Easy dips to make with excess summer garden harvests

Recipes for a glut

Summer is the most productive period in our vegetable garden. A some point this can become overwhelming, when there is a pile of zucchini, tomatoes, cucumber and capsicum overflowing from the fruit bowl and you know there are more to collect from the garden.

These summer plants are very productive so it is possible for a small family to experience a glut in a matter of days with just one or two plants of each.

After making every recipe you can think of using these ingredients and giving some away, what is next? I like to go back to basics when this happens and rather than try to come up with a new variation of the same ingredients that the family will enjoy, proven flavour combinations are a good fall back.

While I do revel in a vegetable garden glut as it forces me to get creative with the uses and recipes. Over the last four years I have developed hundreds of recipes inspired by the fresh ingredients collected from our family vegetable garden.

The recipes in this post are simple, easy to make and versatile. I recommend the cucumber dip recipe as a dip to serve with chicken, and the summer vegetable dip is great with cold meat, as well as on crackers, or simply on the side of the dinner plate with raw vegetables to be dipped into.