Boy, you can get some HUGE zucchinis locally. I tried to grow two plants but the bugs ate my seedlings. :( Luckily, even monsters like the one I bought only cost 50c at the market.

The huge zucchinis are nowhere near as tender as the little 6" - 8" guys you find at most grocery stores. So, while they're good to fry up (they take a while), they're really good to stuff and bake. You definitely get your veggies out of this one - this made enough for two meals AND we had filling left over. So there's enough filling to do one of those monster zucchinis.

I used TVP here because frankly, we don't eat that much meat at a time any more. TVP lets us put in extra fiber and protein, but get a lighter, fluffier mix with less calories. Feel free to substitute your choice of meats if you feel like it.

Also, this works great with any kind of summer squash, though not all should be cut into steaks. Those neat 8-ball types that are round are especially good to hollow out for individual servings and even large patty-pan squash can hold a fair amount.

Okay, I admit - this is an odd one. Everyone, or so it seems, in the food world has been talking about cooking radishes this year. Food & Wine featured an article on a famous chef, I forget his name, presenting four different types in a little garden looking dish and various bloggers emulated it.

Now I've only recently decided that I like radishes - I spent a long while not liking them one bit! But I was really tired of putting red onion in my salads and needed something else with a tangy bite - enter the humble red radish. I'm not really sure now why I didn't like them before. :-)

Since radishes kept going on sale for really cheap - 4 for a dollar, for example - I decided I could waste a quarter on a recipe that might or might not turn out.

Turns out that they're actually really good braised. And probably roasted too, but I haven't tried that yet. They become very tender and mellow. I think when the weather gets colder, I'm going to try throwing some radishes in with the roasted veggies I like to make for winter salads. I bet they'll be good.

So, for a really easy side that takes next to no work, I'd definitely try these if I were you.

Mangoes are in season now and we've been getting a bunch of them for great prices lately. We also lucked into a fresh, ripe pineapple so I decided to try making a fruit-based salsa. It came out beautifully!

It's hard to believe when a salsa I create from scratch comes out so nicely that just a couple of years ago I couldn't make a salsa if my life depended on it.

So, we decided to make a bunch of different components that we would normally put into a tortilla salad and used our freshly baked Tortilla Chips on the side. I think the only thing that might be missing is some shredded twice-cooked chicken. (Leftover chicken, like from a rotisserie chicken, shredded and sprinkled liberally with different spices like cumin, oregano and garlic powder, then lightly fried in a teensy amount of oil to brown it up.)

Did you know you can freeze avocados? Just mash a ripe avocado or dozen, combine with some lemon or lime juice (as if making guacamole), add salt and pack the mash into silicone muffin cups. Freeze until solid then remove from the cups and place in a freezer bag. Works great for guacamole, random lunchtime tacos and adding to salads like this.

It was such a great day at the Benson Grist Mill farmer's market that I just had to share.

We picked up all of this from three sellers - one with eggs, one with melons and one with everything else.

For less than $20, we got some fantastic white onions, jalapenos, ripe tomatoes, an Israeli melon, some cucumbers, a huge zucchini, two white patty pan squashes, yellow wax beans and two dozen eggs.

The farmer from whom we bought almost all of our veggies actually lives just a few blocks away from us. I found out that we can go to his house on Friday afternoons and get everything we could at the market, and even stop by his house Monday through Wednesday to ask for specifics. I plan to ask him whether he's going to have chard and kale this year and when he actually starts selling. It'd be great if we could stop by and pick up munchies earlier than August!

He didn't have the Armenian cucumbers today, sadly, but I have hopes that if we go to his house on Friday, we can still get one.

Lucky find of the day: A 1 franc coin from 1974 in our change!

Last time, I talked about Flour-Corn Tortillas. Once we made those for the first time, it was only a small step to thinking about making our own chips and taco shells. Turns out it's really easy (but probably not a great summertime recipe since it uses the oven and heats up the kitchen).

