Picnic salads are some of the best summer foods. What would any outdoor cookout be without them? I can't imagine fried chicken without potato salad or steak without three-bean salad. The classic recipes are always appreciated, but sometimes it's nice to try something new—with a twist. This time I decided to reinvent the classic three-bean salad with a recipe that uses all fresh beans, with three different kinds—and colors.
This salad has yellow wax beans, green string beans, and purple wax beans. But it's hard to tell from the picture which ones are purple, because they lose most of their color once cooked. A shallot, though, makes up for the loss of purple color. Using herbs in the vinaigrette adds refreshing earthy flavor. And topping the salad with ricotta salata cheese adds a slight salty tanginess. This Mediterranean-style salad is great for party picnics with family and friends. Plus it pairs with just about any comfort food.
A simple pasta is a life saver. How many nights are you rescued from eating out of a box just because you know how to throw together a good simple pasta? First tip: Don’t just rely on tomato sauce to coat the pasta. I love good sweet, milky ricotta and when I’m at a store where I can find it I tend to go overboard and buy a bit too much. So it’s ricotta on toast for breakfast, ricotta with fruit for lunch and ricotta as the “sauce” for a quick seasonal pasta.
This tasty burger recipe is nothing short of perfection. Gourmet Omaha Steaks Burgers are loaded with caramelized Jim Beam Black® Bourbon Onions that are so good your mouth will water before each savory bite. Top them off with melty brie cheese and a little mayo, then serve with a cup of warmed beef au jus for a blissful recipe that's sure to be a memorable hit at your next get-together!
Gazpacho, what a perfect name for a chilled soup. Ever since hearing of the exotic "gazpacho," I have been intrigued and perplexed by its very foreign name. I came to learn that the soup's roots lie in Andalusia in the southern region of Spain. Gazpacho originated as a cold soup of stale bread, garlic, oil, and vinegar. Once tomatoes were brought from the New World and added to the traditional recipe, the summertime soup became even more refreshing. Over the years the soup has transformed, sometimes omitting bread, and in some tomato-less variations including almonds, cucumbers, and grapes. When I tried gazpacho for the first time, I realized what I had been missing and what I had misconstrued as foreignness was just my lack of knowing how incredibly simple it is to make.
Summer is bright red, hot, juicy and sweet. So it's ironic that tomatoes don't really become ripe until the last gasp of Summer and into early Fall. To savor a bit more of the flavor of Summer, I recently made a delicious variation on the Genovese pesto recipe, a Sicilian recipe from Trapani with chunks of ripe tomato.