Blog Archives
Summer Simplicity
I’ve been feeling a little blog malaise. For a while, I was easily posting two, or even three, times a week. Then, last October, I joined an on-line cooking group, which gave me a certain topic for one post each week. Still, I was posting on my own topics during the week. This summer, I noticed that I’m not doing much more than the Friday posts for French Fridays with Dorie. I’m obsessed with food, and we eat very well at our house, so I started to wonder what was up with that. Why haven’t I had much to say?
I think I finally figured it out. As food-centric as our household is, in the summer, it’s not so much about the cooking. In fact, I don’t think I’ve tried many new recipes this summer. I wait all year for summer fruits and vegetables. From June through October, we frequent the local farmers markets. Favorites are the Tuesday market here in Lexington and the Thursday market in nearby Belmont. On weekends in Maine, we stock up at the Chipman Farmstand.
For the most part, we’ve been eating things as is, raw or steamed, without any fancy preparations. I am big on making chopped vegetable or bean salads, but I mostly make the “old favorites”, ones I can do without recipes since I’ve made them dozens of times: Howard will grill steak, burgers, or fish once or twice during the week, but we’re mostly vegetarian in the summer. Our meals are what Howard calls “grazing”. I think of it as a picnic at home.
With some ears of steamed corn, a plate of sliced garden-fresh vegetables, some cheese and fresh bread on them table, what more does one need? At the same time, posting about the first perfect tomato, the sweetest ear of corn, or the berries picked in the backyard seems like it could wait for another day, and so the malaise sets in.
Summer in New England is so fleeting. The local produce available is special, and we give it our full appreciation. I can already feel a hint of autumn in the air. As it cools off, I know I’ll feel the call to be nesting more, simmering pots of soup or roasting vegetables or baking cookies. There’s plenty of months in the year for that. In the meantime, I’m happy to graze my way though the rest of the summer.
Spiced Salt for Raw Vegetables
¼ cup kosher salt
1 tsp cayenne
½ tsp freshly ground pepper
Stir ingredients together and store in a sprinkle jar. Sprinkle over sliced vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and radishes.
French Fridays with Dorie: Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
This week’s recipe for French Fridays with Dorie has the most benign name: Slow-Roasted Tomatoes. Sounds innocuous, right? It’s peak tomato season, so it sounds like an excellent choice to try this week. The name, though, slow-roasted tomatoes, makes it sound like nothing special. So misleading…
Before
After
Dorie suggests these can be served as a condiment. I used mine in an orzo salad where I usually use sun-dried tomatoes. The slow-roasted tomato morsels give it a different twist – a much brighter summery flavor.
Needless to say, I loved this recipe. It’s a winner in every way. Though cherry tomato season is fleeting, I can imagine that the ever-present grape tomatoes, available year-round, will be transformed by this treatment. That means, I can slow roast tomatoes all year long!
You can find recipe for this and other delicious dishes in Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table. I make a new recipe from the book each week along with a wonderful group of intrepid bloggers from French Fridays with Dorie. You can check the LYL (Leave Your Link) post for Slow-Roasted Tomatoes on the FFwD site to see what they thought about this week’s recipe.
Here’s my recipe for orzo salad. I recommend chopping the red onion first and soaking it in cold water in the fridge while you prepare everything else. Drain right before adding to the bowl. It cuts the sharpness of the raw onion. (A little tip I learned from Dorie!)
Orzo Salad
½ lb orzo
½ cup finely chopped red onion
½ cup olives, pitted and coarsely chopped (I used Picholine, use whatever you like. I’ve also made this with Nicoise and Kalamata)
½ cup slow-roasted tomatoes
1½ Tbsp drained capers
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste
Cook the orzo according the package directions. Drain and rinse with cold water.
Combine orzo, onion, olives, tomatoes, and capers in a large bowl. Whisk together oil and vinegar. Stir dressing into pasta salad and season with salt and pepper to taste. It might not need any salt because of the olives and capers.
A Plateful of Happiness 