What I’m Cooking With Late-Summer Produce

Each week, cookbook author and recipe developer Alexis deBoschnek offers a peek into life on her Catskills farm—whether it’s tending the land, raising chickens, or cooking with the seasons. This time, she's working with through late-summer produce.

There’s a moment every spring when the ground is bare and seedlings are so small it feels impossible that anything will ever grow. Fast forward a few months and suddenly that same patch of soil is teeming with vegetables—so much so that we can hardly keep up eating through it.

That late-August, early-September garden really is my favorite. Tomatoes are dripping off the vine; eggplant and peppers have begun to ripen; kale, chard, and squash are abundant, and while there’s a noticeable shift in the air, it feels like summer just might last forever. Whether you have a garden, a few potted plants on a fire escape, or get your produce from your local farmers market, this is the time to use this season’s bounty in as many ways as possible.

Here’s what I’m making the next few weeks:

Since we raise pastured poultry on our farm, we’ve got freezers full of every cut available. While I tend to choose thighs or wings for weeknight cooking, I’m taking advantage of the last few weeks of grilling season in the Catskills and making my Grilled Spatchcock Chicken with Herby Green Sauce. Use all the tender herbs from your garden and blitz them with yogurt, lemon, and garlic. The sauce does double duty—acting as a marinade to tenderize and flavor the chicken, as well as a punchy condiment to be served alongside once it comes off the grill.

Pasta with Brown Butter Wilted Greens has been one of my go-to weeknight dinners for years—so it was an obvious choice to include it in my new cookbook Nights and Weekends. I’ve got arguably too much kale and Swiss chard in my garden and this is a perfect excuse to use it up. You could also use one of those plastic clamshells stuffed with greens that we all let wilt at the bottom of our crisper drawer. The greens are cooked in brown butter with garlic and Parmesan before getting tossed with pasta. Despite the short ingredient list, the dish packs a ton of flavor.

The Chilled Green Soup from my first cookbook To the Last Bite takes a cue from gazpacho. A piece of soaked bread thickens the soup without altering the flavor. Instead of tomatoes, arugula, cucumber, basil, and a green bell pepper are blended with aromatics and yogurt to create a bright soup that doesn’t require turning on the stove.

Of course, I’ve got to take advantage of the windfall of tomatoes and peppers we’ve got right now. One of my favorite ways to use them up is my Confit Red Pepper and Tomato Sauce which I swirl into pasta (although any grain would work too). To make it, tomatoes and peppers are submerged in olive oil with garlic and rosemary and cooked low and slow until softened and jammy. Save the seasoned olive oil in a sealed container at room temperature and use it for dressings, marinades, or roasting vegetables. The confit tomatoes and peppers then get blended with heavy cream and Parmesan to create a silky sauce that clings to the noodles. It’s the ideal transitionary dish when you’re craving something hearty and cozy but still want to cling on to the flavors of summer.

Until next week!

Alexis