Peachy Salad with Savory Toasted Oats

Breakfast salad. It’s not something you hear as often as breakfast sandwich, breakfast burrito, or maybe even breakfast lasagna. And no, it doesn’t have eggs to give it that smack of “breakfast” approval. I just had some beautiful peaches and nectarines, and leafy lettuce from my CSA, and I didn’t feel like eating them separately. Or having yogurt with those peaches and perhaps some granola. Then I realized that this crispy oat-flecked topping could be great on a salad instead … Read More

Shaved Summer Squash and Nectarine Salad

It doesn’t take more than a couple fresh ingredients at their prime to make an appetizer that you might spend upwards of $10 for in a restaurant. But in a restaurant, a dish like this–even with so simple a philosophy that I can agree with–nags me a little. It’s just too precious. Too plated. And often, too skimpy.

Fresh Zucchini and Cucumber Slaw with Nectarines & Mint

There are two very different cousins of the squash and melon family working together here. One is seldom cooked (and seldom should be), and one is most commonly cooked to some degree, usually on a hot grill in the summer. They are strikingly similar in appearance and easy to confuse; they are both harvested amply during the same time (mid-summer). They aren’t often served together in a dish, but here take off their fighting gloves and go with one preparation … Read More

Steamed Artichokes with Lime Butter, Nectarines and Shallots

Serendipity only occurs every so often. But often, it occurs thanks to like-minded food-obsessed friends. With one, we nibbled on fried artichoke hearts over lunch while talking about how daunting most home cooks found cooking the florets, with their spiky petals that needed to be trimmed and trimmed, and her parents’ industrious habit of steaming them whole, leaving the legwork to the diners who would slather them in butter before eating. I resolved to find the perfect way to mediate … Read More