Green Bean Hazelnut Salad

This summer has been just fantastic so far. Despite the fact that the high temperatures don't agree with my pregnant body, my feet are constantly swollen and I'm getting a wee bit crankier...I am actually having a really great summer.
Yesterday was a perfect day filled with two trips to the lake, a great burger from my favourite new burger joint, a long nap, a delicious quickly-thrown-together summer meal, refreshing mocktails, and board games in the yard at dusk. What more could I want?

This salad comes from (you guessed it) Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. She comments on the surprisingly pleasant pairing of the tomatoes and the hazelnuts but I really think it's the green bean and hazelnut combo that wowed me. Either way, you must add this into your summer salad repertoire.

Simple Tomato Salad

I know this looks a little too simple...but trust me; if you love tomatoes, you will love the simplicity. 

The other night I made another simple salad (greens + tomatoes + balsamic + olive oil) to accompany some grilled burgers and although the salad was good, I just couldn't keep from eating all the tomatoes first. They were just so ripe and perfect! I'm sure it's also due to the fact that these are still some of the first tomatoes of the season (thank you hothouses!) and my taste buds just can't get enough, but I knew then that I really should just take a direct approach and simply eat a bowl of cherry tomatoes. Because clearly that's what I really want. 

For this salad make sure your tomatoes are perfectly ripe (red, not pale at all) and fragrant. Do NOT store your tomatoes in the fridge (I don't know what the science is behind this but the fridge just ruins fresh ripe tomatoes), instead just leave them on the counter to ripen. Once summer hits and the fruit flies are rampant I usually keep them in a clear sealed bag (or bowl covered with plastic wrap) and often even store them in a cupboard so they're a little more hidden from those pesky flies.

Today I doused my tomatoes in a splash of red wine vinegar, a heavy glug of olive oil and a liberal seasoning of salt and pepper. 

Roasted Red Pepper & Chorizo Pizza

I think this is going to become a winter staple meal in our house. Sweet and tangy homemade roasted red peppers paired with spicy chorizo sausage on a thin layer of homemade tomato sauce, sprinkled with a hard cheese and some bitter greens. Mmmm I wish I had leftovers...

One of my favourite preserving blogs Food In Jars, has a really cute feature called "Preserves in Action" that's a showcase for how and when to use preserves. Some are as simple as jam on toast, but most are creative ways to use up your precious homemade preserves. This pizza feels like a decent example of my own Preserves in Action because I was able to use two preserves to make this pizza, the tomato sauce and roasted red peppers.

Panzanella salad

This salad has become my new summer staple, especially now that we're fully into tomato season.
It's so easy and quick and uses up things in my kitchen that I've perhaps been ignoring for too long.
Stale bread, overripe tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, salt and basil are all you need for this satisfying summer snack.


My friend Renee (aka Feisty Chef) made this in a cooking class a few weeks ago. I was so excited to taste her take on panzanella which, like most of her cooking is just simple enough to let the food speak for itself.

Canned Tomato Sauce

I may have mentioned before how my husband and I have set a hefty goal of canning 40 pints of tomato sauce in preparation for winter. I think so far I've only made 12 pint jars plus about 10 pints of canned whole tomatoes (which can be made into sauce later). Our main reason for doing this is so we that can enjoy local tomatoes all year round instead of purchasing cans of tomato sauce from the grocery store. Not only do we love supporting our local farmers, but as a couple without a car we strive to reduce our walking or biking trips to the grocery store as much as possible in the winter (the less heavy cans we have to lug home through the snow and freezing wind the better!).

I hesitated on sharing this recipe/project with you because it seemed like it might be too boring or simple. But then I realized that the simple (yet oh so useful) projects are sometimes the best inspiration for someone who's new to canning or preserving.

Cherry Tomato & Green Bean Salad

So simple yet so good. This is one of my favourite summer staple salads.

You really just can't go wrong with a recipe from Alice Waters.

BLT Sandwich

I know I just told you how my new favourite salad was going to replace my long standing favourite sandwich (and I have eaten far too many of those salads lately that I care to admit).  

But when the stars align in my kitchen and theres a freshly baked loaf of bread sitting next to ripe tomatoes and avocados, there's really only one thing to do. Make the best darn BLT and enjoy every single bite. 

I don't know if there's really all that much to say about great BLT's, other than making sure you've got great quality ingredients. From the mayo, to the bacon, to the lettuce it's all gotta be the best you can find.

Ina Garten introduced me to adding avocado to my BLT's (don't you love how it sounds like we're friends?) and I've never looked back. Douse the avocado slices in a little lemon juice before adding it to the sandwich and you're all set.

Tomato, Cucumber and Feta Salad

Where have I been for the past week??
Sadly nowhere exciting. I've been here all along however my camera was snatched up by my husband who took it to Colombia, leaving me with very little choice but to try to blog with nothing other than my phone's camera.
Day after day I made something lovely I wanted to share with you and yet I just couldn't bring myself to use the awful photos.
I'm not quite sure what makes today (and this photo) any different...except that this salad is just TOO good to keep from you.

