3 Go-To Summer Fresh Recipes

Fresh Summer Salad

I love my salads. When invited to potluck dinners my friends ask that I make and bring one of my salads. When I have leftover salad it’s what I’ll eat for breakfast the following morning. I ain’t right. I know this. It’s all about the layering and colour.

redleaf_salad

  • My favourite lettuce is red leaf, rinsed and spun.
  • One peeled cucumber sliced not diced.
  • Cherry or grape tomatoes sliced in half.
  • Fresh mozzarella sliced in strips
  • Half of red, orange and yellow peppers sliced in skinny strips.
  • About a cup of edamame.
  • Avocado pear chopped in nice healthy chunks- so that picking on your salad is easy to manage.
  • A couple or 3 spring onions sliced in the normal spring onion fashion.
  • Squeeze a few lemon wedges all over the top to save your avocado pear from rusting.
  • We like ourselves some good olive oil and balsamic for dressing.

My boys and I enjoy this salad with chicken or steak sliced on top. My elder son asked that we give ahi a try, so as soon as we get some fresh ahi I’ll sear up that for a little sashimi action.
We will also get a little crazy and leave out the lettuce and have what we call an ‘all toppings salad’.

Summer Fresh Bruschetta

Bruschetta is an awesome summer dinner or pu pu. The ingredients are simple; bread, tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil. However!!! The bread should be dense, firm and tasty. I’m not as serious as some folk about their tomatoes as I don’t grow my own, but I do buy the vine ripened tomatoes from the shops or go to the farmers market for tasty summer in a bite. Fresh basil is non negotiable. Olive oil- I buy extra virgin for salads and bruschetta.

bruschetta

  • Slice your bread and then toast – go for your broiler so that you can do them all at once.
  • Dice your tomatoes, about one tomato per person, while keeping an eye on your toasting bread.
  • Roughly chop up your basil. I like to go crazy with the amount of basil I use.
  • Drizzle in your olive oil, add salt and pepper to taste, gently stir and set aside so that flavors can get to know each other.
  • Peel a few cloves of garlic and rub down one side of your toast.

Pour yourself a healthy glass of wine.
Spoon your bruschetta onto garlic rubbed toast and buon appetito bitches!

The Best Summer Fruit Ever

watermelonsA couple of years ago I stumbled upon what I thought was a most remarkable find- watermelon. Until then I had only really eaten watermelon about once a year at some 4th of July BBQ or someone else’s picnic so I didn’t know or appreciate it’s magicalness. I have no idea what led my cart over to the huge crate of melons – but I bought one for no particular reason at all! I stuck it in the fridge a little perplexed at what else to do with the cumbersome fruit.

On returning home from school my boys always go straight to the refrigerator and they both exclaimed, ‘WATERMELON!’ So I began chopping- I have bought and chopped a bunch of watermelon since that day and have yet managed a quick efficient way to deal with this fruit- and they ate…and ate.

When those watermelon troughs are wheeled into the shops I buy one to two a week. The boys can flatten a watermelon in an afternoon. I love love love watermelon, it’s become a summer must have. It must be chilled. I like mine chopped into easy to handle chunks, less drippy and messy that way. Seedless- seeds we don’t care. Watermelon it’s what’s for dinner.

Happy summering.

 

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