The neat thing about doing your own taco shells is that you can do the same thing as with the chips - brush them with a bit of oil and sprinkle any kind of seasoning you want. With the flour-corn tortillas, neither tostadas or taco shells seem to be prone to cracking and spilling the contents all over you like with plain corn.

There isn't really any difference between tostadas and taco shells - one is formed into a U-shape, the other is flat. I really like tostadas because it's easier to put a bunch of toppings on and nibble away at the outside. I never seem to be able to fit everything into a little taco! (But then, I always seem to want to put lots into everything. It's just that once I get some beans and some taco meat/tvp and some salsa and some cabbage and some cheese...and I've just exceeded the carrying capacity of a taco shell. Again.)

I can't say that we'll never buy taco shells again... but it'd be a real challenge to put them in the cart. These are so much better!

We've tried making corn tortillas at home but it's really, really hard. Oh sure, the recipe itself is easy - it's no trouble at all to get a good dough going. The problem, however, is when you try to press them in the tortilla press (which we splurged on when it went on sale at the local Hispanic market). They stick or they crack and on the rare occasion when they don't do either, they wait and do it in the pan. Or on the plate.

Frustrating. I know it can be done, but I think there's a lot of experience behind it. Honestly though, it can be so frustrating that we wind up picking up a batch from the market, like a pack of 36 blue corn tortillas. (Yum, by the way.)

So, when Suzanne over at Chickens in the Road posted about her flour-corn tortillas that fix all of those problems, I knew we had to try them since the gluten in the flour helps keep the tortilla soft and bendable.

Well, it's now our go-to recipe for tortillas. We actually like them a bit better than just plain flour or corn tortillas!

On Friday, I'll post how to make chips, tostadas and taco shells out of these guys - they're fantastic!

And, as with all tortillas, these can be easily frozen and used later. Don't be afraid to make a big batch if you're up to pressing a bunch out. Just toss them into the freezer in a freezer bag for later.

My apologies, Dear Reader, as I know I skipped the past week of posts rather unexpectedly. While I did some writing on Monday, particularly on my resume and cover letter for a job I really want, I didn't have enough energy left to set up my posts for the week. I wish I had because the next day my shoulder decided that it didn't feel like playing nicely any longer; between the pain in my shoulder and neck and the numb fingers and elbow from the pinched nerves, I couldn't easily sit at my computer and write. Luckily, it's relaxed once again so I can finally get some of my projects and writing done..only a week late. Sigh.

I've always wanted to try zucchini flowers. I've been seeing them on various food blogs and tv shows (when I watched tv anyway) but getting ahold of them is another story. I heard that the local farmer in Tooele who lives across from Arby's (and if you're local, you know the house, it's the one with all the flowers) would sometimes be willing to sell a baggie of them for a dollar or two if you could catch him before he packed them all off to whoever he sells to.

I never have. Of course, I usually catch him at the market, not at his house, so it's not really surprising.

So when we went to our usual hispanic market on Tuesday, I was very surprised to see baggies of freshly-picked zucchini flowers. (I would laugh if we brought them back to Tooele where they started from, but I have no way of knowing if they came from him.) They weren't very expensive - $2.50 for a half-full bag of an unknown quantity.

I immediately started looking for recipes when we got home. According to what I read, zucchini flowers don't last long (do flowers ever?) and need to be used within 24 hours of purchase. Some people eat them raw but most seem to like to fry them. The inner pistil (or stamen, whatever it is inside the flower, I am no botanist) thingie needs to be removed before stuffing.

I decided to adapt several of the recipes I found into one and then further adapted it to what was on hand when I went over to a friend's to cook them up. (She has a deep-fryer and also wanted to try them. Win.) She had a bunch of different cheeses in her fridge, so it turned into a delicious quatro-formaggi blend.

These are definitely labor-intensive. It took me about an hour to prepare everything and I definitely recommend twisting the petal tips together. It helps them hold their shape and not open when you batter them. All in all, I think I got three dozen flowers out of the bag -- wow!

