30 Things To Eat This Summer
I always find that one of the biggest challenges to daily home cooking is to have new ideas about what to make. It's not any easier in the summer, despite the bounty of fresh ingredients. I can go to a favorite Greenmarket, see all the seasonal choices, and still not know what to cook.
Whether summer's ingredients inspire or daunt us, for many this is our favorite time of year to cook. And eat.
Here's my current most-wanted list of summer foods:
- Salade Nicoise with seared fresh tuna
- Tomato and watermelon salad with Feta cheese
- A green salad made solely with locally grown lettuces and dressed with my best olive oil, a sprinkle of red wine vinegar, and a pinch of flaky sea salt
- Pasta with raw tomato sauce (after the New Jersey tomatoes arrive)
- Pie. Peach pie. Blueberry pie. Berry pie. Plum pie.
- Hummus and raw local vegetables
- Peach cobbler
- Cold baked chicken with Teriyaki glaze, eaten with your fingers
- Root beer floats with vanilla ice cream
- Lemonade with real sugar
- Ice cold Prosecco and pomegranate juice
- Strawberry shortcake
- Grilled swordfish and ears of fresh corn with butter and salt
- Small local strawberries with sugar and fresh lemon juice
- Rice salad with tiny diced zucchini and red peppers
- Gazpacho with a piece of bread that's been fried in olive oil
- Basil pesto on poached salmon
- Toasted poundcake with fresh raspberries
- BLTs made with fat slices of New Jersey tomatoes and Hellman's mayonnaise on toasted white bread that's been sliced by hand
- Home-made chocolate ice cream
- Watermelon sorbet
- Focaccia topped with paper thin slices of summer vegetables like yellow squash and zucchini
- Pan-grilled fruit (apricots or peaches) with vanilla ice cream
- Corn fritters made with fresh corn
- Lobster salad sandwiches
- Pan-grilled vegetables with homemade aioli
- Potato salad with mustard vinaigrette and sliced cornichons
- Vitello Tonnato (I love and always use Marcella Hazan's recipe)
- Barbequed babyback pork ribs
- A perfectly ripe peach … or tomato … or late summer plum, eaten still warm from the sun with the juice dripping down my arm….
Make your own list. And then enjoy.
