Evening Bounty Makes a Delicious Lunch

It's been really hot here, as usual. On Wednesday I did a mini-harvest, including a big bag of basil, green beans, zucchini, some cherry tomatoes, and snap peas. Oh, and a cucumber and eggplant. Of course me and Mikey had a silly time taking pictures, as usual.

I also taught him how to use my camera, so he arranged the vegetables "into a house" and took pictures.

 Delicious delicious vegetables!

Of course I had to make something incredibly delicious out of all of this, especially the basil. I decided to make pesto, of course, because what else is there to do with basil??? I remembered seeing a recipe a while back that was a pesto potato salad with green beans, and decided that was the perfect thing. On the side, to use up the eggplant and half a tomato in the fridge, I made a babaganush/matbucha kind of thing. When Elisheva tasted it, she said it's actually a Greek dish called something Greek that I don't remember. It's amazing how I'm such a global chef.

For the PESTO POTATO SALAD WITH GREEN BEANS I would say follow the Smitten Kitchen recipe for amounts because I didn't actually measure anything. I made the pesto with olive oil, basil, parmesan, salt, pine nuts, almonds, and lemon juice, which is different than Smitten Kitchen, and I thought it was fabulous. The lemon juice really brightens it up. I also added about half a regular (brown) onion instead of green onion. I sliced it into tiny little cubs, and to take out the bite, pickled it in some pear-infused white balsamic vinegar (fancy, I know). I then mixed together the potatoes, green beans, onions, pesto, and poured some more vinegar on top. DELICIOSO. On my plate I drizzled it with some lemon juice because I like things sour.

For the EGGPLANT/TOMATO DIP THING I peeled and cut the eggplant into tiny pieces and fried it with a TON of olive oil and little onion pieces. I sprinkled it with some salt while it was cooking. When it was all golden delicious fried, I added most of a chopped onion and let it cook till it sorta smushed down, and then added a little canned artichoke hearts. If I knew how to say BEST THING EVER in Greek, I would.