yellow watermelon salad
I’ve been pretty behind in things this summer. I do have a great reason, but I still can’t help feeling summer has slipped by. And now the weather has turned from muggy and sweltering to perfectly pleasant. Bright blue skies and crisp shadows mean that fall is near, and it’s time to frantically enjoy summer before it ends. Canning, freezing, berry picking, fig, blueberry, and tomato eating are among the late summer tasks on my agenda.
And before the apples, greens, cabbage, and squash start rolling in, here’s a colorful summer salad brimming with cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, watermelon, and fresh tarragon–perfect for picnics and outdoor parties. We used a yellow watermelon here, but regular watermelon will do just fine. This salad has lots of white pepper, and I love the subtle kick it lends. Head over to Babble.com’s Family Kitchen for our recipe.
mission accomplished and rainbow chard slaw
Well? We did it! Brian and I welcomed a new baby girl to our family last Monday. Everything about the labor and delivery was a huge surprise, including the fact that I was only in active labor for about 4 hours! I never expected a Hollywood delivery (all the baby books emphasize how rare they are), but there we were–Brian navigating early morning traffic over the Williamsburg bridge, my water breaking in the car, needing to push before we got to the hospital (so glad we avoided an emergency delivery on 10th Avenue!), careening up to the hospital entrance, being whisked away to L & D while Brian was still signing in, and then, a mere half hour later meeting our new baby girl. Phew! Now that the wild ride is over, we are settled at home and loving these first few days with our new baby and her big sister. Suddenly, we’re a family of four.
But we still need to eat, and things are slowly ramping back up. We’ve been plugging away at our farm share and the seasonal ingredients that are pouring in. read more »
almost there and tabbouleh salad
Hi there. How’s your summer going? Ours is chugging along, and somehow we have less than a week until a brand new baby is due to land in our life! As the incubator of this life, I guess it arrived for me long ago, but I’m so looking forward to meeting this little human, whoever he or she is. Getting ready for baby number two has proved to be utterly hectic. There is furniture to move, walls to build, laundry to wash, and a nearly four-year-old who needs to play. It’s been exhausting, but I know that if we get it all done our family will be ready for some much needed new baby downtime very soon.
Of course, all this commotion has not meant that we’ve stopped cooking. read more »
savory strawberry salad with buttermilk dressing
I’ve always been a bit dubious about savory strawberry preparations. With such subtle flavor, it seems the sweetness could easily be leached out of the delicate berries. But the other day, for whatever reason (chalk it up to a pregnancy craving) I needed some strawberries in my salad. Also, two eggs and buttermilk. Lucky for me, it was really simple to put this satisfying salad together. read more »
mango and avocado salad
To start this post, I’d like to pay tribute to the apple. This humble fruit was made to last–how an apple picked in November could still taste juicy and delicious in May, May!, is one of nature’s great mysteries. But this is the time of year for saying goodbye to apples. They’ve been good to us, but now there are blueberries, strawberries, and cherries on the horizon. And the occasional tropical fruit from the grocery store. These sweet and fleeting fruits lack the apple’s constancy, but it is their very impermanence that makes them so wonderful. Really, summer fruit is the main reason I put up with hot weather at all.
This vivid avocado and mango salad was created against a backdrop of impending over-ripeness–tropical fruits being among the most fleeting. You get some mangoes and avocados and they’re hard as rocks for three days, ripe for ten minutes, and then they’re soon on their way to the trash. Lucky for us, this salad used the needed fruit, and was really, really good. read more »
belgian endive salad with pear and bacon
Belgian endive is actually a member of the daisy family and is completely kept from sunlight as it grows to keep the leaves from turning green or opening up. Otherwise they are too bitter to eat. I always wonder about foods like that where there is some really complicated way of growing them. Like who was the first person who was like “Ugh, this tastes terrible! Maybe if I grew it in the absence of sunlight, though.”
However that person thought it up, I’m glad they did. Belgian endive is one of my favorite vegetables and this salad is one of the best ways to enjoy it. Sweet pears and rich bacon are the perfect match for the mild bitterness of the endive, and the creamy yogurt dressing with a hint of acidity ties it all together. While we had this for dinner, I can also imagine it as part of an early spring brunch. read more »
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