Pizza, Pasta, & Salad!

Doesn't this look familiar!? Well, we are down to the crunch. It's just one more week before we leave for our big 4-week trip to the Balkans, so it's pretty much clean-out-the-fridge time. I had one more of these pizza crusts from Viccolo in the freezer, and I just couldn't resist its allure. We have some great folks who will be housesitting, and I suppose I could have left the crust for them, but I'm weak in the face of such yumminess. On the pizza I just put some olive oil, a few crushed garlic cloves, a big mess of chopped fresh basil, and some thick slices of amazing tomatoes. It's amazingly perfect and sublime!

Tonight for dinner, I made some little cucumber-tomato salads, sprinkled with some fresh dill. Musty is crazy for this conconcoction, and feels strongly that this is the best possible salad in the world, here is his recipe:

Tomatoes, cut or chopped
Cucumber slices
Fresh dill, chopped up and generously sprinkled
Chopped red onion
Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste.

I do not care for raw onion, so this is his own creation and he swears by it.

I must mention the very special cucumber that was in our salad. It is an organic "Armenian Cucumber" that I got at the farmer's market. They are long and funny and curvy... and I've overheard people talking about them. I finally decided to buy one, and it is AMAZING! crunchy and sweet and absolutely delicious. If they are available at your FM, I definitely recommend trying one for yourself! Yum yum yum.

Accompanying the salads was some steamed broccoli, and some radiatore noodles with fresh pesto and toasted pine nuts. The amazingly tasty pesto was another Farmer's Market splurge. The whole jar of organic, local, VEGAN pesto was only $5!! Not bad... especially since it's so darn tasty. It's from Happy Girl... who also makes great fresh salsa, strawberry lemonade, pickles... and lots of other good stuff.