The recipe can be found here. It reminds me a lot of this favourite salad of mine, except this one is so much more simple and light, and the flavours of the vegetables can really speak for themselves.

BLT Salad

Ok BLT sandwich, prepare to loose your title as my most favourite summer snack. There's a new BLT in town.

Tabbouleh

As soon as I saw fresh parsley at the farmers market this morning I knew dinner tonight would involve tabbouleh.
I had never made tabbouleh before last summer but now I think it's safe to say it's become one of my warm weather staple salads. Making this salad reminds me that in the last year I've really had some eye- opening moments about seasoning, and this salad was one of them.

Moroccan Chickpea Soup

Have I ever mentioned my love for tomato based soups? No?
Well let this be a gentle reminder that the way to my heart is with a bowl of piping hot soup that contains little or lots of tomatoes.

Tomato Soup

My favourite kind of tomato soup (other than this one) is one that is chock full of veggies and herbs, especially basil. I puree it into the heartiest, faux creamy tomato soup ever, and could easily eat a whole pot of it myself. My husband on the other hand quietly complains that he doesn't want to eat "a bowl of pasta sauce" for dinner (clearly he's a bit crazy for not understanding my version of soup heaven).
So I guess you could say that this soup is my way of trying to call a truce on our tomato soup arguments.

Plain, simple and oh so classic.

Tomato Risotto with Sausage and Spinach

Now this is my kind of comfort food.
During the cold winter months, after a long day, this is what I crave. And paired with a glass (or two) of white wine, this is my ticket to happiness.

Tomato Focaccia

Do you ever have one of those mornings when you say to yourself "Better start making some bread", and as you start making your boring everyday bread that you've been making for the last two months, something makes you say "Hey! Stop being boring! Make that ciabatta bread recipe you've been eyeing forever! The one from the Martha Stewart cookbook!"

As you search for the recipe you realize the it's actually in the first volume of this cookbook series, the volume you don't own, the one you borrowed from the library, the one you're brain keeps confusing with the volume you do own. 

But alas, hope is not yet lost! What about this tomato focaccia bread? That's not boring! It might almost be considered exciting!....

No? You don't really have those mornings?

Yea me neither...

Tomato Coconut Soup

When my husband and I lived in Calgary years ago, we were very fortunate to discover the Coup restaurant so quickly upon moving there. It instantly became a favourite, and when I recently heard the owners produced a cookbook I knew I just had to get my hands on it.

The bad news was it's only sold in their restaurant, but the good news was we had a quick vacation to Calgary already planned. We went there Sunday night and aside from the addition of Meet (the lounge now attached to the Coup) everything was just as we'd remembered. We ordered the dragon bowls with peanut satay, and pseudo sushi. We felt like we had never left.

Later that night after my husband dozed off in our lush hotel bed, I read the cookbook cover to cover, occasionally nudging him excitedly.

"Oooh pear, fennel and squash soup!"

"Beatnuts!"

"Look, here's the dragonbowl!"

"Ooh cashew yam burger!"

As you can imagine, he was not quite as excited as I was.

Spicy Vegetable Soup

This should be called the about-to-leave-for-vacation-empty-the-fridge-soup.


I wasn't expecting anything extraordinary. Just wanted some nice hot soup, and needed to get rid of some veggies before leaving for vacation. I didn't even really have a vision in mind of what this would taste like, but I did know two things.
First I wanted it to be fairly tomato based. A good friend of mine got me hooked on tomato based vegetable soups last year, and I just can't shake em. Second, I started to crave a spicy vegetable soup with an indian influence, just like the ones my husband used to make me when we first met.

Barbecue Sauce

This book got me excited to make my own barbecue sauce and preserve it, but their recipe just didn't quite seem like what I look for in a BBQ sauce (carrots? apples? no thanks).


I found Big Al's Bar-B-Q sauce on Allrecipes.com which looked much more up my alley. It's described as being "sweet, smokey, with a little bite", so I upped the spice, and downed the sweet (oh and totally got rid of the ketchup in the recipe, yuck).


Sometimes my favourite part of making something new is seeing my husbands reaction, especially when it's something he's normally picky about (he loves store bought BBQ sauce and is very brand loyal).
I gave him a taste of it after some had been in the fridge for quite a few hours.


"WOW. That's really good." he said in disbelief. "It tastes like real barbecue sauce!"

Cherry Tomato Pizza Margherita

Summer perfection in pizza form. Charred cherry tomatoes, fresh basil and mozzarella. Yum!

Salsa

I'm starting to think "If I can make it at home, I will" should be this blog's motto.

I've never made my own cooked and canned salsa before, and wasn't quite sure what I was looking for in a recipe. I found this one on Allrecipes.com and it looked like a good start. 

This salsa is hot, but balanced with acidity and a faint hint of sweetness.