozen.)

This week’s plan:

Quinoa Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley – gotta eat up the garden goodies before the freeze really does show up!

Moroccan Chickpea Salad – one of our favorites.

Swiss Chard and Potato Curry with Veggie Burgers on the side (no buns!)

Kale with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Garbanzo Beans over Polenta

Poblano Pinto Bean Stew – okay, this is starting to get a little fall-like.

What about you, are you still stuck in summer? Or are you feeling the pull of pumpkin and squash and warm, cozy soups?

Be sure to jump over to this week’s Gluten Free Menu Swap, later in the week, to see what everyone else has planned. They’ll probably have more fall-like ideas for you than I do!