Last garden gifts, baked into a flatbread
I hope you have exceeding zucchini and ripe tomatoes.
It’s time for that typical late-summer feeling, when I start stressing about not having used enough nectarines and apricots in my recipes. They’re here for such a short time! And I’m already regretting that fleeting wild thought about summer veggies being “just zucchini, eggplants, and peppers.” I know I’ll miss tomatoes so bad in just a few weeks. And watermelon! Honestly, I could start crying already, just thinking about it.
Like every year, I tried to can and preserve everything I could. I made apricot and verbena jam, tomato sauce, and unripe figs in honey (a recipe from
I can’t wait to try). I’ll be opening my jars one by one during the winter, and regretting ever having had that ungrateful thought about summer vegetables.On the brighter side, this is one of the most magical moments for seasonal produce: we still have ripe tomatoes and glossy eggplants, while the first figs and red beans are starting to appear on the market stalls.
It’s also the time to wrap up the summer vegetable garden, at least for those lucky enough to have one. Even though I don’t grow one myself, I’m often gifted vegetables from my parents, that they share with pride. Last time I visited, they discovered a “trombetta” zucchini had been growing unnoticed until it reached impressive size. (By the way, if you don’t know this variety, get yourself some seeds: it’s amazing sautéed or in soups, and at next summer’s harvest you will thank me!) Whether you let some zucchini overgrow or not, if you have a garden, I’m certain you’re already drowning in zucchini by now.
Whenever that happens, the first recipe I make is a Sardinian flatbread called “coccoi de birdura” (literally, “vegetable bread”). It’s a simple batter of grated, salted, and squeezed summer vegetables mixed with flour. I’ll leave you approximate measurements, but you’ll need to judge how much flour to add based on how much liquid your vegetables release. I used rice flour to make it gluten-free, but the traditional recipe is with whole wheat flour. Make sure to bake it until the edges are golden brown: the sides turn crunchy, while the center stays moist.
Coccoi de Birdura (Vegetable Flatbread)
Ingredients (makes 1 tray):