A Collection of Chill Summer Recipes

Summer is half over!  And if you're running out of cool recipes to satisfy your taste buds without breaking a sweat, here are some great ideas.

No-bake:

Canned Salmon Salad 

Strawberry Basil App w/ Marinated Mozzarella

Red, White and Blue Cheese Coleslaw

Red Quinoa Salad with Basil

Tzatziki

Quick Pickles

Almond Butter Cups

Basil Pesto

For the Grill:

Spicy Grilled Caribbean Tuna

Basil Burgers Stuffed with Feta and Serranos

Tenderloin Topped with Bacon, Onion and Mushroom

Kabob Skewers

Broiled Grilled Asparagus

Grilled Salsa Verde

Stirfry:

Summer Stir Fry

Kelp Noodle Stirfry

Coconut Curry Stirfry

Summer Cool-Down:

Black Raspberry Gin Fizz

Whiskey Gingers

Homemade Grape Juice

Since I only blog once a week now, the seasonal recipes I've been trying out don't get put on the blog in a timely manner.  For instance, over the 4th of July weekend, I picked a bunch of huckleberries and made them into a fabulous sauce, but you probably won't see that recipe until sometime mid-August.

I've also been eating guacamole about twice a week.  There aren't many dishes I make more than once, but guac has made the list on an extremely regular basis in the way no other food has before.  I even made it while camping!  And now that I've found some (seasoned!) Michigan-made tortilla chips to pair it with, I think I am pretty much set.  So if I had a recipe for guac somewhere on the blog, it would definitely have a place on this page as well.  I guess I sort of have a recipe here, but that's not quite the same as what I make now.

I'm harvesting some delicious produce from my own garden, I'm doing a slow deep-clean of the apartment, and I'm reading books!  Not to mention the camp fires, boat rides, live music in the park, and all the other events going on.  I hope you've been having a great summer as well!  Thanks for reading :)

An Empanada Adventure

I have wanted to make these for almost a year.  Even worse, I've never actually had an empanada so I have no idea whether these are anything like the real thing.  Either way, these were delicious.

These empanadas were great with the cherry salsa, too!  So that's a double win.

I started out with homemade dough.  Let me tell you, homemade dough is absolutely my bane when it comes to baking.

Luckily, it held together pretty well.  For the most part.

And hey, everything is okay in moderation, right?  So I took this opportunity to deep fry them.  Well, shallow fry.  Because I rarely do.

Yum.  For the inside, I basically made a corn and black bean salsa and added some chorizo.

Anyway, this is less of a "here's how you make this!" post and more of a "this is a thing that I did!" post.  Someday I'll learn that you can't just use whole wheat flour instead of bleached, enriched all-purpose flour JUST because it's all I have in the house.

Empanadas.  I think it's time to go to Mexico and find something a little more autentico.  In the meantime, dough recipe here, and for the corn and black bean salsa, try this one.  Oh, and because apparently empanadas often have raisins, I added a couple tablespoons of raisins to the salsa/chorizo mixture.

Tart Cherry Salsa

This is one of those times where I had a dish in mind, and some internet perusing for a recipe netted nothing (I'm not saying it's not out there - I didn't look very hard, but most search engines tend to assume that when you want a tart cherry tomato salsa, you're looking for a salsa made from cherry tomatoes).

A good cherry salsa recipe has been on my radar ever since a trip up to Glen Arbor's Cherry Republic, where I had tasted some of their cherry products ranging from sweet to savory.

My recipe is vaguely reminiscent of this one, which is actually from the Cherry Republic (that was just a happy accident, although in retrospect maybe I should have started there).  I wanted a cooked salsa that included tomatoes.  They use cherry jam in this recipe and I just went straight for the cherries, so I'm sure the recipe I linked to is a much sweeter recipe, while the one below is a savory, spicy salsa.

