Fresh Peach and Corn Salsa

A fresh salsa perfect for summer snacking! Fresh corn and peaches tossed with spicy cilantro-lime mix uses the best of summer produce. Got your chips ready?

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

One of the best things about eating with the seasons is the utter satisfaction of meals made with ingredients picked at their perfect ripeness. Think of strawberries in November, corn on the cob in January, tomatoes in March . . . they do not satiate you in as satisfying a way as their counterparts eaten 6 months later when locally available. [I'm speaking to my fellow Midwesterners and middle-of-the-East Coasters here, folks used to temperate climes. For those readers in tropical climates your ripening schedule mileage will indeed vary.]

We eat a lot of salsa around here. It's an after school snack for the kids, an "I just walked in the door from work and I'm STARVING" snack for my spouse, a bit of local food with many meals, and one of my most successful canning projects. Even though I put up plenty of tomato-based salsas, Salsa Verde with Roasted Hatch Chiles, Peach Salsa with Golden Plums, and Roasted Corn and Hatch Chile Salsa, I'm still lured by the availability of fresh seasonal produce.

When you've got a pile of ripe produce--gorge away, and then have at this salsa. The longest step, cooking the corn, can be done ahead of time. My eyes are always bigger than our bellies when I'm buying fresh ears of corn at the farmer's market, and corn is best when cooked soon after picking, so I always cook the whole batch at once and then use the cooked corn later. This peach and corn salsa is quick to make and easy to enjoy. May I suggest a Cheater Margarita Smoothie as the perfect summer sipper?

Grilled Vegetable Enchiladas

These vegetarian enchiladas are stuffed with eggplant, peppers, and summer squash. Make dinner prep quick by using prepared sauce and previously grilled vegetables. While it's baking you can toss a salad and a healthy dinner is done.

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

It's all about balance. Last week I shared a recipe for Salsa Verde Pork Tacos. Today I'm going to swing over to the other end of the Foucault pendulum and share a vegetarian recipe for grilled vegetable enchiladas. If I were an organized, Type A, person I'd keep track of the meals our family actually eats [vs a meal plan which I may or may not keep up with . . . . squirrel!]. I would bet that our meals these days are close to 60-40 in favor of vegetarian meals. With a spouse who will only eat meat if it's from small, local farms, it's easier to prepare one or two large batches of meat-containing meals (soup/stew, casserole, or meatballs & spaghetti sauce) and let the kids eat leftovers when they aren't interested in the vegetarian option.

I feel compelled to use the beginning of a new paragraph to point out that this meal is not finished on the grill. It starts on the grill to be sure, but one of my 5 tips & tricks for feeding my family from the farm share is to put up the abundance during the season. Grilling and freezing vegetables is one way I feed my family locally-grown foods year round, and if you've got the freezer space it's another tool in your kitchen repertoire.

You know I couldn't let the run up to Cinco de Mayo go by without an enchilada recipe. I first tried homemade enchiladas at a baby shower in Illinois when I was new to the Air Force, and that opened my eyes to the realization that enchiladas are NOT just for restaurants. Once I got into making them, I realized that enchiladas are a terrific way to incorporate vegetables into my family's meals. I've got a Clickable Collage of Enchilada Recipes here.

Grilled Cheese with Caramelized Onion, Gorgonzola, and Havarti

This grilled cheese sandwich combines sweet caramelized candy onions with savory gorgonzola cheese tucked under a gooey Havarti blanket. You may need a fork for this gourmet concoction!

Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

One of the ways I put up the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share produce is to use my freezer in creative ways. [And I don't mean the "fruit & veg freezer that doubles as a microwave stand" type creative freezer uses.] After I discovered Dorothy's Crock Pot Caramelized Onions I realized I could stock up on candy onions (a local sweet onion variety) at the end of the season, caramelize them all in one tear-filled marathon of slicing, and freeze individual packets to use throughout the year.

Grilled cheese sandwiches rule [and Robert Barkers drool]. There--I've said it. As someone trying to please a frequent vegetarian and 2 hungry teens simultaneously, I am finding that a platter of grilled cheese sandwich quarters* is my go to lunch nearly every weekend.

