Check out more of Kishori’s cooking on her blog, I Can Be Jell-O.

Happy September! Really and truly, isn’t it a happy time? Even though I was born in the summer, I am always grateful for the end of August – that plodding, humid month that’s really (let’s be honest) a lengthy prelude to the best season of the year. I love fall: the abundance of apples, baked and fresh; the need for coffee and tea in its natural hot form (so much better than iced!); and of course, the quiet hum of energy as school swings back into session. Although I’m not in school anymore, I do find that I miss the reliable traditions that come with its new year: fresh notebooks, new shoes, and a vacation schedule set in stone.

Of course, there are plenty of benefits to being an adult, and not a kid, in autumn. Ignoring the sales on turtlenecks and sweaters, for example, and splurging instead on a too-expensive but lust worthy coat that will only be useful for a few months before the down-feathered bulky one needs to be dragged out of the closet… now that’s a freedom I don’t wish to hand back. And here’s another one that I truly don’t miss – the brown bag school lunch.

I have nothing against the pb&j sandwich, the granola bar, the mysterious looking pizza that the cafeteria served. But as a post-adolescent human being, my favorite lunch is almost always getting to have leftovers from dinner. It’s filling, it’s warm, and most of all, it’s comforting.

Which brings me to this yellow dal. Now dal and the like weren’t exactly the coolest thing to bring into my high school cafeteria, but now, at the ripe old age of 24, that’s the last thing on my mind. Sitting down to a meal of rice, this dal, a sabji (a vegetable side) and some plain yogurt makes me irrationally happy. It is my ultimate comfort food, and I make it once – usually twice – a week.

It’s important to use the right kind of lentils for this version, as it will decrease your cooking time enormously. They should be orange, round, and thin. There are hundreds of different recipes for dal (here’s another one to definitely check out), but I like this one for its one-pot ease and familiarity. Feel free to adjust it however you see fit – add a tomato, add more chilis, experiment with different kind of lentils when you get comfortable with the basic technique. Just make sure to make a big enough pot of it, so you can look forward to having it for lunch the next day. For this is the important thing to think about as you trudge through the fallen wet leaves to your current cafeteria of choice.

Basic Dal

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients
A few tablespoons of canola oil
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
3 dried red chiles
Pinch asafetida *
1 chopped white onion
½ jalapeno, chopped and seeded (leave seeds in if you like the heat)
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 ½ cups washed massor dal (orange lentils)
6 cups water
juice of ½ lemon and chopped cilantro (optional)

*Asafetida can be found in any Indian grocery store, or online Indian grocery store. Although definitely recommended to buy, you can still make this dal without it.

In a soup pot, heat the oil and add the cumin seeds and chiles until the cumin seeds start to turn a darker shade of brown (about a minute.) Add the chopped onion and jalapeno, and let cook until onion is starting to brown. Add the salt.

Add the lentils and stir so the lentils are coated in your cooking oil. Add about ½ cupf of water, and wait until the water has been absorbed. Then add the remaining 5 ½ cups of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Partially cover and stir every 10 minutes until the lentils are soft, and breaking down. The dal will start to be yellow instead of orange. Let simmer for about 25 minutes. Taste and add more salt if needed. Serve over hot rice.

These gloriously yellow pickles single-handedly set off my canning kick this summer. I tasted a jar of them at a friend’s while cooking other, fresher things, and I immediately knew that I not only had to have the recipe, but I had to have a jar (or two) of my own. This friend then generously offered up her kitchen, and enlisted her canning-pro sister, to churn out a big batch of delight. And delightful they are; by the time these babies are ready (you have to let them sit for at least three weeks before eating), the mixture is practically a chutney, full of sunshiney, golden flavor.

As Liz demonstrated a few weeks ago, canning isn’t actually all that hard. It seems intimidating at first, but once you’ve gathered the basic equipment and given it a few goes, you’ll feel able to whip up a batch of pickles in no time, with no stress. Sunshine pickles are a good place to start, I think, because not only are the ingredients super cheap (so, unlike jam, you don’t have to worry so much about screwing up and wasting precious pints of berries), but I’ve never seen anything like this for sale. And that, really, is the beauty of self-canning: not just thriftiness, but also inventiveness.

