Seasonal pantry: How to keep up with the fall bounty

There is an urgency to late summer and early fall, a hurry-up quality that is heightened if you have a garden or do most of your shopping at farm stands and farmers markets. There is such glorious bounty now, but the quality of light and the shortening of days tell us it's a fleeing abundance.

How do we keep up with it all so that its absence won't be felt too severely?

Will all those green cherry tomatoes hanging on their vines ripen before the first rain? Can you eat all the plump heirloom tomatoes before they spoil? And what about those huge zucchini, the ones hiding under leaves that seemed to grow to the size of baseball bats overnight?

Certainly freezing, canning, pickling and fermenting as much as possible is a great way to preserve the harvest. If time is limited, you might pack ripe tomatoes in freezer bags, freeze them whole and use them for winter soups, sauces and stews. Green beans of all kinds can be frozen after blanching them in boiling water for two or three minutes. Freeze those big zucchini after steaming them.

It is also remarkably easy to make simple, delicious meals at this time of year. It's really impossible to keep up, but it is easy and delicious to try.

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For a simple lunch, easy appetizer or even a main course on a hot night, use cherry tomatoes. This dish is one of the simplest ways to use them, nearly identical to bruschetta, though it calls for toasting the bread in a toaster, not on a grill.

Cherry Tomato Toasts

Makes 2, easily doubled

1-2 handfuls of cherry tomatoes

- Kosher salt

- Black pepper in a mill

2 thick slices sourdough hearth bread

1 fat garlic clove, unpeeled, cut in half crosswise

- Chunk of hard cheese of choice

- Extra-virgin olive oil

Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, or into quarters if they are fairly big. Put them into a small bowl and season them with salt and pepper.

Toast the bread until it is golden brown. Set the bread on a flat surface and rub one half of the garlic over one slice of bread, pressing firmly to push the garlic juice into the bread. Rub the other half garlic clove over the other side of bread.

Put the bread on a plate. Spoon the cherry tomatoes over the bread, grate a little cheese on top, and drizzle a couple of teaspoons of olive oil over each slice. Season with a little salt and pepper.

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Many cooks make the mistake of making pasta salads as they do potato salads, with mayonnaise-based dressing and served cold. This is rarely a good idea. Pasta salads are best when dressed with a vinaigrette and served at room temperature.

This salad is quite flexible. To make a heartier main course salad, add cooked and crumbled bacon, crumbled smoked salmon or trout, feta cheese or baby shrimp. You can also add cooked black beans and chorizo that has been removed from its casings and cooked.

Orzo, Corn and Green Beans with Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette

Serves 4 to 6

1 shallot, minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

3 tablespoons white wine or champagne vinegar

- Kosher salt

8 ounces small green beans, stem ends snipped

3 ears white corn, shucked

6 ounces (about 1 cup) orzo, or other seed-shaped pasta

- Juice of 1 lemon

3 cups small cherry tomatoes, preferably orange, yellow, and red, halved

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more as needed

2 tablespoons snipped fresh chives

3 tablespoons minced fresh Italian parsley

Put the shallot and garlic in a medium bowl, add the vinegar, and set aside.

Fill a large pot half full with water, add a tablespoon of kosher salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the green beans, cook for 2 to 4 minutes, and transfer them to a strainer or colander to drain. Add the corn, cook for 1 minute, and transfer to a clean work surface

Add the pasta to the water, stir and cook according to package directions until just done. Drain, rinse the pasta in cool water, drain thoroughly and put into a wide shallow serving bowl. (If the pasta will sit for longer than 5 minutes, drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over it and toss thoroughly.)

Stir the lemon juice into the shallot mixture, season with salt and several turns of black pepper, and stir in the olive oil. Add the cherry tomatoes and chives and toss together quickly. Taste and correct for salt and acid.

Cut the corn from the cob and add it to the bowl with the pasta. Cut the green beans in half or in thirds, depending on their size, and add them to the pasta. Pour the vinaigrette over everything, toss well, and add the Italian parsley.

Taste and correct for salt.

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Cucumbers are abundant right now and this simple salad is a great way to use them. It can easily be doubled and is so refreshing on a hot night.

A Simple Cucumber Salad

Serves 3 to 4

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup sugar

- Juice of 1 lime

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 pound cucumbers, trimmed and thinly sliced (see Note below)

Put the vinegar, sugar and lime juice into a medium bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the pepper flakes.

Put the sliced cucumbers into the bowl with the dressing and gently turn to coat them thoroughly. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes before serving.

Note: There are many varieties of cucumbers and most do not need to be peeled. However, the common salad cucumbers purchased in supermarkets are often coated in wax and should be washed thoroughly or peeled. If your garden cucumbers have a lot of blemishes, you'll want to peel them, too.

Michele Anna Jordan is author of the new “Good Cook's” series. Email her at michele@micheleannajordan.com and visit her blog at pantry.blogs.pressdemocrat.com.