Layered Tomato, Zucchini and Eggplant Pie

It's hard not to be inspired by a beautiful garden.

My parents' garden certainly falls into that category. It towers over our backyard. The produce is fed by nutrients from our compost pile. It's overflowing with just about every fruit and veggie you could want. Heirloom tomatoes hang from tall plants. Green beans form a canopy you can walk under. Potatoes, sunchokes and radishes hide underground, just waiting to be dug up. Tomatillos and choke cherries burst out of their wrappers.

Ever-bearing strawberry plants occupy the back portion of the garden, and they're still in fruit this late in the year. In another corner, butternut squash that popped up all on their own (perhaps from rouge seeds from the compost pile) are thriving. Harvested garlic hangs from the rafters in the basement. You'll just need a bit. It's potent stuff. 

For the better part of the summer, my parents were out in the garden every day, and they almost always came back with a bowl of goodies.

You can't get much more local than this, and I had to get my my hands dirty while I was visiting last weekend. With my parents proudly showing off their hard work, I harvested the tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant in the afternoon while my whole wheat pie crust was chilling in the fridge.

Minimal cooking and seasoning really ensures the integrity of the vegetables is preserved. The eggplant and zucchini are salted to remove some of the moisture, and then the vegetables are layered in the pan. The veggies get a sprinkling of minced garlic, a drizzle of olive oil, and a dash of salt and pepper before heading into the oven.

Eaten warm, with pan-fried walleye (locally caught by dad) and a raw kale salad from the garden prepared by mom, the pie was just perfect. Each bite exploded with freshness. I went back for seconds. Then I had the leftovers for breakfast. It was that good.

This pie is being submitted to Not Eating Out in New York's Seasonal Pie Contest, where New York City bloggers (and bloggers who can make it to the city) are encouraged to make pies using seasonal ingredients and blog about the pies they make. Check out the post for opportunities to win two tickets to the upcoming Let Us Eat Local fundraiser.
 

Blue Cheese and Red Potato Tart

Michael Pollan writes an awful lot about potatoes. They play a central role in his book "The Botany of Desire," which traces the evolution of four plants and examines how they've adapted to meet our basic needs.

He found that growing potatoes affords humans some control over the unpredictable mess of farming. It's a plant that's so nutrient rich that entire civilizations have thrived because of it.

However, with the proliferation of the potato came the first monocultures, where farmers filled entire fields with just one trusty potato variety. Some years they were rewarded with healthy yields. However, when crops suffered under a monoculture system, entire societies were decimated.

Farmers today, as a whole, seem not to have learned much from the Irish example. Driven by industry leaders such as McDonald's, many continue to plant monocultures of potato plants. Here the solution to disease is genetic engineering and specially targeted chemicals, not sustainable growing techniques and the use of a diversity of crops.

Still, blaming the potato seems a bit misguided in this situation.

And giving up on the potato does too. I have days where I just crave potatoes in any form. I can't seem to go out for breakfast without ordering hash downs, with their perfect combination of potato, butter and salt.

So instead of abandoning potatoes, I've tried to celebrate them. No, not those Russet Burbanks that are the perfect size for the french fry machine. I'm talking about the beautiful little lumpy red ones that arrive at the farmers' market freshly dug from the fields.

Yes, it does means that my concentric circles aren't all exactly even because the width of my slices varied. But they're the potatoes worth celebrating because of the sustainable way they're produced.

Oh yeah, and because they're really delicious baked in a tart topped with blue cheese too.