I don’t have much else to say about this, which may be because my friend’s sister did a lot of the heavy lifting, in the form of prepping the cucumber. If you do not have a little cucumber prepping elf, then I suggest you pop in a good dvd and hunker down in front of the telly for some veg prep. Otherwise, this is a breeze.

Ah, and nothing more satisfying than hearing the pop, pop, pop of the lids sealing after you take them out of the hot water bath! Get to it.

(And, a helpful hint: if you don’t have enough mason jars for all the pickles, you can also use leftover jars — like the salsa jar below; they just won’t seal, so you’ll have to keep them in the fridge and eat the pickles a little quicker. Poor you.)

Sunshine Pickles

Adapted from the Joy of Pickling

Makes 7 pints

Ingredients

-       7 lb. lemon or pickling cucumbers

-       1 lb. onion, halved and sliced

-       ¼ c. pickling salt (can sub. Kosher salt)

-       21 thin slices fresh, peeled ginger

-       3 ½ c. cider vinegar

-       1 c. water

-       1 c. honey

-       ¼ c. seeded, minced chile pepper

-       2 tbsp. yellow mustard seeds

-       1 tsp. celery seeds

-       1 tsp. ground turmeric

-       1 c. golden raisins

1. Peel, halve, and seed cucumbers. Cut lemon cucumbers into crescents; cut pickling cucumbers into 1-inch chunks. Toss cucumbers and onion with salt. Cover vegetables with ice cubes from 2 ice trays. Let sit 3-5 hours.
2. Drain vegetables. Rinse in cold water, drain well again. Put 3 ginger slices into each of 7 pint mason jars.
3. Using a large, nonreactive pot, bring remaining ingredients to a boil, stirring to dissolve honey. Add drained vegetables and slowly bring mixture to a boil. Ladle hot vegetables and liquid into jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Close the jars with hot two-piece caps.
4. To ensure a good seal, process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.
5. Store jars in a cool, dry, dark place for at least three weeks before eating pickles.

I had an avocado, a cucumber, some chicken stock. I had just received a hand-me-down blender. It was a scorchingly hot day; I had a little time to make lunch, but not much, as I was anxious to leave my house for an air-conditioned coffee shop. And, I had just perused the latest issue of Canal House Cooking, featuring a recipe for Avocado & Cucumber Soup. The stars were aligned.

The soup was perfect. Ferociously simple (no peeling or seeding of the cucumbers required); exceptionally green; refreshingly cool.

A word on Canal House Cooking: Oh, how pleased I am to have discovered The Canal House. Produced by two women — Melissa and Christopher — with serious cooking credentials, Canal House is its own wonderful little entity: not quite a food magazine, not quite a cookbook, but a hybrid subscription-based tri-yearly cookbook thing.

Like most of the Canal House recipes, the combination  here is so obvious, and yet so innovative; reading through these gorgeous books is why didn’t I think of that moment after why didn’t I think of that moment. The photography and design are absolutely inspirational; the tone warm and inviting. And how fun is it to receive a little beautiful parcel of a cookbook in the mail three times a year? The best mail packages are the ones you’ve forgotten are ever going to arrive.

I cut this recipe down to serve just little ol’ me, as I only had one avocado and one cucumber, and also as this soup promised to go brown if not consumed quickly. The original recipe calls for three avocados to one cucumber, to serve 4, with more avocado-y results. I was tres happy with how this came out, however, still creamy and avocado-y, but with the refreshing crispness of the cucumber shining through and lifting the whole dish up. So good, in fact, that I had the remains for breakfast the next day, with coffee and toast.

Cold Cucumber Avocado Soup

Serves 1, plus a tiny bit more

Adapted from Canal House Cooking, Vol. 4

Ingredients

- 1 avocado

- 1 cucumber, sliced (unpeeled/unseeded)

- 1 or 2 cloves garlic

- juice of half a lemon

- 2 cups chicken stock (can use vegetable stock to make vegan)

- salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

- Optional: Plain yogurt or sour cream, golden cherry tomatoes, hot sauce: for garnish

1. Puree all ingredients (except garnish options) in blender until smooth.

2. Add any optional garnishes.

Voila!

