Summer Salads

I continue to be a lousy blogger, because it continues to be ridiculously hot out and the food I've been eating is (a) boring and (b) redundant. I did go berry picking in Maryland a couple weeks ago - blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries, and sour cherries. Most went straight into the freezer though, because I was heading out of town. I'll hopefully go pick a lot more blueberries soon.

Here are a couple of slightly more interesting (not lettuce) summery salads I've made recently.

This was roasted beets (I picked them at the U-pick berry farm!) with olive oil, garlic, onion, salt, and pepper. I let them cool then added red wine vinegar and fresh thyme.



Also in that picture was a really easy salad of brown rice, split peas, and homemade barbecue sauce. Would have been better with black-eyed peas or maybe white beans, but I didn't have time to cook them. I like this cold or at room temperature.

It would have been good with fresh oregano and scallions and maybe some cooked kale or fresh spinach. I'd missed the farmers markets the weekend before and was out of almost everything, unfortunately. For a dinner of desperation this turned out pretty well.

Last, a really easy tomato, basil, and corn salad. Just core, seed and chop a few tomatoes, add the kernels from one or two cooked ears of corn, add olive oil, a clove of minced garlic, maybe one finely chopped scallion, 10-15 leaves thinly sliced basil, salt, pepper, and either balsamic or red wine vinegar. I added some cooked white beans and chopped avocado at the end.



Bonus picture for reading to the end - check out this massive morel I found this spring! My weirdly short fingers make it look even bigger.