First "backyard" ingredient salad of the summer

Today I ate one of the first "backyard" meals of the summer: tuna pasta salad, made with backyard radishes, cucumbers, onions, celery, lemon, mayo, salt, pepper, backyard dill, and the "blushing Italian" herbal vinegar I made last year with garlic, oregano, rosemary,basil and aging red wine. It was DELICIOUS. Basically, since we're so early in the season, I'm just finding excuses to gussy up meals with backyard ingredients - but it really does make a difference. As we get closer and closer to summer, I'm getting fed-up with bland vegetables - I'm so excited to eat dishes where the veggies bring their own flavor. Me and Dawn have also been more-or-less on a tomato strike all winter. Locavores we are not, not by a long stretch, but after ice-cream sundae-level delicious tomatoes last summer, we just couldn't get excited about watery, bland winter tomatoes. We made do with lettuce, cucumber and crouton salads, which felt about right for the winter. Now that the season is starting, I'm so excited to eat food from the backyard - herbs included. We are more or less in the "salad season" - the stir-fry vegetables are still really too small to eat, so we get lettuce, radishes and early-season carrots (which I opted not to plant this year!) - plus herbs. This time of year I love coming up with a recipe just so I can chop up sage, oregano, parsley and dill and sprinkle them all on top. Roast Chicken, anyone?


Also, with all the warm weather we've been having, the garden is more or less ahead of last year - my garlics already have little scapes on them! For those not in the know, garlic "scapes" are the little seedheads of the garlic plant. The garlic is ready for harvest when the neck of the plant curls around twice, and the scape on the end grows. Last year, the garlic didn't even grow scapes until mid-June, so I'm psyched for some early garlic. Also, you can eat the scapes - I've heard they are delicious pickled, but I could never save enough to pickle - I always chop them up and throw them in the stir-fry - they have an awesome, delicate garlic flavor!