Watch my zucchini grow

Remember this big ol baby??


Some new ones are furiously growing in the garden:

That's the main plant, the one that is huge and takes up the expanse of, oh, I don't know, a couch

Here's the other plant, that thus far has produced NOTHING but all of a sudden has produced this beautiful looking zucchini.


Actually, by the looks of it we could pick these buddies now and eat them. But, the last monster zucchini was so bountiful and provided us with so many meals!! So they are growing while I am out of town. I told Mister Siren to pick them if they got too out of control. He's on tomato watch anyway since we caught an EVIL CARDINAL out there pecking away at the tomatoes every day.

For instance, with the zucchini, we grilled it with other vegetables
(by the way, this was only half the monster zucchini, just to let you know)
You may not be able to see it, but I use Emeril Lagasse's trick of inserting toothpicks in the onion slices before putting them on the grill, in order to keep them together better. He suggests putting the toothpicks into your onion before you slice it, and then slicing away, to make it easier. I have found this to be really useful.

Once I grilled up that zucchini and onions, I mixed it with leftover grilled corn
Remember that delicious post? Of course the corn I shaved off the cobb was unadulterated with crazy loco sauce or queso fresca.


So I shaved off the corn, mixed it up with the other veggies and leftover steak from the grill the night before.

At which point I began to make some tostadas. easy! You just cut tortillas into triangles, spray them with Pam, shove them into the oven at 400 degrees for about 4 minutes or something like that. Then put your veggies on your tostadas, sprinkle cheese on top, and pop them back in until the cheese melts.

This is a delicious and easy meal, and really fun to eat. What's more, it's really cheap and great to use leftovers in. But the best thing of all, is that it uses all the summer veggie flavors.

Another thing I love to do with fresh raw veggies (including the rest of my monster zucchini) is just chop them up, sprinkle them with salt and drizzle them with olive oil, and make them part of a fresh snack plate for dinner. We did this with some leftover steak, cherry tomatoes, olives, and cheese and crackers for dinner the next night and it was great.

So I can't wait until my two new little zucchini
give me a reason to come up with several more ways to stretch the bounty!