You might remember that I am in the middle of a food waste reduction experiment that was greatly enhanced by the renewal of our CSA vegetable box subscription renewal. Too many compound nouns in that sentence. English is confusing like that. In Danish, you can just put the nouns together as one, like grøntsagskasseabbonnementsfornyelse. It might not make sense, but at least you’re sending a clear signal that these words go together.

Linguistic issues aside, the project is going well so far. Here’s the list of things I got in the CSA box:

• kale
• collard greens
• beets (beet greens)
• wax beans
• summer squash (I used two)
• tomatoes (I used all but three)
• green lettuce (I used a little bit)
• red-ish lettuce
• oregano
• thyme
• sage

The items that are stricken through are already history. Last Thursday, I tackled summer squash, tomato, oregano and the green lettuce (I’m calling it by a descriptive name, because I am blissfully ignorant of most lettuce varieties and names at this point in my life).

A few days earlier, I had made a zucchini spread (I know!) with some zucchinis that were not from the CSA box, but that nonetheless needed to be used before I’d had to admit my first defeat in the food waste reduction experiment (madspildsnedsættelseseksperimentet). Knowing that my husband is not the biggest fan of zucchinis, I felt like making something that would be nice for a non-zucchini-lover as well as for myself. A quick internet search informed me of the concept of a zucchini spread. That sounded promising, so I proceeded to do what I almost always do – I winged it. Still, because it turned out well, I’ll post the recipe in the near future.

We still had some of the best-yet-bread, so I decided to make a crostini with the spread. You see, we also had some parmesan cheese that ought to be used up before long.

But I also wanted something lighter to go with it, and a roasted vegetable salad seemed like a good idea.

Consequently, the oven was turned on, tomatoes and summer squash were cut up, drizzled with oil and seasoned with salt and fresh oregano.

When the veggies were roasted, I arranged them of a bed of the green lettuce dressed with a bit of olive oil. I also added a few black olives and some drops of balsamic vinegar. Yum, is there anything better than roasted tomatoes?

For the crostinis, I lightly toasted the bread slices, spread them with a thick layer of the zucchini spread and topped the whole thing with some parmesan. Then I baked them in the oven until the cheese started to melt a bit. These were so delicious, and surprisingly light. I might have to make more spread with the summer squash from the box very soon.

So that was Thursday’s dinner, and I’m happy to say that there was left over salad for my lunch on Friday!