Roasted-tomato topping for pasta, bread or polenta: 39 cents/serving

Apologies for the late post, but I have officially entered into the late stage of pregnancy where standing on my feet, at the counter, for long periods of time has gotten almost unbearably difficult. I’m still cooking, mind you, but it’s more in the vein of throwing things together based on the garden and pantry and hoping they cohere enough to be edible before I have to go sit down. The resulting “recipes,” if I remember them at all, are rarely innovative or tested enough to warrant inclusion on the blog. The last thing I made that would be worth your time and trouble to re-create was this roasted tomato dish, utilizing what appears to have been the last big tomato harvest of the summer. It’s nothing fancy, just a big ol’ pile of heirlooms and a few handfuls of sun golds (or whatever tomatoes you have on hand), roasted in olive oil to concentrate their sweetness and topped with basil-garlic bread crumbs. I served it over pasta, but it would also be great over polenta or on bread as a sort of bruschetta.

Panzanella: 18 cents/serving

With compliments to the Italians, panzanella is the original budget meal. The O.G. Sui generis. Some stale bread, olive oil, balsamic vinegar and tomatoes and basil from the garden, and you’ve got yourself dinner. Provided you made your own bread or are using a loaf that otherwise would’ve been thrown out (and have tomatoes and basil in your garden), it shouldn’t cost more than 25 cents or so a serving. And it’s still tasty even after it’s sat for a while, making it an excellent side or potluck dish.

Barley-lentil stew with prosciutto & dill: $1.83/serving

As mentioned in previous posts, we were gifted a family-sized CSA box a few weeks ago, and were able to make use of every single item in it…except for half a bunch of dill. (The other half went into two loaves of dill-olive bread.) Dill is pretty far down the list of my favorite herbs. In fact, it may well be at or near the bottom. It’s mostly known for going well with seafood, which I hate, and/or eggs cooked by themselves, which I also hate, leaving few options for use (other than pickles, of course). Luckily I was able to find one. Yes, it’s a stew, which isn’t exactly the most appealing meal in late August, but the yogurt and dill combine to give it a coolness that somehow seems perfectly appropriate.

Summer-squash muffins: 12 cents each

Odds are, you or someone you know is suffering right now from an overabundance of summer squash. No need to avoid eye contact with neighbors or pretend you’re not home. In fact, I say get your hands on as much as you can—you can grate it, freeze it in 3-cup increments, and use it to make muffins, which can last you months if you let them cool, then individually wrap them and put them in the freezer. That way you can either grab one on the way to work—it will probably be thawed by the time you get there—or zap it in the microwave or toaster oven for a minute or so; it’ll be just like fresh-baked. This recipe works with any kind of thin-skinned summer squash; this time around I used crookneck, pattypan and two different kinds of zucchini. Don’t even bother peeling them; just cut off the stem ends and run them through the grating disc on a food processor (or grate them by hand). Just think—a little elbow grease now could keep you in free squash (and cheap breakfasts/snacks) all the way until spring.

Mizuna pesto: $2.17/cup

Last week, we were gifted with a CSA (community-supported agriculture) box. One of B’s work colleagues runs the drop-off spot for this particular farm, and an unclaimed share was generously passed on to us under the (exceedingly correct) assumption it would be used and appreciated. As I’m sure comes as no surprise, I’ve never been part of a CSA before, but I can definitely see the appeal. The only downside with this box was that it was one of the “family” shares—intended for households with more than 2 people. Which meant we suddenly had a house full of summer squash, peaches, potatoes (on top of the ones we already have from our garden), dill, mizuna, green beans, wax beans (again, on top of the ones we’re already harvesting), carrots (again, more), and French crisp lettuce. The squash were no problem—immediately grated and frozen in bags for bread and muffins. A little bit of the mizuna went into BMTs—bacon-mizuna-tomato sandwiches, using heirloom tomatoes from our garden—but what do with the rest, other than insert it unceremoniously in a series of salads? Pesto, of course!

Sweet potato, apple & spinach salad: $1.47/serving

I make a lot of salads. Most of them I don’t bother posting here, as they’re usually just a mishmash of ingredients I happened to have lying around, paired with produce from the garden and tossed with some vinegar and olive oil. Simple, often boring (by food-blog standards, anyway), and not always good enough to bother re-creating. This salad, however, was an exception. It was originally supposed to be black beans and rice with roasted sweet potato and lime, but, as I came to discover at the last minute, I was out of black beans. Time for Plan B. Thanks to some apples from our neighbor’s tree and some spinach in the crisper, I was able to transmute most of the original ingredients into a salad that’s actually worth revisiting.

Tomato cobbler: 60 cents/serving

Regular readers of this site know I’m a big fan of savory baking. It’s efficient, it’s delicious, and if you happen eat it all, oh well—it’s dinner! I’ve been wanting to make this particular cobbler for a couple of years now, given that it calls for three pounds of cherry tomatoes. I certainly knew I wouldn’t be buying those tomatoes in the store, so I’d have to wait until a year I could grow them myself. As it so happens, this is the year. Our plants have been so fecund that harvesting three pounds of sun golds only took a couple of days. If you yourself have a surplus of cherry tomatoes, or don’t mind going out and buying them, this is perhaps one of the best places for them to end up. Oven roasting brings out a sweet tartness that contrasts with the topping of rich, creamy cheese biscuits, and, provided you grew your own tomatoes, the whole thing costs less than $4 to make.

Baked orzo with sage pesto: $1.04/serving

If you’re like many gardeners this time of year, you probably have (or have access to) a large, lush, healthy bush of sage…waiting for October or November. Sage is usually considered a fall herb, but it certainly doesn’t have to be. Combined with a little mint, parsley, and/or basil to offset its medicinal taste, sage makes an unexpected, light, summery pesto. It’s great by itself on pasta, but even better in this baked orzo dish that comes together quickly and makes enough servings to last through the week, for lunches or emergency dinners on days it gets too hot.

Creamy lemon pasta with olives & basil: $1.01/serving

Because basil is finicky to grow from seed outdoors—and doesn’t last as long once it gets going—we’re currently on our second planting of basil in the indoor Aerogarden, timed (hopefully) to coincide with the ripening of our larger heirloom tomatoes. Unfortunately, this means we’re currently having to buy basil, as I did for a lemon-basil cake I made for a party this past weekend. Do you have any idea how much basil costs in the store? Either $1.99 for a few limp sprigs packed into a plastic clamshell case, or upward of $3.50 for a “hydroponically grown” (with, incomprehensibly, dirt clods attached to the roots) or living bunch. You’d better believe I’m using every last minuscule leaf of that stuff. All I had left was enough for a sprinkling over this vaguely Greek-inspired pasta, which is good hot but even better cold as a salad. I must say, though, the basil completely made the dish, and may have earned it a spot in our regular rotation once the home-grown basil gets going.

Sweet corn risotto: $1.36/serving

Is anyone else having as much trouble as I am procuring decent corn this summer? It happened (albeit slightly early) with the corn & prosciutto crisp last month, and it happened again this week: I go to the store expecting bins overflowing with cheap, fresh, delicious corn and find a sad little pile of overpriced, desiccated cobs that look destined for someone’s bird feeder. I specifically don’t grow corn in the yard because it’s always so cheap, abundant and delicious elsewhere, and this is the first year it looks like that decision is going to come back and bite me in the butt. I might have to do without, or at least play pretend with a few bags of frozen corn. So, dear readers, if you have access to plump, fresh, juicy ears of corn, this recipe is for you. It’s intentionally simple to bring out the sweetness of the corn against the savoriness of the Parmesan.