Picnic season is here. Backyard barbecue season is in full swing. Your task is to prepare a side dish. Preferably this side dish is one everyone can enjoy. That means vegan and gluten free. Here is the perfect easy side salad. In addition, this Sugar Snap Potato Salad makes a tasty base for all manner of grilled proteins. Continue reading
Spring salads lead to lighter eating for the upcoming summer season. It’s time to step away from heavy foods and crunch into bright, crispy seasonal fruits and vegetables. This Strawberry Sugar Snap Salad has plenty of color and crunch. Moreover, the heady Thai basil dressing and peanuts take this pretty salad in a more exotic direction. Continue reading
Technically, this Lime Basil Cantaloupe Salad is a fruit salad. Both tomato and cucumber are also fruits, as is the lime in the vinaigrette. The salad is savory enough, however, that you can please those with palates avoiding sweets. Continue reading
When in the thick of summer, take advantage of local summer produce, and generate as little heat as possible. That’s a good couple of loose rules to follow when you want something bright, crunchy and easy for serving at home or taking to a dinner gathering. Continue reading
When it gets so hot outdoors I wilt from the humidity, I turn to cool things. Not cool as in trendy, but delicious things to enjoy which don’t involve cooking. Some days the very thought of standing at a hot grill turns me to melting mush. It helps that I have a bounty of beautiful Thai basil growing in pots on the deck, and that the anise-like flavor is most appreciated when enjoyed in the uncooked state. And that watermelon radishes are always available in warm weather months! The baby melons adorning store shelves and roadside stands have been calling me to craft tart and sweet salads with thin slices of their summer goodness. Continue reading
How fortuitous that the seasons for sweet corn and sugar snap peas overlap. Sweet beginning for fresh corn, and melancholy ending for the short-lived fresh sugar snap pea, which is worlds apart from the sorry, limp frozen variety available year round at your grocery store.