Walked about 2 mi (there and back) to local produce food bank but was it worth it -- lovely red onions, nice cucumbers, some fine potatoes, real fresh (not frozen!) peas, some bread that I thought at first was just a plain white baked loaf but actually turned out to be sourdough with some beautiful seasoning -- rosemary? garlic? I do not know. It was quite a treat, which you don't expect from the food bank.
HOWEVER. I really don't know what to do with the cucumbers, aside from make uborkasaláta (Hungarian cucumber salad) out of them, and that involves all kinds of stuff I don't have and don't eat anymore anyway, like salt and sugar and white vinegar and sour cream. (Hungarians love sour cream. They put sour cream on their sour cream.) And I want to make something more substantial, not a summery salad dish. Do I bake them? Fry them? Boil them? What?
(Other stuff I do not have right now either that the online recipe sites suggest using: bell peppers, dill, tomatoes, radishes, carrots, shallots, cheese, &c &c. We're going off to another food bank in the morning which promises fresh produce, so I'm hopeful.) (I don't have any FRESH garlic and right now I am down to about the last of even the powdered garlic -- my grandmother would be so ashamed of me. //hangs head How can a Hungarian cook make dinner without garlic? It is cruel and unusual punishment!)
....Damn, real fresh peas -- not canned, not frozen -- are seriously worth eating by themselves, raw, no cooking required, or seasoning even. I did not know this.
descensus Averno facilis est