apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

made a lovely, fresh, simple pasta salad with:

pasta boiled in chicken stock w/crushed garlic
thinly sliced red onions
chopped kalamata olives
chopped cucumber
chopped tomato
canned tuna

dressing was just olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice, a bit of chopped basil and oregano, salt, and pepper. i found salting the tomatoes and cukes helped them keep their flavors overnight.

and now i'm eating the last of it for lunch and it's too hot to cook. guess it's ice cream for dinner again!

Here's my hot tip for hot days: Ever since I was little my mom has blended up whatever fruit is about to be too ripe (we're talking pretty mushy stuff, so little to no liquid is needed to make the blender go 'round). She freezes it in popsicle trays and then hands them out liberally.

It kept us happy all summer long back in the day, and it keeps me (and my friends!) happy still. It's creamier than fruit juice popcicles, vegan and actually good for you!

My favorites:
peaches
watermelon
cherries
bananas
blueberries
crenshaw melon (add mint and lime)

We're having a potluck lunch at work tomorrow, and I'm bringing a couple boules of homemade bread. I said I would also bring cheese and some kind of spread or dip, but now I can't think of anything. Brain numbed by heat. I thought about roasted garlic, but now that just seems too... hot, I guess.

Any ideas?

popsicles and ice cubes ae off topic because I never defrosted my half size fridge in the spring and the freezer is a mass of snow. In any case, I don't have any ice cube trays - Although I should get some for making margaritas.

Gazpacho on the other hand... Talk about good. I go with the cook's illustrated receipe and it's amazing after it mellows for a day, with some store-bought ice cubes and a drizzle of olive oil. crunchy cooling savory cold heaven. slurp.

Faith:

In this kind of heat, a nice tapenade would do the trick. The artichoke spread from this epicurious recipe would do well with a little adaptation (no stove involved!):

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/12035

Bingo. Thanks minipanda - that looks wonderful! And I actually have artichoke hearts on hand... I'll play with it and see how it turns out.

Faith, I agree with minipanda, a tapenade would be easy and not too heavy. A Summer bruschetta might be nice as well - tomato, red onion, red wine vinegar, olive oil, a little bit of goat cheese and some fresh basil and parsley.

I'm in Atlanta and boy is it hot today! I think I might try making a strawberry and balsamic granita.
Erin T

Another spread that might be nice is a smoked fish one. This time of year, I keep finding great smoked fish at the greenmarkets, and when mashed with a little butter, dill and cracked pepper, it makes a frighteningly good partner to crusty bread.

i have been living on schav, the most refreshing soup in hot weather. schav is a sorrel soup and my dad made the best version. since sorrel is expensive & hard to find, i have tried substitutions. basil was great, and arugula also worked well. the only not so good part of making the soup is the initial cooking but once it's ready...delicious!

to 8 cups of water add 1 package of frozen chopped spinach & a generous (from 1/2 to 1 lb) bunch of sorrel, chopped & destemmed, and the juice of 1 lemon. bring to a boil & simmer for 15 minutes. cool the soup & chill it.

slice 1 bunch of scallions into a tureen. add about 1 tsp of salt. using the bottom of a glass, crush the scallions with the salt, releasing their juices. mix with 1 pint of sour cream or good yoghurt (i like face). stir the soup into the sour cream mixture by ladlefulls, mixing well. serve cold, mixing in diced cucumbers, diced radishes & lots of fresh ground pepper to taste.

Well, one hundred percent on topic....i think gazpacho popsicles made in an ice cube tray would be fabulous as an appetizer on a hot summer day! Or maybe freeze the gazpacho in ice cube trays and use the cubes in a bloody mary?

I believe I once saw a recipe for gazpacho granita too! Yum.

oh, a bloody mary sounds divine right now! although i'm sure my employer might object to drinking on the job. sigh.

those blended fruit popsicles sound perfect. i might try them with some fat-free yogurt....

popsicles. the saving grace of a hot kitchen.

i work in an environment where the average temperature while working is almost like being outside. i'm surrounded by a four-pan steam table, a six-basket fryer, three-deck impinging ovens, grills, flattops... during summer in Texas, it's bad. you get used to it but no one likes it. so our chef buys is Otter Pops and we keep them in our freezer. the ritual goes something like this: before the rush, while we're getting our stations ready, one person remembers that they're in there and will be seen with an Otter Pop. within two minutes, everyone on the crew (from 10-20 people, depending on the day) will have a long, frozen, rainbow colored pop hanging out of their mouth, walking around wtih one, carrying them in their pockets... it's cute when it happens (we don't eat them while we're on the line, FYI). it's a strange mix of the power of suggestion and hypnosis. i like it. they're great morale boosters.

Wow -- gazpacho popsicles is such a cool idea!! I'm having a dinner party for 6 on Sunday and I'm trying to come up with some ideas.

I was thinking about making cold borscht, since I made Craig Claiborne's gazpacho from the Times earlier in the week, but how would these popsicles work?

