summer fruit in autumn ovens

it happens at the beginning and at the end of every summer: the abundance of spare produce from the gardens and farms of friends and co-workers. during the second go-round, you can use the oven to bake the fruit up.

pictured are a baked zucchini, tomato, and pepper that were all surplus from other houses. i baked them with a package of trimmed crimini mushrooms that were on sale at leon's for 99c. (there's some bleu cheese on top on the zucchini, which i'll write about next.) i baked these at 350 for 45 minutes, and then all of it (except the zucchini skins) went into a processor to be pureed into a lovely soup, which was warmed again before serving.