A first harvest

The weather has been great this summer, so my vegetable garden is doing great. That's how that works.

I had friends over for a barbecue dinner tonight, and besides the corn and burgers, everything we ate, I grew.

In my backyard plot.

In downtown Toronto.

I think that's cool.

Halloumi: Part 2

Summer salad alert!

This is a riff on the Lebanese fattoush, but mine’s got a lot more vegetables, a lot less herbage and pita, and gets rounded out with the help of some griddled halloumi cheese.

All I did was chunk up some tomatoes and garden cucumbers, cut up some pita, drizzled it with olive oil and seasoned it with za’atar. Then I broiled the pita pieces in a preheated oven until super crunchy. I sliced up a packet of halloumi after rinsing and drying it, put a little oil in a pan and fried the slices until nicely browned. (Also sliced up some red onion on the side; we have some onion haters in the family and why not make everyone happy?)

For assemblage I broke up the pita chips, tossed everything together with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and more za’atar; added some fresh herbs from the garden (use whatever you've got; there are no wrong answers here. Except for sage), and then served the salad immediately so that the pita chips didn’t get too soggy and the cheese stayed warm.

I simply cannot eat enough of this stuff and no matter how much of it you make, there will be no leftovers.

Summertime pasta for one

I'm going to make this entry as short and sweet as the recipe that follows. Since last week's tale of fridge woes was quickly followed by a conference in Chicago, there hasn't been much me, or cooking around here. But there's always time for pasta on the fly.

SUMMERTIME SHRIMP PASTA

(serves 1)

whole wheat linguini (2-3 ounces)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1 garlic clove, minced

1 fat ripe tomato, cored and chopped

mixed fresh herbs from the garden (I used chives, oregano, parsley), chopped

pinch of chili flakes

6-7 cooked shrimp

1 tsp lemon zest

1 Tbsp lemon juice

pinch of sugar

a scattering of capers

salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Put a pot of salted water on to boil. When boiling, add pasta and cook as per the package instructions. Meanwhile, cook garlic in olive oil until it becomes fragrant, then add chili flakes, chopped tomato and a pinch of sugar, along with capers, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Stir in herbs, shrimp and zest at the end, when you swirl in the cooked, drained pasta.