Steaks with Swiss chard and sun-dried tomato mac and cheese

The other day, Allan jokingly suggested we call ourselves "Pure Land Organic Swiss Chard and Mint", since those are the only two crops that really flourished in the garden. Honestly, I'd be happy with a Swiss chard farm. The stuff is magical. But alas, the final Swiss chard harvest of the summer is upon us.

My plants produced huge gorgeous leaves for about three whole months. I think I'm going to plant some freshies to see if they'll grow for fall. My mustard greens are shaping up nicely in the mean time. And kale, I need to plant some kale! Big weekend of planting coming up in the garden.

I love the sweet, concentrated tomatoey-ness of sun-dried tomatoes. The other week I made some simple oven-dried tomatoes for eating with various cheeses on baguette toasts - just quartered baby plum tomatoes, sea salt, and olive oil. I will definitely make them again, but jarred ones work just fine here, since they're getting pureed to smithereens.

Grilled sausage and fig salads with roasted baby purple potatoes

So, I made sausage the other day.

My Grandpa was a butcher, so if there's a sausage-making gene somewhere, I figure my chances of inheriting it are at least 1 in 4. These odds were good enough for me to spend a glorious summer Saturday rinsing hog guts and grinding fatback (if you don't know what that is, you don't want to) in my little kitchen. I settled on making half traditional Cajun andouille and half hot Italian.

Whole-wheat cherry scones

I don't have a whole lot of experience with baking. I live in one of those households where if I bake it, I'll probably be the only one eating it, and the easiest way to not eat a whole pan of brownies is to not make it in the first place.

However, I do like whipping up a batch of baked goods on Sunday for easy workday breakfasts. The easiest trick to pull out is my favorite muffin recipe, but even though I've experimented with dozens of different ingredients, sometimes you just get sick of muffins.