Abundance

For the past few weeks I've been in a vegetarian's heaven. I returned home on Sunday after a brief visit at my mum's with three large bags of veggie goodies. Cucumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes and even cauliflower and broccoli. And that's not all, Mr. C's dad has a garden as well so we receive bags of veggies on a weekly basis from him as well.

cherry tomatoes from mr. C's dad

Sunday was a blur of cooking and baking because some of the veggies were ripe and ready to use. Unlike store bought vegetables these aren't treated with anti fungus and yeast and whatnot so the average shelf life is 3 to 5 days. Which means I've pretty much been living on salads this past month.

winter provision, even some porcini mushrooms in the right corner

My mum is also keen on making preserves: jams, pesto, relish and veggie spreads. This will all come in handy in the long winter months when fresh vegetable is scarce. So I baked and cooked and baked some more. I made raspberry pie with raspberries from our garden and some homemade double cream from a neighbour (I use the term double with great reservations, since it's made out of fresh milk so the amount of fat is probably like a gazillion %)

And then I made  burek, the ultimate Balkan comfort food. Usually made with minced meat or cheese. I made mine with some organic free range eggs, some homemade cottage cheese (from the same neighbour that made the cream) and the surprise ingredient: grated zucchini!