What to Cook With a Harvest of One

Most of us backyard gardeners don’t raise enough produce to have massive amounts of each vegetable ripen at the same time. Instead, we get one of this and one of that; one yellow squash, one eggplant, 5 or 6 jalapenos, one cucumber, and a handful of tomatillos. It’s frustrating to have all this bounty and yet not enough of any one thing to make a dish. So what do you do with a harvest of one?

 

The recipe for squash casserole calls for 5 or 6 yellow squash. Eggplant Parmesan takes at least good size eggplants, maybe 3. So what do you do with your meager harvest?

You could freeze it until you get more produce of the same type. You could cook it and keep it in the fridge until more ripens. But really, that defeats the purpose of having the fresh ripe produce.

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My decision was to roast the single vegetables all together.

Using the one yellow squash, sliced,  the one eggplant, cubed, a couple of jalapenos, diced, I began a new dish.

Never having used tomatillos for anything but salsa, I wasn’t sure about adding them, but hey, the whole dish was an experiment, so be adventurous!  why not? I took a few of the tiny ones and cut them in half and threw them into the dish.

 

And lastly, I sliced up a couple of small red sweet peppers.

And then onions.

Because. Onions must go in everything.

All the vegetable went to a glass 9×13 dish and were tossed with olive oil* and then sprinkled with salt and pepper. Cooking time depends on how small you cut everything up. Mine cooked about 30 minutes at 350 degrees, or until lightly browned.

*I only use California Olive Oil. According to Nutrition Advance, MOST olive oils that you see in the grocery store are a mixture of olive oil and some other kind of oil. California Olive Oil is 100% olive oil.

Talk about DE-LICIOUS! The flavors just melding together and it was fantastic.

 

The best thing about this dish, is that you can do whatever!

Later when I made this again, I added the one potato that I had.

Another time I added garlic cloves.

Another time I added broccoli.

The combinations are limitless.

Farmers and homesteaders have acres of land that produce enough vegetables to have to can and freeze and dehydrate them to preserve for later use, but it just doesn’t happen that way for a backyard gardener. Usually we are growing just for fun enough to eat and hopefully, not have any to go to waste.

Finding ways to use our much more sparse harvest can be a  challenge, so when I find a great recipe or have an easy idea that works I want to share it with you, like these:

Grilled Squash

Easy Pickles

 

This Seasonal Vegetable Frittata from The Splendid Table looks easy and would work with numerous combinations of vegetables also.