A Taste of Summer

If there are two foods that have Summer emblazoned across their tiny little foreheads, they are corn and tomatoes.  There is nothing like biting into a home-grown tomato.  This year I actually ate tomatoes that I grew right outside my front door.  There weren't many (two), but I did it!  I've also been lucky to be given tomatoes from a friend's garden.  And I've picked up a few heirlooms at the farmers' market here and there.

Corn makes me think of family cookouts, messy fingers, and butter sliding off the cob faster than you can bite into it.  I've grown to like corn more and more over the years.  I'm pretty much a purist eating it off the cob with nothing more than butter and a sprinkle of salt.  That's nostalgia more than anything else.  Though what I really dig these days is corn salsa, bringing together both corn and tomatoes in one dish.  Fresh flavours at the height of their season.  

Here in Los Angeles, every Saturday morning from 10am to noon, you can tune into KNX on the AM dial (yes, radio!) and listen to Melinda Lee do her show, 'Food News.'  She's been on the air for years and has years and years of experience in food.  I love listening to her.  She's engaging, educational, amusing, and full of information.  Each week her show has a theme and listeners are invited to call in to ask questions...any question dealing with food and not necessarily on that week's topic.  Last week's topic was, you guessed it, corn!   I went to her website and checked out the show topic's collection of recipes and made a riff on the corn salsa recipe she posted.  It's a recipe that comes together very quickly.  Just be sure to let it sit for at least an hour after you make it, so all the flavours can mingle.

Grill some chicken, tear it into pieces...top a tostada with the chicken and the salsa and you have something really magical and full of Summer in each bite.

Corn Salsa
(Adapted from Melinda Lee's Roasted White Corn Salsa) 
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

1 cup cooked corn
1 small jalapeno, minced
1/4 cup onion, minced
1/4 cup tomato, chopped
juice from one lime
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp parsley, minced

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl and stir well.  Set aside for at least an hour, letting flavours mingle and develop.  

Holding onto Summer

You know as well as I do that when Labor Day hits on the first Monday in September, there's a shift in the season.  Despite the fact that the first day of Autumn isn't until September 22, you invariably start packing up the vestiges of Summer.  If you have kids, they go back to school and you begin to pack up the fun.    The days feel less carefree and dusk begins to arrive a few minutes earlier every evening.

But look outside...the weather isn't giving up it's heat, humidity, or beating sun just yet. September can be notoriously hot.  So, while part of you may be thinking about apple pies, hot chocolate on a chilly fall evening, or a whiskey to warm you up on a rainy Saturday afternoon, there's another part of you that doesn't want to let go of the bright, cool tastes of Summer.

The past three weeks of 90+ degree weather here in Los Angeles has made me want to put as little effort as possible into cooking.  I've baked way less than I have in months, and I am happily still in an eating rut of sandwiches where the closest thing to cooked is toasted bread and salads multiple times a day is okay by me.  The fruit bowl on the dining table has been overflowing this Summer:  plums, peaches, nectarines, berries, and melons have abounded.  I've been perfectly content standing over the kitchen sink, biting into a ripe peach, trying to keep the juices away from my shirt.  I'll think about making something more substantial, and find myself grabbing a plum and calling it a meal.

I was able to pick up cantaloupe a few days ago for practically pennies.  I think they were three for a dollar.  Since I can't resist an excellent price, I bought them.  I can easily eat half a melon sprinkled with a little sea salt and be a happy camper, but with three melons in the fridge, I knew I'd have to do something else with them.  After making July's cucumber soup, sometime over the past month I came across a recipe on Pinterest for a chilled cantaloupe soup.

Obviously, it took a few days to get the motivation up to make it.  I cut up the cantaloupe a couple of days ago with every intention of making it within hours...but as I mentioned before...this heat.  It makes me lazy.  It makes me wish I could just lounge by the pool drinking sangria.  (I don't have a pool, but I did have sangria.)

Well...I finally made it.  It was worth the wait.

Cantaloupe Soup
(Adapted from a recipe on Food52.com)
Makes 4-5 cups

2 medium cantaloupe melons, cut up (about 6 cups)
1/4 cup almond milk
Juice of one lemon
Juice of one orange
Juice of one lime
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh basil, sliced
2 tablespoon jalapeno 
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

In a blender, add half the cantaloupe and all ingredients except the sour cream and feta.  Blend until pureed and continually add the remaining cantaloupe.  Blend until  no chunks remain.  In a small bowl, mix feta and sour cream  until the consistency of cake frosting. 

Pour soup into bowls and top with a dollop of the feta cream.  You can also serve it as an appetizer in shot glasses (or any small glass).