garden squash & eggplant pizzas

Friday night, we had friends over for dinner. They swing vegetarian too, so cooking up a meatless meal was not an issue. And we had quite the harvest from the garden last week, making for a nice selection of veggies to choose from. They're kind, open-minded friends who would politely eat even my worst culinary creation . . . But they didn't have to feign interest because (spoiler alert) this dinner was awesome.

After the pizza success earlier this month, I decided to go with something foolproof and serve garden-fresh pizzas to our guests. Let me tell you what made this a good game plan:

• I planned ahead (I know, I know—brilliant! Every meal should start this way!)

• I didn't put too much pressure on myself ("No big deal" = mantra)

• I practiced the recipe before serving it to guests (Shocking development!)*

• I gave myself plenty of time, prepping the dough before going to work and chopping veggies a couple of hours before guests arrived (Time? Who knew?)

• I chose recipes that, even if something went a little awry, they'd be good (Um, hello, PIZZA)**

• I kept it fairly simple and asked the guests to bring dessert—one less thing to worry over. (And boy did they deliver.)

I highly recommend such a game plan if you're at all like me: Nervous. Scatterbrained. Forgetful. Buckling under the pressure to perform. Wishing you could be drinking wine with your guests instead of stressing away in the kitchen.

That's right! With a little forethought, I actually put on a successful dinner party. It was, dare I say, so much fun that I'm doing it again in two weeks. We'll be having garden pizza and salad (I'm a quick learner).

* This isn't entirely true. I tried the recipe once, exactly as the recipe was written. But who am I to make the same recipe twice? Due to the garden yield, I decided to change it up. Riffing on that same theme, I scrapped the zukes for yellow squash and the orange bell for two baby purple bells from our garden. Those made for two great substitutions and I highly recommend being brave.

** Yeah, so I did actually bust out a new recipe, found day-of-dinner-party, and it was amazing. I had two small, perfectly-hued eggplant from the garden and wanted to use them. Smitten Kitchen came through as usual with a grilled eggplant and provolone pizza recipe (thank you, Google). This one was a white pie (without marinara sauce) and was my hubby's favorite of the evening—the first time he's ever referred to an eggplant dish as his favorite. So, that was, like, totally awesome.

The full menu, so you can plan ahead for your next dinner soiree:

• Salad (store-bought greens) with garden tomatoes, snap peas, green beans, and Mother's Cashew-Tamari Dressing

• Garden Squash, Bell Pepper, and Goat Cheese Pizza on homemade spelt crust

• Garden Eggplant, Olive, Parsley, and Provolone Pizza on homemade spelt crust

• Vanilla ice cream with local blueberries

Stay tuned to find out just what's happening in the garden this week . . . Bad news: we've got borers. Good news: It's not too late to re-plant.

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yum factor: goat cheese and zucchini pizza

I'll be the first to admit, it's been tough times in the kitchen lately. Not a lot going on, and when it does go on, there's a mess deal with and not a lot of "yum" to make the mess easier to handle. What you haven't seen here: a completely failed attempt at banana bread, some decidedly not delicious dinners, and preoccupation with other stuff. Bigger fish to fry, if you'll excuse the analogy.

So part of me was getting pretty put out about it all. We started eating out more and more, until I felt like we were eating out at every meal, and the only thing I found myself cooking were iterations of rice and beans. Healthy, yes. Sustainable, certainly. Cheap, you betchya. But food blog worthy? Challenging? Fun to brag about?

Come on now.

In the midst of it all, I watched our garden begin to falter. The bean plants and cucumbers were looking ill, with mazes appearing in the leaves (note: leafminers are vicious little buggers but can be combatted organically with BT). Pillbugs had stumped the growth of our first yellow squash in the garden. We were under heavy attack by predatory bugs.

Things were not boding well for my hopes and dreams of being an urban farmer/food writer/culinary artist/yoga instructor/expert seamstress (see how the snowball effect takes hold?!?). Things had to change.

We took action on the garden, seeking the advice of some pros (the tips? Water deeply, use BT and DT, and check the babies every day for signs of sickness). We set an intention for our garden and our food, and agreed that there was an opportunity here to reset and enjoy. And coinciding with this revelation, heralding it in, in fact, was the latest issue of Vegetarian Times. Cue choir of angels, bright shining light from Heaven, etc.

We're trying their 28-day Eat Green Veg challenge—and by that I mean cooking from their wealth of healthy veg recipes. And they're all in one place, which caters to my lazier busier side.

Here's an incredible recipe for Goat Cheese, Zucchini, and Bell Pepper Pizza, which I followed to the T! The only adaptation was to make a spelt crust from scratch, following Mark Bittman's dough recipe for the most part (I used 1 1/2 cups bread flour and 1 1/2 cups whole spelt flour, and since I was all out of instant yeast I just used the regular stuff. I let it rise in the fridge all day while I was at work, then brought it to room temp before moving forward.).

Oh, what? Pizza's not healthy? Actually, this one is—I'm no nutritionist (yet; let's put that on the to-do list), but the spelt crust is chock-full heart-healthy minerals and vitamins. The sauce is made from organic tomato paste and a little evoo; the toppings are fresh veggies and a little bit of local goat cheese. No grease to speak of, and very little salt. In fact, in lieu of parmesan I sprinkled a little nutritional yeast on top for just a hint of parm flavor. So, yes. Healthy pizza.

In other news, here are a few shots of the gardens. They're coming along and we are looking forward to a summer full of squash, corn, tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, melons, beans, peas, eggplant, and peppers.

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