6 Essentials for Summer Cooking
What you'll need for amazing meals all summer long (plus a subscription sale!).
As food people, we can probably all unanimously agree that one of the best parts of summer is the abundance of fresh, seasonal produce to cook with. No matter where you live (with very few exceptions, anyway), farmer’s markets are typically overflowing with all kinds of fruits and vegetables from June all the way through the autumn months. It really doesn’t get any better from a culinary perspective - fresh, local food, bursting with flavor and nutrition, available to us everywhere, often at the best prices you’ll find year round.
Even though I’m a chef and recipe developer by trade, I cook very simply (as in, a small handful of ingredients and 30-40 min. max total prep/cook time) for myself the majority of the time. It’s my preferred way of eating, which is convenient since I typically don’t have the time to get into complicated meals anyway. I’m guessing many of you feel the same way. Case in point: I recently exchanged a few messages with a dietitian/recipe developer friend of mine on Instagram, and we were discussing how often the dead-simplest, no frills recipes typically garner the most enthusiastic response from our respective followings. It’s the same at home; I’ll occasionally spend half a Sunday working on a more intricate dinner only to have my family barely pick at their food. The next day, I can serve black beans & rice bowls topped with avocado, or a simple spaghetti and broccoli, and everyone cleans their plates. Go figure.
So, back to summer produce. Because it’s relatively easy to get fresh food locally in the warmer months, you don’t need to do much to them to extract a lot of flavor. Take tomatoes in late August, for example - a tomato sandwich any other time of year is not really a decent meal option - bland, mealy, lacking all around. But, in those waning summer months, a fresh, sliced heirloom tomato, layered on lightly toasted sourdough bread and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and some flaky salt, is something else entirely. Most simple food, at its best, is like this. A few additional ingredients is all you need to make an incredible meal; fruits and vegetables at their peak will do the heavy lifting, you just season appropriately and add a few extra ingredients to help them shine.
I keep these things on hand to help zhuzh up my farmer’s market haul and create a perfect summer meal that will keep everyone coming back for seconds:
The rest of this post is for paid subscribers, but, hooray! There’s a summer sale going on right now on annual subscriptions. For a limited time, you can get 20% off - upgrade your subscription right here right in time for farmer’s market season!