I thought these were really good, very much worth trying if you find them or want to attempt to prevent your zucchini plant from overwhelming you with zucchini. (I wanted a zucchini plant this year but the damned earwigs ate all three seedlings.)

If you come across the flowers and want to try something new, you should.

A few weeks ago, we saw a container of soy butter that looked intriguing but the price was exorbitant. It's pretty easy to make nut butters if you have a food processor, so we figured we'd look around for a recipe before spending the cash.

Turns out, we had everything already in the pantry! We like toasted soy nuts and sunflower seeds on our salads, so we always have some on hand. They're pretty cheap anyway - $1/lb for the soy nuts and not much more for the seeds.

Literally, this is so easy that all you need to be able to do is work a food processor and you can have some damn good butter in a few minutes. Use it anywhere you would use any nut butter - sandwiches, sauces, etc. It'd probably make a mean cookie!

Unlike many butters, there's no need to add extra oil to this one. Just remember to take it out of the fridge a few minutes before you need it to make it easier to spread.

Ahh, summer. It's too hot to cook inside, especially here, but from what I've been hearing, it's hot just about everywhere. Even our family in Latvia have been hit by some major heat. Me, I'll be glad when it's the end of September and temperatures return to something I can deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Still, despite the heat, July is a busy month if you live in Utah. Not only does Utah celebrate Independence Day like the rest of America, but there's also another excuse for a cookout - Pioneer Day on the 24th. It's basically the day when Brigham Young showed up in the Salt Lake valley with his famous, "This is the place" speech.

So, I took three things that are very common here in Utah and happen to go together really well:

** Buffalo, which I love for it's strong beefier-than-beef taste, still (kinda) roam in my state - they have a preserve on Antelope Island alongside said antelope. In Grantsville, near where we live, several people keep buffalo instead of cows. (And boy, when you see those massive giants off the side of the road, you look twice!)

** Burgers, quintessentially American, can be even better when made partially or fully with ground buffalo meat.

** Fry sauce. A Utah original, this is one of the things my state is definitely known for besides awful recipes made with Jello. There's several different ways to make it and most restaurants who serve fries will also serve fry sauce (of varying quality). In its most basic form, it's a 1:2 ratio of ketchup to mayo. I like mine with bbq, personally.

We wind up with a Pioneer Day special: buffalo burgers with oven fries and fry sauce. I love adding strong cheeses like blue cheese, roquefort, feta or chevre to the mix. The strong flavors of both cheese and buffalo play off of each other beautifully.

(You know how I said it's too hot to cook inside? I still bake the fries, even in this heat. I just like 'em better that way. But I bet some enterprising grillcook could throw these puppies in a foil packet onto the grill and get 'em good and tasty.)

This recipe is one I decided to try on a whim with some black plantains we'd picked up on special. If you pick out green plantains at the store, you can let them ripen on the counter, but be careful of letting them go too far -- if mold develops, you probably need to use them without delay. (The peels are very very thick so a little bit of mold on the surface isn't a big deal. Just wash it well before you peel it.)

I didn't like Bittman's original way of cooking this dessert (which involves cutting slits in the peel and stuffing stuff in) because it's too much work both when prepping and eating. Instead, I like to peel them first to get the hard part out of the way.

The spices are pretty similar to the ones used for apple pies and pumpkin pies, so if you have a little container of pumpkin/apple pie spice, just use that instead. Or, substitute nutmeg or ground cloves for the cardamom. Super-easy.

In short, these are ooey, gooey treats for the banana lover that can be made in less than 30 minutes and is largely unattended - a great, fast dessert.

Hey! I decided to update this after making it with some burro bananas we had picked up on sale. Burro bananas are these short, squat bananas that can be eaten raw like normal bananas when ripe. They have this citrusy/lemony-banana flavor that's really fun and interesting. And guess what? They go great in this dish! In fact, they're even better than plantains! So, if you see burro bananas around, give 'em a shot. They're ripe when they're completely yellow (may have some black edges or spots).