Creamy Zucchini Soup with Parmesan and Cherry Tomatoes or Back Porch Gifts are Best

Fresh sliced cherry tomatoes are hidden at the bottom of the bowl for a surprise.

There may be more recipes for zucchini than anything else at this time of the year.  Long gone are the tiny, tender and sweet pencil-slim squashes of early summer.  Here now are baseball-bat sized --could I say clubs?--appearing on back porches, in countless loaves of bread, stuffed and broiled, or any of the above.

My basil died while I was gone.  Market had plants 3 for $10 this week. I'm starting over.

Since zucchini is my favorite vegetable, perhaps after asparagus... or maybe green beans...I just don't care.  I'll buy or take all I can get and never be tired of it.  Shredded, mixed with egg, onion, and a bit of flour, it's a supper pancake served with grated cheese.  Slit open, scooped out -- the moist innards sauteed with onions, garlic, and pepper--and refilled, I'm thrilled to stick it under the broiler under nearly burned and definitely crispy.  But what I really love to do is make soup.  Any kind. Especially with lots of fresh herbs  Which you knew.   (And the new soup book, Soups & Sides for Every Season truly is about done! Coming up in hard copy on amazon.com)

38 Power Foods, Week 14 -- Tomatoes -- Photos from my Tomato Gallery

Julia's 100th Birthday post:  Salmon Fillet en Papillote with Spinach and Tomatoes

Just for fun this time, I thought I'd share some of my favorite tomatoes and tomato dishes  from both of my blogs ...  Enjoy my crop!

38 Power Foods, Week 11 -- Spinach -- B"L"T Risotto

Bacon, Spinach (the "L"), and Cherry Tomato Risotto

As a kid, spinach was not my thing.  It was that slimy stuff Popeye ate.  I didn't care if he was strong.  If I had to eat spinach, I didn't want to be strong.  I wanted nothing that slid whole cloth out of any can.

My own first child adored spinach.  By then, we'd reached the American culinary stage of  gorgeous gooey-cheesy baked spinach casseroles with crispy crumbled crackers on top.  Enabled by grocery store freezers filled with vegetables year-round, we chopped, mixed, added soup or cheese, and threw stuff into ovens to our heart's content.  We were eating vegetables, weren't we?  And we liked anything with cheese or sour cream or dried onion soup mix.