My backyard garden is doing great this year. The star performers are my zucchini plants. I have an abundance of this vegetable and I’ve tried out a number of recipes. This quick and easy summer salsa is a tasty way to serve zucchini. No cooking is involved — just slice and dice, combine the ingredients and marinate. The raw zucchini has a mild flavor and blends well in this dish. It’s a very healthy recipe and good way to include vegetables in meals.

Here’s part of my garden. The zucchini plants this have really outdone themselves this year in terms of size. Lots of sunlight, good soil and drainage have helped

The zucchini are the plants with the yellow blossoms. Although the blossoms are edible, I’d much prefer to wait for the zucchini to mature.

In back of the garden is my tiny dachshund. She is my watchdog and is on high alert as she notices her buddies in the neighbor’s yard. Look closely and perhaps you can see who she is barking at. The Doberman Pinscher and Rottweilers are no match for my small dog. Stay put, big guys.

Zucchini grows from a blossom to a medium-sized vegetable in just several days. So, I check daily to see what is in the garden. Here are zucchini from my garden along with poblano peppers and sweet banana peppers.

I’ve gone through my recipes finding many interesting ways to use this vegetable — all the way from zucchini egg foo young to zucchini lasagna. “Marinated Zucchini, Black Bean and Tomato Salad” is a recipe that I adapted from one for topical mango salsa which included black beans and lime juice. I’ll plan to post several other zucchini recipes throughout the summer.

Recipe

The ingredients for my recipe are common ones. In addition to the zucchini, I added a small poblano pepper which was growing in my garden, tomatoes, a red onion and a clove of garlic. The lime juice imparts a refreshing flavor and was included in the original recipe as were the black beans. I added red wine vinegar and olive oil as a marinate which adds liquid and flavor. Just chop everything up, combine the ingredients and chill. Salsa or salad? Now the recipe is more like a salad.

This is a refreshing way to serve zucchini. I served this as a side dish along with rice and an entree. It’s an easy and healthy way to use the zucchini growing in my garden. Enjoy summer’s harvest!