Summer Omelette

Looking for a good summer breakfast?
Try cooking up some fresh zucchini and tomatoes in pesto and scallions, and mixing them into eggs for an omelette. Put grated parmesan and chopped fresh arugula inside.
Delicious!

Asparagus Salad

Somehow when I got fresh arugula from my dad's garden I was inspired to sautee some asparagus in garden-fresh herbs and make a salad. I put garlic, scallions, basil, oregano, salt, and olive oil in a pan with asparagus and let it cook.
I then added some goat cheese, heirloom tomatoes, avocado, raw pecans, fresh ground pepper, and sea salt to the pile of fresh arugula and asparagus (hard to see beneath all the other yummy stuff). I drizzled fancy sweet balsamic vinegar over it all, and it was amazing!

Blackberry Limeade with Fresh Mint

Juice with blackberry, lime, and fresh mint. Delicious!

Fun Water

When I was in Mexico last summer, I called these delicious drinks on the street (and everywhere)--fun water. They had agua de fresa (strawberry), jamaica (hibiscus), tamarindo (tamarind) and many more. Every chance I got, I'd drink one of these.
Now that it's summer, it's time to start making these again here! The first of the season was strawberry.

Here's our homemade version. I think we've already gone through almost a liter of it today!
Ingredients:
-Strawberries
-Water
-Sugar
-Lemon (only in mine)
all to be mixed up in the blender, and served in a glass with ice.

Topical Popsicles: Mango Coconut

Could be the best yet!

INGREDIENTS:
-Mango (I used Trader Joe's frozen)
-Coconut Milk
-Plain Yogurt
-Milk
-Sugar

Summer Pasta

I know it's not really summer yet (especially in terms of produce), but the beautiful weather makes me feel like eating summer foods.

So here's a great summer pasta, using tomatoes, zucchini, and basil (among other things).

INGREDIENTS:
whole wheat pasta
fresh basil
baby tomatoes
onions
garlic
dried oregano
zucchini
olive oil, salt, pepper
fresh mozzarella
parmesan
shrimp

mixing everything together

Pizza

Walking through Trader Joes today I somehow felt like I couldn't just walk away from that giant box of fresh basil in front of me... So I had to find a way to use it! I settled on pizza, and just a couple minutes after that encountered the pizza dough. Wow, what a way to save time, I thought. I could even make pizza for lunch! So here I go cheating and using store-bought pizza crust, but using that basil I really wanted.

Like many great foods, this one started with chopped basil and tomatoes.


I also sauteed onions, zucchini, and garlic in a pan.

Then I brushed the crust with olive oil, seasoned with salt, pepper, and dried oregano, and I added the toppings (including fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, and parmesan).

In the end, it was amazing. All that basil really blended well with everything else, and the whole wheat store bought crust was actually quite good.

Bruschetta

One of my favorite foods. I make a basic bruschetta, but I tend to use a thin layer of parmesan under the tomato layer.


It all started out with the topping of fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

I toasted the bread in a small amount of olive oil in a pan, to keep them from getting soggy, and give a tiny bit more flavor.

Avocado Popsicles

Ever had an avocado popsicle? Or an avocado smoothie?
Two of my favorite eateries serve these, and I wanted to figure out how to make them myself.

I threw avocadoes, milk and half & half, and splenda in the blender, and froze the mix in popsicle molds.


The end result was pretty good, but next time I'll add a little more milk to make the avocado flavor less intense.

Coconut Popsicles

No gross artificial flavoring or coloring here. Easy to make, and fun to eat! They're creamy and delicious, partway between ice-cream and fruit.

COCONUT POPSICLES:
frozen coconut pulp (I got mine at a Brazilian grocery store)
1:1 ratio of 1/2 and 1/2 and milk
sugar (doesn't need much)
cinnamon
--------blend everything in a blender really well. try to get the coconut chunks really small because they're a little hard to eat when the popsicle is frozen. use enough milk to keep things moving in the blender, but not enough to water down the flavor.
--------I got my popsicle makers at Target yesterday, and I love the shape!

Summer French Toast

Wondering what to do with all those strawberries you impulsively picked up at the grocery store? Cover your french toast with them!


Did you know that you can make whipped cream with Splenda? That was my experiment this morning, and it turned out just fine!

FRENCH TOAST:
7 slices of milti-grain/whole wheat bread
1/4 c flour
3 eggs
1 c milk (a little less if you use the pumpkin butter)
1-2 tbs pumpkin butter (optional)
nutmeg
cinnamon
vanilla
1-2 tbs sugar

Summer Breakfasts

Sometimes it seems like the key to eating isn't so much in the food, as it is in the atmosphere. Now that it's nice out again, balcony eating is back in style!


But for those who think eating is about the food, here's that part---


EGG SOUFFLE:
Mix eggs, milk, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, scalions
Pour the egg/veggie mix over toasted bread chunks (toast in oven while preparing the rest).
Cover top with shredded parm 10 min before done
Cooks for about 40 min on 375.