Robert Barker is very intent on my sandwich. I didn't share.

Saturday mornings we hit the farmer's market for eggs, meat, and bread. When we get home, I'll make up a pot of my Creamy Tomato Soup with Home-Canned Tomatoes, cobble together some sandwiches while it's simmering, and call it a complete meal.

The kids choose whatever lunchmeat suits their fancy, the spouse can stay true to his desires not to eat industrially-produced meat, and I can get creative when the mood strikes or keep it simple when I just want to get food on the table. Everyone wins, and that's why I like grilled cheese.

Kale and Sausage Burrata Pasta with Caramelized Onions

A skillet meal of Italian sausage, fresh kale, and caramelized onions tossed with pasta shells and bound together with creamy burrata cheese.

One of my go-to ways to cook a pile of produce from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share is a stir fry. It's pretty fast to throw together once all the vegetables are prepped, and you can customize the flavors as simple or as complex as you like. I've shared a handful of stir fry recipes in the Recipe Index by Category on the right sidebar, but it's often just a quickly thrown together, very little planning, dish.

 Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

This dish is the pasta equivalent of a stir fry. I started off like usually I do for a stir fry, by cooking the meat and vegetables in a skillet. Instead of firing up the rice cooker (or delegating that to a kid), I'd boiled some water in my pretty purple pot. Once the pasta, meat, and vegetables are cooked it's a simple matter to toss everything together with the burrata and you're ready to eat.

Pizza with BBQ Chicken, Bacon and Kohlrabi Greens

Chicken, bacon, sweet onion and kohlrabi greens over tangy barbecue sauced pizza crust.  Yes, I slipped kohlrabi greens onto the pizza.  Again.

I think I may end up posting pizza recipes a fair number of Fridays this summer.  I have some terrific pizzas from last summer that didn't get published in a seasonally timely manner (Peach and Hatch chiles for one, and Cantaloupe and Prosciutto Panini Roll for another) and my brain is a bit giddy with new ideas for both my new pizza grill stone and new deep dish styles. [Tonight I'm trying green tomatoes + goat cheese in the style of Lou Malnati's.]

I think, before it becomes OBE [Overcome By Events] I should share what we had last Friday Night Pizza Night. I mentioned we got a lot of greens last week--well some of them were attached to kohlrabi.  The kohlrabi has turned into dippers for hummus and will be rolled up in a tamago sushi whenever I get my act together, but the greens--well, they went on this pizza.

Confetti Turkey Enchiladas with Slow Roasted Tomato Sauce

Turkey, carrots, and zucchini make a colorful filling for enchiladas in a hearty dish covered in an easy to make slow-roasted tomato enchilada sauce

 Follow me | Pinterest | Instagram | Facebook

This is a recipe showing how I use put-up summer produce during the winter months when we are not receiving a weekly box from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share.  If you don't have a package of slow-roasted tomatoes in your freezer (link to Alanna's tutorial), please refer to Andrea's inspiring Easy Homemade Enchilada Sauce recipe below which uses canned tomato sauce.  And put this idea in your back pocket--if you get a glut of tomatoes in the early fall (and have some room in the freezer) consider slow-roasting some.  It's ridiculously simple and the end product is nearly as handy to use as the quarts of crushed tomatoes I've got in the pantry.

I was going to share this recipe during the summer, because it calls for tomatoes and zucchini and I'm all about the seasonal eating, but it's here today for a couple of reasons.
I'll list them, just for kicks.

• I've got a backlog of enchilada recipes (technically, 4) that I need to post, and there's no time like the present to start sharing them.
• I made a pan of Creamy Avocado Enchiladas today and it reminded me of these.
• I'm still reeling from the shock of posting a savory appetizer every day last week for #AppetizerWeek, and I realized I didn't have anything scheduled for today.

While my belly is full of Creamy Avocado Enchiladas, I bring you Confetti Turkey Enchiladas.

Other enchilada recipes I've posted:

Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Enchilada Casserole

Fish Taco Enchiladas

Green Pork, Corn, and Zucchini Enchiladas

Zucchini, Refried Bean, and Corn Enchiladas

In fact, I've gone and made a Clickable Collage of Enchiladas. You can see it here.