Note: It’s good to eat this soup immediately, as it will begin to discolor (turn from green to brown, as avocados will) right away.

Having been in Europe for spring and most of summer, I missed the opportunity to sign up for a CSA share.  I was devastated until I saw an announcement for a fruit-only CSA, only just starting in August and being distributed quite close to my new Brooklyn apartment.  In a euphoric fit, I signed up for a half-share.  I saw lots of stone fruits in my future (so does Cathy from Not Eating Out in New York!), as well as a few peach capreses.  But what to do with all that other fruit?  Enter canning!

I signed up to take a class at the Brooklyn Kitchen with a professional canner.  As scary as it seems at first glance (fatal food poisoning! Lots of boiling water!), it turns out that if you follow a few simple rules of thumb, your chances of accidentally growing botulism or causing yourself any other harm are actually quite low.  The rules are:  keep the acidity of your food high (or the pH low), keep the temperature of the food high, keep all of your surfaces clean, and keep the food in whatever form of processing you use for a sufficient amount of time (if applicable).

What do you need to can?

This is the equipment our instructor recommended:

- If you are using the water bath method: a large pot; a jar rack or lots of clean towels for the bottom of the water bath; jar tongs.

- A large pot for boiling water and sterilizing jars

- A smaller pot for sterilizing screw rings and lids (these do not need to be boiling) and a magnetic wand for lifting the lids out of the water.

- Canning jars, lids, and screw rings.

- A ladle and funnel for scooping the food into the cans.

- Clean cloth and paper towels.

What should you know about acidity and canning (and botulism)?

Not to wig everyone out, but the bacteria spores that cause botulism are actually found on most fresh food.  However, because they only grow where there is no air, botulism is a singular risk of canning, since in the process of canning you are removing all air from the area around your food.

Most food has a low level of acidity.  This is true for everything from poultry to peanuts, and it applies to almost all fresh vegetables (including the ones you would can).  Most fruits are more acidic, but may not be acidic in and of themselves to ensure safe canning.  In order to keep botulism and other bacteria out, you must ensure that the acidity of your food drops below 4.6 pH.  To do this, most canning recipes include lemon or lime juice, citric acid, or a vinegar (for savory foods like pickles and tomatoes).

Similarly, it is important to make sure that your food reaches a high enough temperature for a long enough time before placing it in a can.  It is recommended that food reach a temperature of at least 180 degrees Farenheit, either before being placed in cans using the hot-fill method or during processing in the hot water bath (see below).

There are three methods for processing your canned goods (processing seems to be a jargon-y term meaning to seal the can and ensure proper preservation):

- The boiling-water bath – after you have prepared your food and placed it in the jars, you place the jars in a boiling water bath, covered with at least three inches of water, for a prescribed amount of time to ensure a seal.  The USDA Canning Guide indicates processing times for many common canning foods.

- The hot-fill – this is best for small batches of more acidic food and smaller-sized cans.  By placing sufficiently hot food in a small can and immediately closing the can, you will create a vacuum that will in turn create a seal.

- The pressure canner.  I did not learn anything about this method, but apparently you cannot use it for making jams.

And now, for the main event: how to make something to be canned!

Blueberry Lemon Honey Jam

Ingredients

10 pints of washed blueberries

1 cup of honey

Zest of 3 lemons

Juice of 5 lemons (you can also use lemon verbena)

How to prepare:

Place all ingredients in a large pot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.  After it boils, lower heat and simmer for about an hour.  Stir often to avoid scorching the bottom of the mix, particularly as the jam thickens.  Taste occasionally, add extra sweetener to taste.  We did not add any when we made this recipe.

Test to see if the jam is ready by placing a small drop on a plate that has been in a freezer.  When everything reaches room temperature, if the jam is ready it will remain congealed.  If it is not quite cooked down enough, a runny ring of water will form around the edge.

When the jam is ready, clean the lip of the jar an additional time using hot water and a paper towel.  Use the ladle and funnel to scoop the jam into the cans, leaving 1/4” headspace at the top.

Again, clean the inside and outside of the lip with a paper towel and hot water.

Using the magnetic wand, place the lids on the jars.  Remove the screw rings and screw tightly to jar.

We were using small jars, so we used the hot-fill method.  Allow the sealed jars to cool at room temperature until the lids pop, indicating they have sealed.

