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Hello friends, we are back from our holiday- it was wonderful, will share a bit more in the Saturday newsletter- today I wanted to share a little about the quick and easy summer meals I cooked from our little kitchenette, with minimal tools and simple, fresh, limited ingredients.
the staples I used for meals:
cucumbers; lots of English cucumbers (the very long dark green ones)
tomatoes- I took a small can of the Trader Joe’s “super sweet san marzanino” tomatoes, as well as fresh ones, both cherry and large.
one eggplant and a good amount of zucchini
a bag of 6 fresh, sweet red onions
2 heads of our garden garlic
fresh basil- I brought some from our garden with us (in a glass of water like cut flowers) and also picked up a plant at a local grocery store for the windowsill, as I use a lot of basil in summer meals.
pasta- I brought fettucine and pappardelle
olives- a jar of garlic stuffed, a jar of pitted, a jar of regular- all green.
good sourdough bread- I brought some with us for the first day, and then we picked up fresh bread at the local bakery every day, which had wood fired sourdough, we were so lucky!
wine; red and white
extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar (worth it in my opinion to get the better quality ones), salt
feta, parmesan, mozzarella (I picked up the non dairy options at Trader Joe’s as it is where we happened to stop)
a few cans each white beans and chickpeas
On the day we left I harvested everything possible from our garden to take with us- zucchini, eggplant, shisito peppers, tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers. I picked up a bag of red onions at the farmers market- they are so fresh and sweet right now that they can be used liberally as a vegetable instead of a flavoring. We also picked up a flat of peaches and several ripe Galia melons to take. We also went to the grocery store near us halfway through the trip to pick up a few things.