If like us you have a vegetable garden, you know now’s the moment when all the planting, watering and pruning of the last three months is literally bearing fruit in overwhelming abundance. For us that means on a daily basis collecting buckets of sweet, bursting-with-flavor cherry tomatoes and a nice little crop of green and yellow zucchini, too.
Head Chef Alessio Corda loves healthy, seasonal, full-flavored ingredients — preferably locally sourced — for his delicious dishes at the Ritz-Carlton Hôtel de la Paix’s stylish new restaurant the Living Room, the launch of which I had the pleasure of attending in January. With Spring rapidly approaching, I asked Chef Corda for a recipe that reflects the changing of the seasons and fulfills the wish that I and probably many of you have to transition to lighter fare. This delicious dish delivers on that request but doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of flavor, beauty or nutrition.
At this time of year, I like nothing better than a full-flavored curry to wake up my taste buds after months of more tame seasonal fare. My husband recently cooked up this dish based on one he found in the January 2017 issue of Delicious magazine. As usual, he made some test batches till he got it just to his (our) liking, which usually means devising ways to add more flavor and richness, usually by means of a few substitutions and a little more of “this and that”.
To round out my short series on summer salads with seasonal fruit, I nominate this satisfyingly tasty little number that makes the most of late-August tomatoes in all their glorious, full-bodied ripeness. It comes from 101 Cookbooks, another of my favorite websites for innovative yet homey recipes (many that reinvent the way I think about using oft-used produce) that you immediately want to tuck into with a great big fork or spoon. The original recipe calls for heirloom tomatoes, but I made do with an abundant selection of non-heirlooms and I don’t think I missed out too much in the flavor department. The roasted tomatoes are luscious.
This salad just shouts SUMMER! It’s based on one of the many wonderfully tasty and inventive recipes from Smitten Kitchen. It combines seasonal fruit — in this case, watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew and even a few pieces of pineapple, but as the original recipe suggests, you can substitute other fruit or even seasonal vegetables because they should all work deliciously with the zesty topping.
This refreshing and easy-to-prep recipe comes from Nigella Lawson and was featured in her 2002 publication Nigella Summer. Her original recipe calls for chicken but we found that prawns make for an even better combo with this dressing which is light but has lots of character what with the acidity of the lime, the sweetness of mango, and the zinginess of chilli.
I recently went through my recipe binders, culling the “never-tried” from the “tried-and-true” only to find some among the latter that we had enjoyed but neglected after once giving them a go. Most featured my hand-written comments including the recipe below from Homes and Gardens magazine in 2013, which I rated as: “Lovely! Vinaigrette very nice!” I recalled how enjoyable the subtly sweet nectarine-based dressing was together with the salty, rich blue cheese and peppery rocket leaves.
