I bet you see tomatoes and zucchini and think, “Italian.” Not this time! The cumin and coriander make this dish a great accompaniment to Margarita Chicken or even a Middle Eastern style meal. The stars are the zucchini and red tomatoes. I tossed in a few green tomatoes because my garden is weird this summer; you can omit them if you like. Despite all my precautions, I’ve had some blossom end rot on one of my tomato plants. It hasn’t been too bad, only affecting about 10% of the tomatoes, and mostly not until they’re of a decent size. I like green tomatoes, so rather than toss them over the hill (my pseudo-composting strategy), I cut off the ends and tossed them in the pan instead.

Why do I compost that way? It’s a spoon thing. When my body decided it was done with in-ground gardening, I had a choice: Garden in boxes on tables, or not at all. I opted for the former for my veggies and mostly threw in the towel for decorative plantings around the house. My Earthboxes are self-contained, so I really don’t have a need for compost. Still, no point in filling the landfill with raw veggies. We have plenty of wildlife willing to eat the rejects, and what they don’t eat serves as fertilizer for the wildflowers. Have you ever smelled milkweed flowers? They’re magnificent!

We also have purple clover and birdsfoot trefoil (both volunteers from the hay fields nearby), creeping charlie, wild phlox, chicory, Queen Anne’s lace, touch-me-nots, and many others. The deer will eat nearly anything (they ate my jalapeños one year before we put a fence around the garden tables.) I can’t toss corncobs or watermelon rinds, though, as my Labrador likes to retrieve those and eat them, sometimes to the point of, shall we say, “intestinal distress.”

So most of my garden refuse gets tossed over the hill. Anything significantly diseased, like the cuke vines the year they had bacterial wilt or the tomatoes the year they got hammered by blight, ends up going to the landfill along with whatever might make the dog sick. And aren’t I lucky to have a hill to toss stuff over?

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon ground coriander

½ teaspoon ground cumin

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

⅛ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large tomato (about 14 oz or 403 g)

1 large zucchini (about 24 oz or 689 g)

3 small green tomatoes (total of about 3.5 oz or 100 g), optional

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon lime juice

Preparation:

1.) Measure the first four ingredients (coriander through salt) into a small prep bowl; set aside.

2.) Chop the onion for ⅓ cup (about 6 tablespoons). My mom taught me a great way to chop part of an onion without having to cut into the whole thing. First, peel the onion, then cut off the stem end. Cut straight into the end in a grid pattern, not going any deeper than the amount you’ll need. Then just slice off the grid-cut end, and the pieces fall off already chopped!

3.) Heat the oil in a large skillet or sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions. Sauté, stirring frequently, until onions soften and begin to brown.

4.) While the onions cook, roughly chop the green tomatoes and mince the garlic. Add the both to the pan. Cook, stirring frequently, until tomatoes just begin to soften, about 2 minutes.

5.) Trim the stem and blossom scar from the ends of the zucchini. Slice once lengthwise, then cut the halves into ⅓” (10 mm) half-circles. Add the zucchini to the pan and cook until crisp-tender, about 2 to 3 minutes.

6.) Chop the red tomato and add it and the seasonings from Step 1 to the pan. (Red tomato cooks faster than green tomato.) Cook another 1 to 2 minutes, just until the tomatoes are heated through.

7.) Stir in the cilantro and lime juice to serve.