Eating out of the summer garden

This is the kind of meal that screams "SUMMER"! Here are just of the few things we had for dinner tonight, and almost all of it came out of my veggie garden.

The best plate was definitely the eggplant-tomato-basil platter in the front. The Japanese eggplant plant only yielded one little eggplant this week, not enough to make a real eggplant dish. So I sliced it into thin rings and pan fried them in a little high-quality olive oil, and finished with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Japanese eggplant is so yummy -- you can eat the skins (they turn a lovely lavender color) and the flavor is nice and mild. I arranged the cooked eggplant on the plate, and surrounded it with plum tomato slices. I then sprinkled on coarsely chopped fresh basil, and drizzled a little balsamic glaze on top. We gobbled that up fast!

The salad in the back features my sugar-sweet cherry tomatoes (which Emily eats like grapes), some leftover chickpeas, cucumber, and fresh parsley. It was dressed simply with a squeeze of lemon, salt, and pepper. The salad on the right is a combination of arugula (I can't seem to have enough arugula!) and baby spinach, with cucumber, carrot, and yellow baby bell tomatoes (um yes that's THREE kinds of tomatoes in one meal!). I paired that salad with a bit of homemade hummus and edamame dip (on the left). The edamame dip comes from my friend Alma Schneider -- check out her recipe on her blog. Everyone LOVES this dip (especially Emily) -- I make it every week.

On another note... this is the kind of meal that I think of when carnivores ask, "What do vegans eat?" and they think vegan diets are so boring, or complicated. This is so flavorful, so delicious, and it's not even fancy cuisine. Just simple, whole, fresh plant foods.