Veggies veggies veggies

So we've hit that point. I have way more veggies than I can consume, and not enough time to prep them. I actually went out to Whole Foods today to get some sushi so that I'd be able to get some work done and then cook. So after some sushi and a few math problems, I tossed my laundry in the washer and started chopping. Unfortunately I forgot that my laundry was going for about a 1/2 hour, so I'm still awake now.

I made my typical cucumber salad, which is two thinly sliced cucumbers, 1 thinly sliced green onion, some dill, salt, pepper, and a couple tablespoons of Miracle Whip. If I remember I'll put some Hungarian paprika on before I eat it. I have a mandolin thing that I used for the first time today, and it appears to cut prep time for cucumber salads by about 80%.

My coworker suggested a different kind of cucumber salad, and this one includes cukes, slices of orange, thinly sliced fennel, and olive oil and vinegar. It smells wonderful, and tomorrow! We'll see how it tastes.

Then I made some pesto. I've never made the stuff before, but it made me love my food processor even more. I only used up about a quarter of my basil for a cup of pesto, so much more to be done this weekend. It turns out that if you freeze it, you should omit the cheese and add it in when you're ready to use it.

The farm gave out a recipe for a fennel garlic spread. Unfortunately, when I was reading the ingredients, I thought it said rice wine vinegar, which I have. But no, it was for mirin or rice wine. I read the description of mirin, and decided that the closest thing I had to it (since it was already cooking) was amaretto. Sweet, anyway.

I then cooked some tilapia in the leftover sauce. If the flavor of the tilapia is any indication, the spread should be pretty good. But then, anything in amaretto is pretty good.

I finished the evening off with a tomato, mozzarella, basil salad with olive oil and vinegar. Yay! Food to eat, for a couple days anyway. I still have zucchini, and I'm angling to watch the Iron Chef America zucchini episode one more time before I dive in...