It's 3 AM and Bill's making Ratatouille

Seriously.  It's approximately 86 degrees in the apartment.  I'm being kind of stubborn about the air conditioning.  It's expensive and consumes a great deal of resources.  It wasn't that bad today, with fans going and windows open.   And we hit the city pool in the evening (thank you Robert Moses).    For dinner, I made no cook wraps: mesquite turkey, pepper jack, red and green leaf lettuce, Bill's pesto on Trader Joe's habanero lime tortillas and my favorite Polar Orange Dry soda.

It's been a bit unbearable though.  I'm feeling exhausted and utterly depleted this summer.  Natsubate is the Japanese term for "summer lethargy."  I didn't even photograph that sexy vegetable share on Thursday.  It is a gorgeous haul:  basil, beets, green beans, dandelion greens, lettuce, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, spring onions, tomatoes (cherry and 1 beefsteak), peaches, chard.

Tomorrow is going to be 100 degrees or something.  In order to avoid heating up the apartment during the day when things are at their worst, I usually do any cooking early in the morning.  For example, it's the perfect time to cook up a batch of yogurt or boil pasta for a salad.  Bill is a night owl.  He likes to cook late at night, and many times I have awakened to the whirr of the food processor as he whips up a batch of pesto at an ungodly hour.

Right now the house smells heavenly.  The kitchen fans is exhausting all of the loveliness into the courtyard, where I am sure it is causing my neighbors to salivate in their sleep.

I have given up though.  I am retreating to the bedroom.  I'm going to turn on the a/c and try to get some sleep, assured that I will be enjoying some variant of ratatouille for breakfast.

Bill's Midnight Summer Stew
olive oil
onions
garlic
zucchini
yellow squash
green beans, trimmed and cut into 1" lengths
carrots, peeled and sliced
tomatoes
basil

Saute the vegetables, then cover and stew for a few minutes until everything is cooked to your liking.  Eat hot or cold, with pasta or rice, on toast (bruschetta), rolled in a tortilla or straight out of the fridge with a spoon.  Make a very large batch and eat it for days.

Saturday morning

A summer cold has hit the Barnacle household, which has slowed the pace of cooking adventures. During the week, Bill was inspired by gorgeous basil at the local supermarket, and made a batch of pesto with thin linguine. It was delish.

I'm feeling a bit better, Bill is feeling a bit worse. I felt like cooking, so this morning's adventure, I made pickles with the yellow squash, more Spicy Radish Leaf Furikake (recipe from Just Hungry website), and started a batch of Kimchee.

Yellow Squash Pickle - Sicilian style
2 yellow squash, sliced in rounds
olive oil
garlic scape, minced
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Brown squash, and set aside. Saute garlic scape in the same pan, adding oil if necessary. Turn off the heat, and add lemon juice to deglaze pan. In a wide mouth jar, layer squash, salt, pepper, spoonful of scapes, and pouring the remaining juices from the pan over the last layer of squash. Refrigerate. Serve with toast, over macaroni or with salad.