A Recipe for Summer’s End in Umbria

The last eggplants, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes are in the vegetable gardens of Umbria now.  When a mother-lode gift of these vegetables from our friends Mary and Renato arrived, how not to cook up a few of them?

I decided to combine eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini with potatoes, garlic, onion and a trio of herbs.   With the cooler weather now of October,  only a few forlorn basil leaves remain in the garden so I used our parsley and marjoram and oregano from the mountains of Crete (a recent gift).

Pino helped with the slicing and dicing: first the potatoes (I used two in this dish) and two eggplants:

Before dicing the eggplant, Pino stripped  off sections of the skin, “la parte piu amara” (“the most bitter part”):

After dicing the eggplant, Pino sprinkled a generous amount of salt over the pieces to leach out the bitterness.  (I rinsed them in water about twenty minutes later).

He cut the bell peppers into strips next:

..and then, time to slice the onion:

Next steps to this easy, tasty “Summer’s End Vegetable Medley”?

Saute’ two garlic cloves in Extra-virgin olive oil (and accept no substitutes!). When garlic is golden, add a diced celery stalk and the sliced onion. Simmer just a few minutes and then add diced potatoes:

Wash about 3 c. of small tomatoes and split.  After potatoes have simmered about 10 minutes, add tomatoes:

Simmer a few minutes more and add diced eggplant: 

Simmer these ingredients a bit and add bell peppers, diced zucchini and a couple chili peppers, too, if you wish…

Add herbs (I added without slicing and dicing and later removed just before serving this dish):

Your Summer’s End Vegetable Medley is ready to be served when potatoes and eggplants are soft, though not mushy:

Buon appetito!

…….and ready to keep cooking?  Many recipes on this blog and on the Recipes page of www.annesitaly.com