I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

CSA season is in full swing, which means that each Thursday I get a selection of produce something like the one in the picture to play with. Fresh, local and organic, and even better, absolutely delicious. When the farm share starts rolling in, we become very nearly vegetarian in self-defense. I start hanging herbs in the window to dry, I pickle anything pickle-able, freeze stuff that looks freeze-able, and we eat the rest.

A side effect of this enormous bounty is that I look for new and interesting ways to prepare the veggies. Last week, I made Cheaty Gazpacho, for instance. This week, I tried a bunch of other things, and here are four of them: a straight-forward cucumber salad, a warm dip of roasted squash, roasted snow peas, and a peach tart.

This is a simple take on a classic Middle Eastern or Mediterranean theme. Take a cucumber or two, and dice them. Toss them in a colander with a medium sprinkle of salt and mix them up. Let them sit for an hour or so, just to get some of the liquid out. Then slice a scallion or two, or dice an onion, and toss it in. If you've got some parsley or dill, chop it finely and add it as well. Mix all that well.

For the dressing, you've got a wide variety of options. Yogurt is traditional, but you could also use sour cream or crème fraîche. You don't need too much, a couple of tablespoons, perhaps. Stir it all together, add salt and pepper to your taste and serve it forth, if it needs a bit more acid add a splash of vinegar. Another variation, and the one pictured in fact, is to add a few tablespoons of crumbled feta, or feta like, cheese. In that case, you can dress it with some of the brine from the cheese, which ought to cover both your salt and acid needs.

• 2 zucchini (or courgettes, as they are known some places)
• 1 yellow summer squash
• 2 heads of roasted garlic
• some olive oil
• salt and pepper

Then pop them into a covered dish, splash with olive oil and roast 'til tender. Generally, I'd do this at 350F, but it doesn't matter a lot. If you're roasting snow peas or making kale chips, your oven is probably hotter than that, but stick them in anyway. Just make sure they're covered!

Whenever I've got a lot of garlic hanging about, I tend to roast some and keep it in the fridge. That was the case here, but if you don't have some pre-roasted, you could roast the garlic at the same time. My method is simple, trim off one end of the head to just expose a bit of most of the cloves, set in a roasting dish, cut end up. Drizzle lightly with olive oil and roast for half-an-hour or so at about 350F. I usually make four or five heads at a time, since it's only a little extra effort and that's the number that fit in my roasting dish and keep each other upright.

Moving along ... put the vegetables into the food processor. Squeeze the garlic out of two of the roasted heads and add it. Purée. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve warm as a dip with bread or crackers or chips or whatever. It's also good cold, so don't feel obligated to eat the whole thing at one sitting.

Wash the snow peas and let drain/dry thoroughly. Put a little olive oil in a bowl, add the peas and mix to coat. Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and bake at 400F until done.

This is also, more or less, what I do for kale chips - wash and spin dry, lightly coat with olive oil and bake until crispy. If I'm roasting garlic or making the above dip, I stick them all in at the same time. Since the peas or kale only take ten or fifteen minutes, when I pull them out I turn the heat down.

This is adapted from an Elizabeth David recipe, which sounded too good not to experiment with given that the peaches had come in.

• 4 peaches (or more)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

Make the pastry:

• 1/4 stick (2 oz) butter
• 1/2 cup flour, plus more for the rolling out
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 lightly beaten egg yolk
• a tablespoon or so cold water

Roll it out and place in a lightly greased flan pan.

That is, I'm afraid, easier said than done, especially if the weather is hot. The pastry is rather buttery and that makes it really sticky. My advice is to chill it after you mix it, then flour your surface and your rolling pin before rolling it out. If it really is just too sticky, you can add some more flour without damaging it too badly. I added close to another quarter cup, not including the flour on the board and pin.

Arrange your peaches on the crust in an aesthetically pleasing fashion and then gracefully place your achievement into a 450F oven for ten minutes. Then turn the oven down to 350F and let it cook another fifteen minutes. (As a side note, you could probably do your kale or snow peas in the 450F for ten minutes with the tart, just keep an eye on them.)

After twenty-five minutes, take the tart out of the oven. Spoon a few tablespoons of the syrup over the tart and, if you have some, sprinkle some vanilla sugar over the top. Let it cool and serve it forth.