I’m struggling to believe that the end of August is slowly approaching. Didn’t summer just start? Don’t we have many more weekend of barbecuing and sunscreen application? Is it really time to contemplate football and the glorious end of baseball season in Chicago (thus making my commute soooo much better)?
Side note: All of the back to school photos in my Facebook feed have me panicking about back to school 2016 (yes, two years away) when, arguably, Gracie will be entering preschool. There are so many choices for schools in Chicago, with many different curriculums and price points and public schools with selective applications (and waayyyy more potential students than seats) and private schools with curriculums and governing boards and methodologies, and there is Montessori, and classical, language immersion, Common Core, magnet schools…….. I want to crawl into a hole every time I have to think about it.
Anyhoo. Back to the topic at hand: delicious things I’ve made to eat.
Last night we were grilling chicken for dinner (Monday nights are always an “easy” meal in our house, aka, must be ready to eat in under 30 minutes) and I made a couscous salad as a side dish. I read a bunch of couscous salad recipes, threw caution to the wind and mixed together:
- 1 cup of dry Israeli couscous, cooked
- 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
- 1 pint of grape tomatoes, tossed in EVOO and s/p and roasted under the broiler for 10 minutes
- 1 shallot, diced
- a healthy glug of EVOO
- 2 tablespoons high quality balsamic vinegar
It was pretty spectacular and I’d guess that if you paired it up with some wilted spinach and sliced fresh buffalo mozarella it would make an excellent vegetarian dinner. Or you can pair it with grilled chicken and grilled summer squash and call it a night.
I also made a tomato tart recently that was beyond awesome…so if you have a bunch of summer tomatoes you need to use, look no further than this beauty. The recipe was given to me by our old nanny share family and I know I’ll be making it for years to come. Tart pictures here, alongside a lemon cake I made:
- 2 cups flour, plus more for dusting
- 1.5 cups shredded sharp cheddar
- 10 tbs unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
- 1.5 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- ½ tsp ground black pepper, more to taste
- ⅓ cup ice cold water
- 3 medium tomatoes cored and sliced
- ⅓ cup grated pecorino cheese
- ¼ cup of mayo
- 2 thinly sliced green onions
- 1 tbs finely chopped basil
- In food process, pulse flour, ½ cup of cheddar, butter, s/p, until it forms into pea sized crumbles. Slowly add cold water, pulsing until dough comes together.
- Form dough into flat disk, chill for 1 hour
- Spread sliced tomatoes onto paper towels, sprinkle with salt and drain for one hour
- Heat oven to 425 degrees
- Roll dough to ⅛ inch thickness, and transfer to parchment paper lined baking sheet
- Mix ¾ cup cheddar, pecorino, mayo, salt and pepper in a bowl
- Spread cheese mixture on crust, leaving a 1.5 inch border
- Top with tomato slices, sprinkle with green onions and basil
- Fold up overhanging crust
- Bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes
And in final “tomato” goodness, I’ve taken to tossing a pint of cherry tomatoes with about a half a cup of enchilada sauce and a splash of olive oil and roasting under the broiler whenever we have tacos….delicious, easy and full of flavor.
Enjoy those final summer tomatoes!
