Summer

bbqribs.jpgIt’s just that time of summer when I feel I haven’t had enough BBQ.

Ribs to be specific. Pork Ribs. For some reason and I’m not sure what it is. Either we’ve been eating lighter or the bbq-er in my house has been opting for fancier fare (like boneless chicken breasts wrapped in prosciutto – I’ll let you know how it turns out). And due to the Highway Jobs Incentive (or whatever you call that thing that’s tearing up our streets and making automobile travel next to impossible at night) as one of the many “405 challenged”, the trip over the hill to Boneyard Bistro seems daunting, forget Hoggly Woggly’s, and Baby Blues has become so popular that unless it’s dinner for ten and we can get them to deliver, take-out’s more trouble than it’s worth.

So, I’m declaring Sunday August 7th National BBQ Ribs Day! I don’t know who decides these things anyway. So, if it’s someone else’s National Day, like National Heirloom Tomato Day, I apologize, you’re just going to have to share.

The best ribs I’ve had this summer were Alan Ett’s (but I haven’t quite convinced him to give me the recipe). That’s not true, he told me the recipe, but I didn’t write it down. And I’m hoping this will inspire him to write it down for me and send it in, because they were divine.

BBQ Sauce | Lyndon Johnson's BBQ Sauce

Barbecue Beer Ribs | Brown Sugar Pork Ribs
POM Pomegranate Barbecue Ribs | Quincy Jones' Thriller Ribs

With the warmer months approaching, it’s time to start enjoying some spring and summer recipes. In California, strawberry season is in full swing and it is big business here considering the Golden State is the nation's leading producer of strawberries. In 2014, more than 2.3 billion pounds of strawberries were harvested which amounts to 88 percent of the country's total fresh and frozen strawberries.

Sweet strawberries make a perfect addition to this vibrant salad and the balsamic vinegar brings out the berries' beautiful color and truly enhances their flavor. The spinach leaves are tossed with a mixture of mint, basil, parsley and tarragon which lend delicious flavor and combine beautifully with the goat cheese.

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pokecakePoke Cake was created by Jell-O in 1969 to help increase sales of their product. I saw this recipe on a cooking show a couple of months ago, and they had updated the method to include real strawberries (and less Jell-O) which made the dessert more appealing to me.

Although it’s great summer dessert, you can make all year round because it uses frozen strawberries. Note: The top of the cake will look slightly overbaked—this keeps the crumb from becoming too soggy after the gelatin is poured on top.

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egg-plantOf all the fabulous and quirky names out there such as aubergine, brinjal, melanzane, and egg apple, we had to go with "eggplant." It's such a dull name to describe such a singular vegetable. (Botanically, it's a fruit, but we all use it as a vegetable, so let's go with that.)

Why "eggplant"? Apparently some 18th century European cultivars resembled goose or hen's eggs, so planters called them "eggplants."

Eggplants have a long history. They are native to India where they were first cultivated over 4,000 years ago. During the Middle Ages Arabs introduced eggplant to the Mediterranean region. Eventually European explorers introduced eggplant to places such as Africa and North America. Today China, India, and Egypt are the world's leading producers of eggplant.

Eggplants are available year-round in most major supermarkets, but they are best during August-October, their prime growing season. So here are some tips on how to select, store, and cook with eggplant:

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Pasta-RicottaA 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.

In this dish I started with ricotta, then saw I had some pesto, added a couple of tablespoons of that, then added some crunchy sweet baby tomatoes and slices of green onion. While I was waiting for my pasta water to boil I discovered a couple of tiny zucchini with flowers attached and an ear of corn that needed to be used up. So I cut the niblets off the corn, sliced the zucchini in half lengthwise and shredded the flowers with my fingers.

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