First Fruits

Alright.

I get it.

One zucchini and a bit of lettuce.  About a $1 worth of produce at Winco, maybe $17.80 at Whole Foods.

It is still pretty exciting to us.

Squash is technically a fruit so although we have harvested lettuce for a salad this is our first fruit.  Yes, we understand that soon zucchini will be plentiful.  Soon we will be eating zucchini in everything.  We will bake it into bread, fold it into eggs, even use it as an ice cream topping.

But this is our first fruit.

It inspires a spiritual gratitude.  It makes us recognize the harmony of God and Nature.  The science of sun and water.  The botany of plants and the birds and the bees all in harmony with supernatural concepts like hope and faithfulness inspires us.  Certainly we have displaced ourselves from nature.  Certainly it wasn't a mistake that God starts His story in a garden called Eden.  Perhaps it is a little metaphysical for our little farm blog but we would be lying if we didn't include a little worship in every weed we pull, every egg we harvest, and every pen we clean.  God gave us this world.  This land to steward.  Why would we do less than take care of it?

Back to dirt and plants and animals and poo.  As the farm continues to produce so will our kitchen.  So in the topic of talking about the spiritual, let me tell you about our heavenly sandwich.  First off, credit should be given to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's Color Me Vegan.  The recipe came from her cookbook although our dairy loving leanings have caused us to add some fresh mozzarella.  This is how we made it:

We started by growing our zucchini and red leaf lettuce.  To date, these are the only items in this dish from our garden.  A trip to the grocery store yielded sandwich rolls, sweet onion, red bell pepper, kalamata olives, and fresh mozzarella bathed in olive oil and herbs. To prep the veggies we cut them all coarsely, the zucchini into coins, and the onion and peppers into 2" long julienne strips.  A pour of olive oil from the cheese and a blessing of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili pepper is all the more that is needed to season the already tasty vegetables.  When the onions are clear the veggies are done. It indicates that the peppers will retain a little crunch and that the zucchini won't be mushy.  While the veggies cook the olives are chopped to tapenade type consistency.  The small balls of mozzarella are also cut to meltable size.  Once this is all complete the roll's fluffy white innards are gutted leaving snacks for the cook as we take the roll and toast them in the leftover oil that has been flavored by veggies removed from the pan.  Once the roll has been given a bronzing it is removed and immediately loaded with cheese for melting purposes.  As the rest of the warmed veggies are added a topping of olives and crisp lettuce are the final touch.  Where does this thing not sound like Nirvana?  Thank God for our blessings.