Because this jam is low in sugar, it will only last about 2-3 weeks once opened, and will store for about 2 years before opening.

I also love beets. They’re an odd, brightly colored, and healthy vegetable, and I will eat them just about any which way. So the odds were very good that I was going to love this dish, which is an appetizer involving beets. Yes, please.

The cooking time here is long, but nearly all of it is totally hands off. The main step in cooking is “throw everything in a food processor,” and you don’t exactly need to be Jean-Georges to pull this one off. So take the plunge and start making some appetizers at home if you don’t already. This spread is the perfect place to start: The experimenting has already been done for you, and I can promise good results.

Despite how much I love appetizers, I seldom make them. Food Junta is targeted toward busy people, because Claire and I are busy people. I love cooking a meal at home, but not so much that I want to spend 100% of my free time doing it. As a result, I tend toward one course meals supplemented with a vegetable or a salad or maybe both. “Whipping up some quick crostini” isn’t really a thought that crosses my mind at 6 pm on a Tuesday when I already have the rest of a meal to cook.

But I’m trying to do more appetizing in the kitchen, and there are some aspects of appetizers that are making this easier: They generally require fewer ingredients, fewer steps, and less (or even no) cooking. They frequently can be prepared completely or almost completely ahead of time. Finally – and somewhat counter-intuitively – I’ve actually found they make cooking dinner for other people to be a lot easier. But wait, you say, how can cooking more food make cooking easier?

Here’s how: No matter how carefully I plan, I always take longer getting a meal on the table for guests than I anticipate because I fail to factor in the time it takes me to welcome people, get them settled, fix them a drink, etc. This leaves me feeling rushed and anxious to get food out to my hungry guests. Not that my dinner guests have ever been impatient, but I think anyone who has ever hosted a dinner party knows exactly the feeling I mean. But, throw an appetizer or two in front of these people, and you can buy yourself all the time you need. By giving them something to nosh on, you can assuage your guilt about leaving them hanging and also – as is desperately needed with some guests – keep them out of the kitchen and out of your way.

“Here’s some beet spread, folks. Go wild, and I’ll see you in 20 minutes.”

Roasted Beet Spread
Adapted from the Bromberg Bros. Blue Ribbon Cookbook

3 medium beets (1 cup roasted)
1 medium red pepper (1/2 cup roasted)
1 medium red onion (1/2 cup roasted)
Salt and pepper

1. Roast the peppers over the flame of a gas burner, on a hot grill, or under the broiler, until the skin is black and charred. (The more you char, the easier the skin will be to remove.) Remove from the heat and place in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit until cool enough to handle, about 15 to 20 minutes. With clean paper towels, wipe off the skin. Remove the stems and seeds and discard. If necessary, briefly rinse under cold water to remove any remaining charred skin. Slice or chop.

2. Rinse beets to remove loose dirt. Roast them whole and unpeeled in a 400 degree oven for about 90 minutes, or until you can pierce them through the middle easily with a butter knife. I wrap mine in aluminum foil and place them in a baking sheet, as beets tend to let off a fair amount of liquid and beet juice is a beetch to clean up. Let them cool, cut the tops off, and then the skins should be easy to remove with your fingers. Finally give them a rough chop, just small enough to go into the food processor.

3. After you start the beets in the oven, slice the onion, toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, place on a baking sheet or dish, and put in the oven with the beets. Cook until very soft. Cooking time will vary a lot depending on the oven, but mine took about an hour.

4. Combine beets, red pepper, and red onion in food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste. Process. If mixture is too think, add some olive oil. Taste and adjust seasoning. Chill. (The dip is good warm, but I think its better cold.)

5. Serve with warm pita.

My favorite thing about traveling is, by far, the food. With food as your excuse, you get to take a break from wandering though endless museums and churches and other famous monuments that Lonely Planet of Rich Steves insisted that you had to see. You get to relax, taste the culture of the city you’re in, and people watch. It gives you time to slip your camera into your backpack, toss it under the table, or over your white tennis shoes that give you away as an American tourist at first sight.