Does anyone have an interesting spin on stuffed cherry tomatoes?

Mmm... cold stuffed tomatoes sounds so good right now. I don't know about interesting - I am just imagining something cold and creamy.

I just pulled three loaves of bread out of the oven. I ended up making an herbed butter with fresh basil and a white bean puree with rosemary and parmesan.

This is after I did marinate artichoke hearts but ruined them for this purpose by adding too much red pepper; I like the result, but just too spicy for this group, I think. I'll use it for a pasta sauce this weekend.

Raspil--

I loved your kitchen crew with popsicles story! And you're right about it being a morale-booster. A few weeks back, the air-conditioning broke down at the office and after a certain point, someone ran to the grocery store downstairs and bought popsicles. It was so much fun to see everyone at their computers, including the bosses, with brightly-coloured pops hanging out of their mouths.

I love the gazpacho ice cube idea...freeze them, pop them out when you're ready to serve on a bed of greens...yum! I'm wanting fruit popsicles now too.

Faith--everyone else pretty much suggested what came to my mind. A kalamata olive tapenade might be nice too. Or, maybe some roasted red peppers with goat cheese?

One of my favorite summer salads is black beans, feta, mint, chopped red onion, chopped red pepper, with a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and salt/pepper. Adding in a little garlic, maybe, or some corn...It's especially good after it's sitting in the fridge awhile. Cool, and the beans soak up all the good flavors.

Christine, that black bean salad sounds delicious. I'm going to try it this weekend! Thanks!
Erin T

Just read this on curbed.com:


BREAKING: Heat Wreaks Havoc in Union Square

From a tipster:

The heat wave has shut down Trader Joe’s today and neighboring wine shop. As a food writer I thought this was front page news. Sorry I didn’t have my camera to take a photo, but please let the food community know.

And just like that, the full scope of our pain has been revealed.

Had friends over last night and we pureed some white peaches and added them to prosecco...delicious! For the first round we dipped the glasses in sugar, a bit too sweet for the whole night, but a nice touch for the first round. Today I have left over white peach puree and it's so lovely on top of yogurt.

For dinner, it was too hot to turn the oven on so I made a big spinach salad with red onions, fresh cucumbers, some blue cheese, red onions, and chickpeas and served a crusty baguette with a couple of different herbed cheeses and olives. Oh, for the top of the salad I bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store and served pulled chicken on a platter. It was pretty quick and yummy. Lemon sorbet for dessert. I love summer, but this heat is a little bit crazy.

(Christine - the one in DC) that salad sounds fantastic. I love all of those things. I just love a classic tabbouleh in the summer. It's so light and refreshing.

I can't wait for the heat to calm down so I can start to actually cook again, rather than assembling salads. Don't get me wrong. I love salads, but I'm starting to crave things like roasted root vegetables and steaming mountains of risotto and polenta.

i actually don't like most salads (actually, i just don't like raw greens or lettuce--it's a texture thing). i usually just chop veggies and toss them with dressing and maybe a bit of meat or cheese. so i'm definitely also looking forward to more cooking-friendly weather!

if the heat breaks tomorrow, i was thinking of making a peach crumble....

Liz - I was thinking the exact same thing. I noticed the other day that I have some left over crumble topping in my freezer and was wondering if it might still be good. I made it a year and a half ago.

I have a hard time throwing things away.

summer is a great time for grilling and camping. I just got back from two camping trips- one to mammoth cave natl. park the other to red river gourge natl. forest.

Nothing like roasted marshmallows, veggi kebabs (zucchini, portobello, onions, grilled corn on the cob, and eggs and bacon made over a campfire! -- Campfire gourmet!

I actually got that salad recipe from the "Athenos" feta web site years ago when I was looking for something different to do with some feta I had...of course, I prefer creamier greek feta to the dried out crumbles, but still, a great recipe, and kind of infinitely adaptable. As it turns out, it's still up on their site, if you want to have proportions of ingredients!
http://www.athenos.com/recipe.aspx?s=recipe&m=recipe/knet_recipe_display&u1=keyword&u2=black%20bean&u3=**2*2&wf=9&recipe_id=55665

This week's CSA bag:

- Mixed Lettuce
- Leeks
- Yellow Squash
- Patty Pan Squash
- Mixed Bunched Beets
- Swiss Chard
- Zucchini
- Cucumbers
- Eggplant
- Cubanelle Peppers (sweet frying pepper)

I'm foreseeing a beet salad in my future. As well as some kind of frittata.

I am looking for some really nice food photos to add to my kitchen wall. Im thinking wine, cheese, spices, market stalls, anything really crisp and big. Can anyone recommend some good photography websites?

Sisero,
A friend used to work for an arts distributor here in Montreal. She had (large) catalogues where prints may be chosen for laminating/framing. A couple of them were:
Bruce McGraw Graphics
Graphique de France
You may want to try that for chosing something for your kitchen.