Summer

Since over here we've been eating too many bbq ribs, hot dogs (yum), hamburgers, and mac n cheese, we thought we'd feature recipes of our other favorite summer bbq dish: salmon, bbq'd and otherwise, which was partly inspired by the graavlax and potato pancake recipe in Patricia Wells' new cookbook Salad as a Meal.

 Patricia Wells' Salmon Gravlax

Lomi Lomi Salmon

Smoked-Salmon and Cucumber Rolls

Patricia Wells' Salmon Gravlax with Potato Parmesan Galettes

Salmon Croquettes

Alan's Grilled Salmon

Crispy Pan-Seared Salmon with Sautéed Fiddleheads

Maple-Glazed Wild Salmon

Pomegranate Broiled Salmon with Garlic-Smashed Potatoes

Nothing beats fresh tomato sauce made with your own (or someone else’s) garden tomatoes. The few simple ingredients combine to make a truly delicious and authentic pasta sauce.

This recipe can easily be doubled if you have an abundance of tomatoes, and it freezes really well, so it’s worth making a big batch. Perfect with angel hair, but any favorite pasta can be used.

If you've ever had a meringue, then you know how ethereal it can be. But combine it with cream and ripe strawberries and you have an exquisite dessert. Eton Mess takes these ingredients and jumbles them together in a mess, hence the name. The dessert hails from England's famous Eton College. As the story goes, it was either created by cheeky boys who mixed all their desserts together—and one day it happened to be strawberries, cream, and meringue—or it was invented by a crafty shopkeeper at the local food shop. However the dessert was founded, I'm glad it was invented in the first place.

I'm a big sucker for desserts with whipped cream and I'm a big fan of British desserts like trifle, so Eton Mess is easy for me to adore. The traditional way of making this "mess" is to mix all the ingredients together, but I like to layer the dessert so you can see the berries through the glass. I also tend to use more cream than other recipes specify, making this a very plush dessert. There's nothing like billowy clouds of cream enveloping crunchy cookie bits and sweet, mushy berries in this easiest and most pleasing of desserts.

Last Saturday a friend and I spent some time traveling the bike trail between Hackensack and Nisswa. Just before we reached Backus, we came upon a bike parked along the side of the trail. I noticed a man picking something from the ditch. As we continued on, I spotted some wild blackberries growing right along side the trail.

My biking partner and I stopped to pick a few, popping the sweet plump berries right into our mouths. We decided to backtrack a bit to visit with the man we had seen picking. His big plastic ice cream bucket was half filled with berries. As we visited, another male voice came from the other side of the trail. He was also busy picking, with a big bowl almost full of berries. Both men said they would be making some jam with the berries, saving some to crown big scoops of vanilla ice cream.