First of Summer Salad with Herby Manchego Dressing

The radicchio I picked up three weeks ago, and by some miracle it looked just as perfect three weeks old as it did when first I gaped over it at the farmer’s market. The manchego I got two weeks ago, when I was visiting my mother and had lofty visions of using it with strawberries in some way. The herbs were leftover, as bunches of herbs usually are, from a different salad to debut someday soon. The first of the season corn and tomatoes found their way into my bag for less mysterious reasons --- I just could not leave the farmers’ market without them, obviously.

This was a made-on-a-whim salad, a caprice salad, if you will (I just learned that word and had to use it). All its components were gathered at separate times. Nothing about this salad was planned. It actually came about because some plans fell through. And in a moment of fierce Saturday night laze we decided to order a pizza.

As a person who grew up with a salad on the side for dinner every night, I naturally wanted to balance the pizza with a big bowl of veggies. I peeked into the fridge and suddenly all these random purchases fortuitously came together in a brief wave of brilliance.

It came about much in the way a Kitchen Sink Salad comes together. You look in the fridge and go “what of these things need to get used up now, fast.” Kitchen sink salads are pretty miraculous because in a sense they shouldn’t work at all. You cross your fingers and hope it works.

But this salad, this is no Kitchen Sink Salad. It’s too composed and perfectly compatible. I firmly believe that this salad was meant to be. That I had bought all these ingredients knowing that one day weeks later I would look in the fridge and be their matchmaker.

The sweet juicy tomatoes and fresh raw corn are the perfect foil to the bitter nip of radicchio. The manchego dressing delivers a rich needed punch to a salad so virtuous. The herbs keep things seeming summer light. And as always, sunflower seeds for crunch. I feel like this would make a delightful panzanella if you’re into that kinda thing.  

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First of Summer Salad with Herby Manchego Dressing

Ingredients:

Dressing:

1 garlic scape, sliced small

1 tablespoon finely chopped dill

1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley

1 tablespoon finely chopped chives

½ shallot, finely minced

¼ cup shredded manchego cheese

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

¼ cup red wine vinegar

½ cup olive oil

Salad:

½ head romaine, cut in ½ inch pieces

¼ head radicchio, shredded thinly

1 cup sliced baby tomatoes

1 raw ear of corn, kernels shorn from cob

½ cup roasted sunflower seeds

Directions:

Place all dressing ingredients in a small mason jar or bowl. If using jar, put top on jar and shake vigorously to incorporate ingredients. If using bowl, whisk thoroughly until all ingredients combine. Set aside.

To assemble salad place all ingredients in a large bowl. Pour amount of dressing to your liking over top and then toss very gently to coat.

Note: You will most likely have dressing left over. It will keep in fridge in an airtight container for at least a week.

Serves 4 to 6 as a side or starter.

Stuffed Tomatoes & some facts of life

I mean I feel like I should be tired of tomatoes by now.

But I’m not.

So I made these stuffed tomatoes, as inspired by smitten kitchen.

I had big plans to make these using cauliflower as rice.

What I didn’t plan on was the fact that we have not yet entered cauliflower season. I’m new at this whole seasonal eating thing. I’m still crossing my fingers that cauliflower and tomatoes might overlap? I don’t know if they do…..So I did these as written with rice, because I don’t have so many strong feelings towards white rice being evil. Once in a blue, seems cool to me.

And then not only did I do them using rice, I didn’t change a thing about the recipe. At all. It’s perfection. (Lies, I did use grated parmesan instead of breadcrumbs on top, but that's all I did differently! Oh and I knocked the serving size down to 4 and adjusted accordingly.)

You can find the recipe here, if you’re inclined to make these. I hope my pictures are tempting enough for you to click over there and get on them immediately! 

I leave you with these facts from my weekend away:

1.) Burrata is a way of life.

2.) I almost always go for the burger. Two out of three meals this weekend were burgers. One was for breakfast. #sorrynotsorry

3.) Everything can and should be pickled, especially peaches. Must figure out how to do this STAT.

4.) Balsamic Reductions go a long way to make all things delicious.

5.) Three out of the four things listed above had to do with ONE starter I ate this weekend. Obvs, it rocked my world. 

Recreation is on my to-do.

Fresh Sauce

This is a Mama Lunetta classic, right here. Not like my pseudo mom classic of stuffed zucchini. I messed with that.

You don’t mess with the fresh sauce.

The fresh sauce is quintessentially summer for me. This sauce means my mama had so many tomatoes in the garden that we were willing to sacrifice eating them raw to melting them down into a silky, steamy sauce.

This isn’t a red sauce. This is a fresh sauce. It’s not the type you spend all day cooking and coaxing to become the most mind-blowing deliciousness you’ve ever put into your mouth. That is best left for winter. Red sauce is best left for snow. It’s summer! This is fresh sauce. From start to finish this sauce should only take around 30 minutes. You don’t wanna cook these perfect summer tomatoes to death, you want them to still taste fresh. This is how I save summer.

Since beginning my seasonal eating journey, I’ve really learned to appreciate and respect the seasons. And man oh man do I not want to see summer go. The berries, stone fruits, and tomatoes along with it. So in several desperate attempts to preserve it, I’ve been stuffing my freezer with berry filled treats, stone fruit compotes and crisps, and this sauce. Just so that when winter is here and seeming never-ending, I can sneak a little bit of summer out and into my kitchen.

P.s. Of course after I photographed this recipe I learned all sorts of things about tomatoes today and discovered I typically make this sauce with the “wrong” type of tomatoes. But listen, the farmer’s market totally had tomato “seconds” and they were half price. They were just a little ugly, that’s all. But they tasted wonderful. That’s all ya really need. Really good in season tomatoes. I wouldn’t try and do this with canned. Just sayin’.

So where was I, oh yes. Apparently Romas would be best. But sauce is sauce dude. August tomatoes are still August tomatoes. Use what you have. I don’t discriminate. I mean even if it’s a little watery all that means is that when you finish your bowl of whatever you dumped the sauce on, at the end there will be this lovely, soupy tablespoon or so of cheese tomato water and I mean, you totally just drink that, right? Like you put down your fork and you put the bowl to your mouth and tip back and you drink it. I won’t tell if you do, because that’s definitely, definitely what I do. Shhh….

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Fresh Sauce

Ingredients:

2 pounds fresh tomatoes

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tablespoon grass fed butter

scant ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Start by bringing water to a boil in a large sauce pot.

Using a knife make a small “X” mark on the bottom of each of your tomatoes.

When the water is boiling drop your tomatoes in and watch for the skin to begin to split. This should only take 30 seconds to a minute to happen. Scoop the tomatoes out with a slotted spoon one by one as they start to split and gently place onto a flat surface to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, peel the skin of the tomatoes off. ***

Give your naked tomatoes a rough chop. They'll be super juicy! Save as much as that juice as you can to put into pot with tomatoes!

In a large sauce pot over a medium heat dump in your roughly chopped tomatoes. Create a small space in the middle of the tomatoes and dump in the minced garlic. Stir the garlic into the tomatoes. Let the sauce come to a boil then lower heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally and use the back of a wooden spoon to break up any large chunks of tomato. The sauce should take about 20 to 30 minutes to breakdown. Around 30 minutes in, add in your tablespoon of butter and ¼ cup of parmesan. Stir into sauce. Turn off heat. Taste for salt and pepper. Add as needed.

Yield: about 1 quart

***Note: I’ve totally done this lazily and not taken the skins off. You can absolutely skip this part if you wouldn’t mind the skin. Just start at the rough chop part and move on!