Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Tastes of Summer

I needed to make a post to highlight some of the fun summery dishes I have experimented with in the past few months, so here it is!

We grew some beets in our garden this summer, so I had to find delicious recipes worthy of the fruit of our labors. I had seen a recipe on the Barefoot Contessa at the gym one day for Summer Borscht, which looked surprisingly tasty. So....I made it!
We had some friends moving in with us, and to celebrate afterwards, we had a cookout, and I took that opportunity to test out this recipe. It was a hit!
 Also, it matched our picnic blanket, because it's HOT PINK! I mean, really, how awesome is that??? It's like you're slurping poster paint, but it's GOOD!
I had a lot of fun taking pictures of it...
This major flavors of this soup are: dill, cucumber, beet, lemon...reminiscent of tzatziki...

Another beet recipe that I tried and really liked (but forgot to take pictures of) is Beet and Brown Rice Salad with Goat Cheese. YUM!

Cool, Creamy, and Crunchy Vegetable Curry Salad
This summer I made a lot of rice & veggie bowls...
I wanted to try out some curries as tasty and healthy (and cheap) vegetarian dishes, but the one night I was going to go for it, it was too hot!

So instead I made a "cool, creamy, and crunchy vegetable curry" as I called it.
Unfortunately, I forgot to write down my recipe right when I made it, so here it is as best as I can recall!
Cool, Creamy, and Crunchy Vegetable Curry Salad
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp oil for sauteeing
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp curry powder
1/2 package silk tofu 

1 small head broccoli, chopped into small florets
2 carrots, thinly sliced, shredded, or chopped
1 small green pepper, diced
2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 c. cooked brown rice

In a skillet, saute the onion and garlic for about 6 minutes. Add in half the curry powder and stir, cooking 2 more minutes. Transfer the onion mixture to a food processor, and add the tofu and curry, and blend until smooth. In a medium bowl, combine the veggies, then toss with the creamy curry sauce. Serve over cooked brown rice, and enjoy!

Other things that would be good in a dish like this would be: red peppers, peas, cilantro, ginger, sprouts...etc.

Sushi extravaganza!
We made veggie sushi rolls the other day, and I attempted to make a quinoa version, since I had just defrosted some frozen quinoa...
 It looked good to start off...but my quinoa did not have the nice sticky quality of sushi rice...
 This is the nicest it looked...attempts to slice up the roll, however, were rather disastrous...

Mike had an interesting idea too, which was more successful: banana-avocado-cucumber sushi roll!
it was surprisingly delicious!

Grilled Yogurt-Marinated Mediterranean Chicken
We also got our grill going this summer! One of my favorite meals that we made on the grill was yogurt-marinated chicken with homemade tzatziki sauce and cucumber-tomato salad, on homemade pita bread, served with grilled corn! YUM!

Yogurt marinade:
1/2 c. yogurt + lemon juice, oregano, garlic, salt, paprika (1/2 tsp?) and garam masala (1 tsp?)

Tzatziki (from this recipe):
1/2 c. grated English Cucumber
3/4 c. Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh herbs (such as oregano, dill, or mint)
1/2 tsp salt

So there's a little taste of our summer.... :)

3 comments:

  1. my favorite of the above was all of them! but especially the Mediterranean chicken on a homemade pita.... delish.

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