Because I like the food aspect of traveling so much, Spain is just about my favorite destination. Spaniards are known for taking multiple breaks throughout their day to sit back and enjoy their food. And with a cold beer under the sunny skies of Seville, kicking back in the plaza at lunch time, I did just that. And, I discovered something wonderful: Salmorejo.

Salmorejo, you ask? So did I. Everyone’s heard of, and probably tasted on multiple accounts, Gazpacho– a cold tomato and vegetable soup, famous for cooling you down on a hot summer day. Depending on where in the world you order it, it may come with the fixings (typically diced cucumber, onion, and tomato, and maybe some bacon bits or croutons) already tossed in, or they may be presented on a trendy platter on the side. But few, I think, have heard of Salmorejo.

Though I don’t know why. It’s quicker, faster and requires fewer ingredients. Plus, I think it’s more flexible, and even more delicious than Gazpacho.

Once you’ve got the base, you can go crazy with the toppings. In Spain, I saw it with cucumber slices, halved red grapes and diced boiled egg. At another tapas joint, I ordered it with slices of Jamón Ibérico and cilantro. You could toss on a garlic crouton or two. Maybe go crazy with some shredded cheese. If you’re doing this while entertaining, you might want to create a buffet or sorts with toppings and let people go wild. Totally up to you.

One thing to note: Because the recipe involves just a few, raw ingredients, the quality of your tomatoes and olive oil are pretty important. I admit that when I made it today, I had the cheapest olive oil that my German supermarket has to offer, and I wished that I would have splurged for something just a little more expensive. I also doubled the garlic it called for, because, hey– I like garlic. Next time, I think I’d stick to the recipe, because, hey– that’s raw garlic.

Salmorejo

From Esperanza Luca de Tena’s The Best 100 Tapas

1 kg (2.2 pounds) ripe tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 cup bread crumbs
1/4 liter (8-9 ounces) olive oil
1 teaspoon vinegar (I used white wine)
Pinch of sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

+  Any toppings that you desire

1. Place tomatoes and garlic cloves in a blender; crush.

2. Add bread crumbs; pulse until blended.

3. Gradually add oil while blending.

4. Once all of the oil has been added, season it to taste, and then blend again at maximum speed for 2 minutes, to obtain an even blend.

5. Serve chilled and and with toppings of your choice.

Ed. note: See more of Joanna’s cooking — and gorgeous food photography — on her blog, Jojo’s Kitchen.

Sometimes putting together a meal from whatever scraps you have left in the cupboard and fridge yields ho-hum results.  Other times, magic happens. I’ll be so bold as to say that this dish falls into the latter category. Why, you ask? Just let me tell you a little story about the time I made these noodles.

Picture it: I was rummaging through my kitchen, trying to figure out what to make for dinner for myself and my boyfriend, who was already on his way over to my place. I had soba noodles. I had edamame. I had fresh ginger, garlic, and all kinds of condiments. I just needed ideas.  As often happens, I consulted epicurious.com and found this gem of a recipe from the August 2007 issue of Gourmet magazine (oh, Gourmet, may you rest in peace).  After a quick trip to the produce store down the street (which, I smile to point out, is called U Don’t Know Nothing Produce), I was in possession of some lovely shiitake mushrooms, some Napa cabbage, and scallions. Perfect. Before I knew it, I was chopping and sautéing them with the aroma of garlic and ginger filling my apartment.

So, how good was it? Maybe too good.  After preparing the sauce, veggies, and noodles, the whole dish came together as a delightful symphony of flavors and aromas that prompted us to start eating straight out of the pot. After dealing out heaping portions into a couple of bowls, I was pouring myself a glass of wine when I heard a small thud and an exclamation of, “Oh NO!”

I turned around to find my boyfriend contemplating a pile of shiitake mushrooms, noodles, and cabbage on the floor. “It’s okay,” I said. “There’s plenty more.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if considering whether or not he was willing to sacrifice an entire bowlful. “Nah,” he said, “I think it’s okay. Besides, I’ll probably want more after this.” He scooped the noodles back into his bowl and, aside from a small bit on the bottom of the pile that had made the most direct contact with my living room carpet, ate an entire bowl of noodles that had fallen on the floor—all because they seemed too delicious and too precious to waste. And he went back for seconds.

