The ebb and flow of this year continues, as the peppers start to ripen up, beans are ready for a first picking, and tomatoes start to wane. It is a time of year when the recipe is to simply cook whatever you have together.

I suggest two different recipes for this. The first is a hash of potatoes, beans and onions. It is a good way to use the modest harvest of beans that will be in the shares over the next few weeks. As a side note, it is interesting to read the entire newsletter the recipe is in (July 20, 2007) and see what we were up to.

Sorry, no food picture this week, just a slow-opening sunflower.

Another way to blend the share but cook a different combination is eggplant, onion, garlic and tomato over rice. You can use whatever proportions you like making this dish. Ours had a healthy amount of onion and garlic, but consisted mainly of chopped eggplant and tomato. First sauté the onion, eggplant and garlic for a good 10 minutes and then quickly chop the tomatoes and add them to the hot pot. It helps the sauce thicken up.

In reading an article on how last month was the hottest July on record, I came across this map. You can see that for us in Missouri the first half of 2015 was relatively cool. Guess we should consider ourselves lucky.