Seeking an in-season, mid-summer dinner idea I turned to Pinterest. Panzanella caught my eye. While I don't think I've ever had it before, it seems to be a chunky version of gazpacho and I love gazpacho. Tomatoes, cucumber, chunks of bread, extra virgin olive oil and vinegar.

Not enough of our tomatoes are ready to be picked so we biked down to the Grant Park Farmer's Market to see what we could find there. A colorful pint of mixed cherry and heirloom tomatoes caught my eye. On our way out of the market we ran into our friends Laura and AJ; they mentioned that Laura's sister-in-law (Ali Benjamin of the blog and book Cleaner Plate Club) has a great Panzanella recipe. As soon as I got home I pulled the book from my shelf and flipped to the tomato chapter. Her recipe calls for toasting the bread in the oven - which sounds more appealing then the recipe I had which calls for leaving the bread out overnight. AND it means we can try this sooner then later!

Locavores, foodies and home gardeners have all found inspiration in the true story of Barbara Kingsolver's year long food experiment. In 2007 Barbara Kingsolver (you may already know her as the author of the novel "The Bean Trees") moved her family from Arizona to Virginia with a vow to survive only on food that either they had grown themselves or had been grown in their neighborhood. In her novel "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" she details their family experiment. Over the course of twelve months Barbara, her husband and her two daughters raise heirloom turkeys, perfect the art of daily homemade bread, can hundreds of vegetables and learn to make cheese all while running their own hillside fruit and vegetable farm. If that isn't enough, each chapter ends with a recipe.

If you're someone who is still putting off starting a garden or needs convicing about the joys of eating in season foods then please read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of food life". This book is the reason our garden went from summer to year round. It also inspired my desire to learn canning and my ambition to eat not just real food but real, local, in-season food.

The recipes are on Barbara's website. Click the following for a direct link: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle recipes
You can read an exert from the book here.
And finally, as I give this awesome book two thumbs, do me favor: click the following link to play aloud the background. Click here!