This is a pretty easy recipe, though it does involve a whole lot of chopping. It’s the perfect kind of dish to make when friends/significant others drop by for dinner:  the work is pretty mindless, so it’s easy to enjoy a conversation and perhaps also a glass of wine while getting dinner ready. It’s also pretty versatile: it’s great hot or cold, and it works well with a variety of different ingredients. The original recipe is vegetarian- and vegan-friendly; I, however, have made this recipe both with and without shrimp. I’m sure it would be great with some seared tofu, too—just play around and see what you like.  I also swapped out the 1/3 cup of water that the original recipe calls for and replaced it with rice vinegar and sesame oil to round out the flavors—flavors so round that you may, um, find yourself eating it off the floor, too.

Spicy Soba Noodles with Shiitakes, Cabbage, and Edamame

Adapted from Gourmet

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the sauce:

¼ cup rice vinegar

A few tablespoons of sesame oil, to taste

1/3 cup soy sauce

2 or 3 teaspoons of Korean hot-pepper paste, depending on how hot you want it (Sriracha is also great here if you don’t have or can’t find the hot-pepper paste)

1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

For the Noodles:

3 tablespoons sesame seeds

¼ cup vegetable oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped peeled ginger

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

10 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and thinly sliced*

1 head of Napa cabbage (1-1 ¼ pounds), thinly sliced (should yield about 8 cups—I know, that’s a lot).

6 scallions, thinly sliced

1 box soba noodles (8 or 9 oz). If you don’t have soba, I imagine you can also use a very thin long-cut pasta, but the buckwheat flavor of the soba noodles is especially nice.

1 cup frozen shelled edamame

A couple of handfuls of shrimp, peeled and deveined (optional)

*A quick note on the shiitakes: clean them using a clean, damp towel or a damp paper towel. Never, ever clean mushrooms by rinsing them!  It makes them rubbery, and it also interferes with the browning process.

First, stir together all of the sauce ingredients in a sauce pot over medium-low heat until the brown sugar is dissolved.  Set it aside. That was easy, no?

Toast the sesame seeds by stirring them in a dry skillet over medium heat until they are golden brown. Set them aside in a small bowl so you can use the same skillet for your veggies.

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. You’ll know it’s ready when the oil looks like it’s shimmering. (Vegetable oil is preferable here because its flavor, unlike that of olive oil, won’t compete with the other flavors of the dish.) Add the ginger and garlic and sauté for about 30 seconds until fragrant. Make sure that the garlic doesn’t burn.  Then add the shiitakes and sauté until they start to brown and get nice and tender. Then reduce the heat to medium and add the cabbage and most of the scallions, saving a little bit for garnishing the dish at the end. Cook until the cabbage is tender but still has some crunch to it, about 5 or 6 minutes. Then add the sauce and simmer it for another couple of minutes.

While the cabbage and mushroom mixture cooks, cook the soba and edamame together in a big pot of boiling, salted water until the noodles are just tender. (If you’re using shrimp, you can also throw them into the pot to quickly cook them, or you can sear or grill them and throw them on at the end. Up to you.)  Drain the pasta and edamame in a colander and then rinse them under cool water to stop the cooking.  Drain them again, and then transfer to a large bowl or back into your pasta pot. Add in the sesame seeds and cabbage mixture and toss it all together. Serve the noodles in bowls topped with the reserved scallions and enjoy.

What is the best way to deal with a 95-degree day, with an ungodly amount of humidity to boot? Probably not by going to hot yoga in the middle of the day, to practice down-dog in an 100-degree room. Yet, that is what I did yesterday. And then I came home, took a cold shower, and sat in front of a fan and ate a bowl of this soup. After that, I stayed pleasantly cool for hours. Was it that a nice chilled soup pleasantly lowered my core temperature? Or that nothing could possibly seem hot after an hour of warrior poses in an excruciating sauna?

This soup is a lifesaver in a heat wave. Absolutely no heat required! And — in this unblended version — not even the heat of an electronic appliance. Just some chopping, and peeling, and measuring of spices and pouring of juice. Nothing too arduous, and the final result shows off summer produce at its best. Plus, it will last for at least a week in the fridge (trust me, it’s happening). As far as I’m concerned, as long as something is tasty, I don’t mind eating it over and over (and over) again. So why not make up a walloping batch of this and be able to stay out of the kitchen for days?

