I have been doing so much food preserving that I haven’t been doing a whole lot of regular cooking.  It’s typical – you are working on preserving bulk foods that are components to future meals but in themselves aren’t all that useful when you’re hungry right now.  I’ve been eating quite a few cheesy meals out from my favorite Mexican food place El Patio.  However – yesterday I made one of the best vegan meals I’ve ever tasted (pictured above).

Grilled summer squash on a bed of polenta and dressed with a kalamata olive dressing (chopped kalamata olives, julienned basil, olive oil, red wine vinegar, juice of one lemon, salt and pepper).  It was so simple and yet so satisfying!  I’m making it again tonight for vegan friends to try.

My pickles are busy fermenting.  They get cloudy after several days.  I’ve got them covered with the clamp lids and they’re sitting in my closet hopefully working their magic.  This photo was taken last week.  I think I should pull them out and check them today.

Well, I’m feeling horribly oppressed by my unopened stack of mail that has been accumulating while I’ve had all my attention directed at tomatoes and corn and peaches.  I’m scared of the potential doom within them.  So I’m going to go and open it all and file stuff and then I’m going to clean my kitchen, fold some laundry, organize a shelf or two and then I’m going to COOK.

Hope you’re all having a productive and awesome Friday!