Early Garden Harvest Pasta

Last night, after spending a little time in my garden, I had a typical first harvest--a lot of odds and ends but nothing substantial of any one thing: 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, a handful of green beans, exactly 3 pea pods worth of peas, and 1 zucchini.  I decided to throw it all together into a yummy pasta.

While the pasta cooked, I microwaved some bacon and sauteed the green beans. I threw in some onion flakes (sad) because I was all out of onions.  Then I added the zucchini to cook for a few minutes.  Once the pasta was cooked and drained, I threw in the cooked veggies and bacon, adding some chopped cucumber, chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, parmesan cheese, and olive oil. I stirred everything together and added a little salt. You can eat it right away, although I prefer to refrigerate it overnight and serve the next day.  It's better the second day when everything is cool and crisp and fresh and the flavors have mixed together.  I do wish I'd had some onion and maybe a green pepper, but my peppers plants are pitiful this year.   

In full disclosure, despite the abundance of noodles, my daughters were not big fans of this meal.  My three-year-old said she likes "soft" green beans (i.e. canned). She did appreciate the bacon, however.  Don't we all?  Personally, I loved it.  I ate it up and had seconds. It's a great light, fresh, cool meal for a hot summer night.

By the way, if you're like me and hate frying bacon on the stove and don't like heating up your whole house to bake it in the oven, this is a great alternative! It's the only way I cook bacon. In fact, I specially requested it for Christmas several years ago. My parents have one too. (Not an advertisement, I just really like it!!)