Tart Cherry Tomato Salsa
Ingredients:

• 2 c. tart cherries, pitted and roughly chopped
• 2 c. roma tomatoes, chopped (3 to 4 tomatoes)
• 2 jalapenos, finely chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• salt and pepper
• 3 to 4 tbs cornstarch
• zest and juice from 1 lime

Instructions:
1.  Mix everything except for the lime and corn starch in a medium sauce pan.  Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to simmer.
2.  Gently add the cornstarch, stirring to remove any lumps.  Simmer for 5 minutes.
3.  Let cool.  Mix in the lime zest and juice.

Note1:  Since it was cooked, the jalapenos did not overwhelm everything with heat.  That being said, if you don't like it spicy, either remove the pith and seeds from the jalapenos, or choose a mild pepper to add instead.
Note2:  I wanted this to be a thick salsa.  If you want a thinner salsa, then by all means omit or reduce the cornstarch.

This salsa was really great with some blue corn tortilla chips.  It was even better with the recipe I'll be posting next Friday :)

Tzatziki

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Goal Wrap-Up

Warm weather is definitely here to stay for a while.  The garden is loving it, as am I.  Strawberries are finally ready (as of a week ago) so I picked up a slab of goat cheese for a really delicious snack.  It also really spruced up my salads this week - add some dried cranberries, walnuts and chicken over some homegrown greens.  Delish.

Check out the goal list for the month of June!  Things have been BUSY, but the best kind of busy.  I love summer.  Have I mentioned how much I love summer?  I really love summer.  And I’m a little sad that the first third of it is over.

• Get the boat out.  Incidentally, I went on three boat rides and none of them were on my boat.  My boat launch has become a mess of mud, lumber and a silt fence, and launching the Sunfish has become nearly impossible.
• Eat something from the garden.  Garden salads!  I’ve been eating them for like three weeks straight now and they are DELICIOUS.  Lettuce, arugula, spinach, radish greens, radishes, etc.  Also great with the aforementioned strawberries and goat cheese.
• Farmers market!  It started slowly but surely, with just a few plants and herbs.
• Read a book.  Read TWO books.   Count it!  Quitter by Jon Acuff and Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew (picked up the 2005 edition at Goodwill! Score!).  Both are incredibly interesting and highly recommended. 
• Go camping.  Well, I had great intentions to go this weekend and it just didn’t work out.  That’s not saying I’m NOT going camping this weekend, but if I do, I won’t be going very far.
• Find a campfire and go enjoy it.  I did!  There were a few fires, in fact, with different people at each.   
• Start some rhubarb wine.  Well, I chopped up the rhubarb I needed.  But then I realized I was lacking wine yeast.  I picked that up last weekend, so now I’m ready to start fermenting.

Well dang.  I feel pretty accomplished.  And I love that all of my goals had to do with either gardening or social events.  If that isn’t summer in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.  I should also mention that I attended TWO first-day-of-summer parties.  Neither of which were referred to as solstice parties.

So, Independence Day is upon us.  Last year’s was pretty epic, and I’m not sure this year can live up to that precedent, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try!  

July goals:

• Start up Stir-Fry Season with style – some homegrown summer squash, maybe even zucchini, peas, and dare I say some pear tomatoes (yes, pear.  I had heard of cherry, plum, and grape tomatoes, but this year we got some pear tomatoes to keep on the porch.  Apparently they turn yellow, not red)?
• Recipe Round-up:  I’ve been blogging for quite a while, possibly even enough time to amass enough recipes to do a recipe round-up.  So look forward to collection of good summer recipes.
• Camping is on the list.  Camping is always on the list when it comes to summer.
• Ice cream from Tasty Treat.  There, I said it.  Sometimes you need to travel for the ice cream you love.
• Exercise:  in typical summer fashion, I started being too busy with summer activities to keep up my workout routine, so it’s time to bring that back.  Now that it’s so light out in the morning, I’ve been naturally waking up earlier, so it’s a perfect opportunity.
• Smoothies:  I froze a lot of fruit last year, intending to use it in smoothies.  As it turns out, I’m just not a big smoothie person when the weather is cold.  So I need to use up some fruit!

Have I mentioned how great arugula is?