I say this every year and here I am saying it again: I’m a terrible vegetable gardener. I think I’ve figured out that I don’t take it seriously enough. I bought a bunch of plants and stuck them into the ground a few weeks ago. Among them are tomatoes, peppers, a few herbs, and something else that I can’t identify with certainty yet. Whatever it is, it’s cruciferous and not cauliflower. The lady I bought it from at the farmstand didn’t know what it was (apparently I’m not the only one who doesn’t take my garden seriously), but I decided to buy it anyway because I like to live on the edge. The farmstand lady also gave me some free pea plants, which I think are a spring plant so I wasn’t so sure about taking them…but they were free, so why not? I didn’t get to find out how peas hold up in the heat because a baby bunny ate all of my pea plants. I did nothing to stop him. How can I deny a baby bunny a snack? Gardeners must have nerves of steel. Othewise though, things aren’t looking too bad this year. So I’m working on lots of recipes that are filled with veggies in anticipation of the motherload springing forth from my backyard in a couple of months. Veggie kebabs are great because they work with just about anything. If those pepper plants don’t make it, cherry tomatoes would do just fine. No zucchini? Use eggplant instead. And if you’re a really bad gardener like me, you don’t even have to grow it yourself, so the pressure is off. The marinade and tofu are the important parts here. Coconut milk might seem like a weird base for something Mediterranean-y, but you really can’t taste the coconut at all. I even tried a few different versions of the marinade, and coconut won, hands down. You can grill or bake these too. Grilling is my favorite way to eat them (lots of smoky flavor), but when it comes time to get cooking I usually go with the oven for ease.