Where did the cantaloupe come from? Well, I was eating half a cantaloupe for breakfast (another heat-avoidance strategy) immediately before commencing gazpacho production. Bite of cantaloupe, look at gazpacho recipe, bite of cantaloupe, look at gazpacho recipe. An idea was born.

The cantaloupe makes this soup feel all the more refreshing; bright and lively. You can add a little more freshly chopped cantaloupe mid-week, also, to perk the whole thing up after it’s been in the fridge for a while.

There are a lot of ingredients here, but basically no steps (combine, chill). (For a slightly heartier, pureed version, take a gander at Liz’s salmorejo post from the start of summer.)

Gazpacho with Cantaloupe

Serves at least 8

Adapted from the New Moosewood Cookbook

Ingredients

-       6 cups tomato juice (just the kind you buy in a jug at the grocery store)

-       4 tomatoes, finely chopped

-       1 onion, finely chopped

-       2-3 cloves garlic, minced

-       1 green bell pepper, finely chopped

-       1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped

-       ½ cantaloupe, finely chopped*

-       2 scallions, finely chopped

-       1 lemon, juiced

-       ½ lime, juiced

-       2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

-       1 tsp. chopped tarragon

-       1 tsp. chopped basil

-       ½ tsp. cumin

-       ¼ c. parsley, chopped

-       2 Tbsp. olive oil

-       salt, black pepper, and cayenne to taste

* The easiest way to “chop” a cantaloupe is to cut it into quarters, score it, flip it inside out, and then cut it. I found that I needed to make two horizontal cuts in order to make the cubes as small as I wanted them (rather than just slicing all the cantaloupe flesh straight off the rind).

1. Combine all ingredients. (Optional: puree all or some.)
2. Chill until very cold.

As I sat down to write this post, I had a little smidgen of this left in the pot. As I write this sentence, that little smidgen has now been consumed. That is how good this combination is, that the mere thought of it necessitated the need for more.

This dish couldn’t be simpler: three ingredients (zucchini, white beans, basil, plus s&p and olive oil), one pot, about 10 minutes. Endless variations (add chopped tomato, add goat cheese, add roasted red peppers, serve hot or room temperature) and endless ways to make more hearty (I was originally going to serve this over barley, but I forgot; it could be an entirely different animal if served over penne, or scrambled with eggs).

So deliciously creamy (from the beans) that I was surprised to realize it was also vegan while checking the tags from this post. The basil is the key here; find somewhere that sells basil abundantly and cheaply in season and go wild. This is not the time to skimp. Perfect for a hot day when a salad just won’t do.

Zucchini with White Beans and Basil

Serves 1 (or 2, if you serve it with some kind of grain)

Ingredients

- 3 zucchini, ends discarded, halved lengthwise and then sliced into half-moons

- 1 can cannelini beans, drained

- good 1/2 cup or so of basil, sliced

- olive oil

- salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

1. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add zucchini, saute until golden on both sides (or almost).

2. Add beans. Cook until beans are heated through and liquid has evaporated (however much soupiness or non-soupiness you want). Add basil, give a stir so basil wilts slightly. Season with salt and pepper.

Effective!

The hijiki adds some fishy, oceanic umami flavors. It also contains a lot of iron and dietary fiber, making this salad super healthy overall. You can buy hijiki at Whole Foods or (much more cheaply) at a Japanese grocery store, if you’re lucky enough to have one of those around. Soak it according to package directions- the kind I get instructs me to soak in cold water for thirty minutes. If you don’t have any hijiki, chopped olives would probably sub in well.

Kale and Edamame Salad

One bunch kale
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1/4 cup dried hijiki, soaked (by which I mean, soak first and then measure, as it expands considerably)

Dressing:

2 tsp sesame oil
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 tsp mirin
1/2 tsp rice wine vinegar

Remove the thick stems from the kale and boil it for about twenty minutes. Meanwhile, boil the edamame for about three or four minutes and drain. Mix the dressing ingredients together. When the kale is cooked, drain it and toss it with the soaked hijiki, edamame and dressing. Add salt, pepper and crushed red pepper flakes and eat at room temperature.