Zucchini, Sugar Snaps, and Chard

I know I know sometimes I don’t blog for a month and now 2 times in the same week; I can hear you saying - what’s up with her anyway? Remember I said I wanted to blog more in retirement but then I thought I was too busy? Let’s say I’m making up for lost time. 

If you saw my post last night you know we’ve got this thing going on with Mother Nature - she doesn’t want us to eat out on our deck for some unknown reason. The past 2 nights we get the table set and the food out and within 10 minutes some random cloud goes over and we have to make a mad dash back inside - yikes. 

Last night we had a delicious dinner from the garden (partially outside and finished inside); a chard salad with beets and a balsamic dressing, soba noodles and stir-fried zucchini, sugar snaps, and carrots (the carrots were not from the garden). It was simple but so delicious.

Swiss chard is one of my favorite greens - for Dan not so much. He’ll eat them sautéed with onions, lots of garlic, and white beans. My chard is going crazy and we’ve got beets in the refrigerator so I put the two together and made a dressing and - salad, done. 

Our sugar snap peas are coming along nicely. The past couple of days I’ve picked quite a few. I’ve also picked a couple of zucchini (trying to catch them when they are smaller this year). I chopped and cleaned the veggies and then tasked Dan with doing the stir fry. He added onions of course and the result hit the spot. 

Salad ingredients:

4 cups shredded swiss chard

2 large (or 3 small) beets

sunflower seeds

Dressing ingredients: 

1T olive oil

1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

1/8 cup fresh orange juice

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Make dressing and set aside. Shred and chop chard and beets. Toss mixture with dressing, sprinkle with sunflower seeds, and add salt and pepper to taste. 

Stir fry ingredients:

1 1/2 zucchini - sliced into rounds 

1 onion - peeled and cut into large pieces 

2 carrots, peeled and cut into rounds 

2 hand full sugar snap peas - cleaned 

Sauce:

1T olive oil

1T sesame oil

1/2 T chili oil

1T soy sauce

2 cloves garlic minced 

1 knob ginger minced 

1T corn starch 

Instructions:

Prepare sauce by mixing all ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. 

Prepare all vegetables. 

In a medium pan add 1 T olive oil and saute onions until translucent, add carrots and saute an addition 2 - 3 minutes, add zucchini and peas and saute another minute or two. 

Add sauce and stir fry until thickened. 

We served the vegetables over soba noodles and there are leftovers for dinner. 

Thanks for stopping by!