Speaking of World Vegetarian Day / Vegetarian Awareness Month - our afternoon yesterday was veggie-filled. We were fortunate enough to get an up close and personal tour of a local friend and Thai-restaurant-owner's home garden, which was pretty spectacular and gave us major plant envy. He was even so incredibly kind as to send us away with a very generous sample of some of his 14+ tomato varieties (many heirloom), as well as several Thai and other hot peppers, some Italian plums, concord grapes, an heirloom spinach, and more:
(*hence the title of this post... the way all of the produce looks in this photo from how we laid it out made me think of a flag!)
The yellow tomatoes in the center of the photo are particularly interesting - their skin is soft and a little fuzzy, like a peach - we'd never seen that before. The spinach was also really unique - we took a bite and could only describe it as "super spinach" - it's a thicker, denser spinach than the typical variety, with more flavor and substance. It was also my first time tasting a fresh concord grape... OH my. Absolutely and immediately one of my favorite fruits. Now, to try and grow some ourselves...And what's in this photo just touches on what his garden grows - there's also chard, apricots, blackberries, tons of herbs (Thai basil!), and lots more. It was very inspiring! We are in the process of planning how to improve and expand what we're growing at home.So naturally we had to put some of these amazing veggies to use for dinner last night. I threw together a variation on this Simple Summer Heirloom Tomato Fusilli.I used a few different tomatoes from the above photo, as well as some yellow grape tomatoes we already had. Heated a little olive oil and some leftover dry white wine (Berger - one of our favorite Gruners) in a pan, and tossed in a few tablespoons of chopped shallot and garlic. Oh but not just any garlic - elephant garlic!:
Look at the size of it! I photographed it in my hand for a point of reference. I've never cooked with it before... needless to say 3/4 of a clove goes a long way (and this is coming from a garlic lover). I haven't yet researched how it differs from regular garlic other than in size, but if I had to guess I'd say it might be a little milder.Once the garlic and shallots softened and became nice and aromatic, and the alcohol from the wine burned off, I added some lemon zest, lemon juice, a full bag of baby spinach, and the tomatoes. I also added some chopped jalapeno (from our garden) and some thinly sliced Thai chili pepper for a kick of heat, as well as a sprinkling of sea salt and a bunch of ground pepper. And a few handfuls of basil from our garden.For pasta, I used remnants from two boxes: a bit of our favorite long fusilli and and also a little gemelli. I tossed the pasta with the "sauce" once it was al dente, and then I added some fresh arugula to the bowls we ate out of for some crunch and additional veggie bulk. I love recipes like this, because it's barely a recipe at all - you just use what ingredients you have and go off of your own taste preferences, and throw something together. It was a great light dinner.