30 Things To Eat This Summer

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:

  1. Salade Nicoise with seared fresh tuna
  2. Tomato and watermelon salad with Feta cheese
  3. 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
  4. Pasta with raw tomato sauce (after the New Jersey tomatoes arrive)
  5. Pie. Peach pie. Blueberry pie. Berry pie. Plum pie.
  6. Hummus and raw local vegetables
  7. Peach cobbler
  8. Cold baked chicken with Teriyaki glaze, eaten with your fingers
  9. Root beer floats with vanilla ice cream
  10. Lemonade with real sugar
  11. Ice cold Prosecco and pomegranate juice
  12. Strawberry shortcake
  13. Grilled swordfish and ears of fresh corn with butter and salt
  14. Small local strawberries with sugar and fresh lemon juice
  15. Rice salad with tiny diced zucchini and red peppers
  16. Gazpacho with a piece of bread that's been fried in olive oil
  17. Basil pesto on poached salmon
  18. Toasted poundcake with fresh raspberries
  19. BLTs made with fat slices of New Jersey tomatoes and Hellman's mayonnaise on toasted white bread that's been sliced by hand
  20. Home-made chocolate ice cream
  21. Watermelon sorbet
  22. Focaccia topped with paper thin slices of summer vegetables like yellow squash and zucchini
  23. Pan-grilled fruit (apricots or peaches) with vanilla ice cream
  24. Corn fritters made with fresh corn
  25. Lobster salad sandwiches
  26. Pan-grilled vegetables with homemade aioli
  27. Potato salad with mustard vinaigrette and sliced cornichons
  28. Vitello Tonnato (I love and always use Marcella Hazan's recipe)
  29. Barbequed babyback pork ribs
  30. 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.

 

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