SUMMER SCALLOP KEBABS

SERVES 6-8

We’re at the beach. And it’s beautiful. See?

3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh chive, finely chopped
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/4 pounds scallops
1 large bunch fresh basil
1 cup cherry tomatoes
3 medium summer squash, trimmed and sliced into 1” rounds

1. Heat grill to medium-high. In a small bowl, whisk together a marinade of lemon juice, lemon zest, oil, chives, and salt and pepper. Toss the scallops in the marinade and let the mixture rest for 10 minutes in the refrigerator.

2. Alternating ingredients, thread the scallops, basil, tomatoes, and squash onto skewers. You should have enough for 6-8 kebabs.

3. Cook the kebabs for 8 minutes or until the scallops are opaque in the center. Drizzle each one with a little more lemon juice and serve hot.

COCONUT RICE PUDDING POPSICLES

MAKES 6-8

1 1/2 cups rice pudding, chilled
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sweetened coconut milk
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1. Place pudding, milk, and coconut milk in blender. Puree until smooth.  Stir in coconut flakes, cover the blender again, and pulse briefly to combine.

2. Divide the pureed mixture evenly among the pop molds, pouring so that you leave about ½ inch of headroom at the top. Once they are filled, tap the molds gently against the counter, allowing the puree to settle evenly into the molds and dislodging any air bubbles that may have formed. Place full molds in freezer and freeze for at least 5 hours or until completely firm. For easy unmolding, run the frozen pops under warm water for 5-10 seconds before trying to remove them.

FRESH RASPBERRY BREAKFAST BARS

MAKES 2 DOZEN

Sigh.

I am not one of those people who starts moaning as soon as the first frost hits or pines for July in the middle of January. I adore thermal shirts and wool cardigans and fuzzy mittens and my old leather boots and brisk walks and pink cheeks and cauldrons of hot soup and horizons lined with spindly trees. I find winter stunningly romantic.

But there are points in every summer — points just like this golden week in late July — when my memory of the cold and the snow seems to have been finally and entirely melted in the afternoon sun, and I find myself unable to imagine a time when I won’t be able wake up and amble out onto the yard with only my bare feet, and these bright days seem to stretch behind me and before me like a long blue ribbon.

It’s a brief spell, easily pierced by reality: the season is fleeting (six weeks and counting!) and seeing as how I have bills to pay and assignments to honor and new projects to plan, I can’t really get away with spending all my days playing outside and staring daydreamily at sunsets.

So, instead, I seize the small pleasures I can. For instance: this week, for no reason I’ve been able to puzzle out, my body’s been rousing early, at 5 am and earlier, when even my new baby cousin (who’s been staying with us for a few days) is still peaceful in his crib.

At this hour the sun is up, but the only soundtrack is birdsong. It’s a perfect time to putter, to slowly come to, to start a pot of coffee and a small baking project to busy your hands — and lure the late risers from their down and linen lairs.

At this hour, simple and sweet suffices. This morning I came downstairs to find a woodpecker noshing on the clapboard walls of the screened porch — and a half empty bag of brown sugar in the pantry and a bowl of raspberries leftover on the counter from the berry-picking excursion I took a few days ago.

And so, this breakfast treat was born. A chewy, messy crumb cake that’s heavily proportioned towards crumb over cake, it has a summery sweetness that’s punctuated by tart pockets of red fruit. It’s lovely. Just like these days.

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 tablespoons brown sugar
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

1. Heat oven to 375˙. Grease a 9″ x 13″ baking pan (or, if you prefer thicker bars, a 9″ x 9″ pan) and set it aside.

2. In a medium bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and baking soda. In another bowl, cream together 1/4 cup butter and granulated sugar until pale, then beat in the egg and milk until smooth. Stir in vanilla.

3. Sift the dry ingredients into the butter and egg mixture and stir together until combined. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing it so it reaches all of the sides.

4. In a small bowl, stir together 1 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 5 tablespoons brown sugar. Then melt 1/2 cup butter and drizzle it over the flour and brown sugar mixture, stirring with a fork until it becomes sticky and crumbly. (The chunks may range from the size of cornmeal to peas.)

5. Scatter raspberries across the surface of the batter. Then, lay the brown sugar crumb mixture across the top of the berries in an even layer. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until the crumb topping is firm and a dark golden brown, and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool bars on the counter for 15-20 minutes before cutting and serving.

POLLO TONNATO
(COLD CHICKEN WITH TUNA SAUCE)

SERVES 2-4

You eat lunch.

You pack up last night’s leftover curry and microwave it in the office kitchen. Or hop to the deli for pepper turkey and swiss on a hard roll. Or stroll to the corner for a streaming box of chicken and rice from a shiny silver cart.

But how often do you luncheon?

If you’re like me, the word alone conjures scenes of well-heeled ladies over their bridge games, an expanse of pressed pastel linen, the clinking of gold bangles against bone china, and the demure scent of day lilies and Chanel No.5.

Which is most definitely not my life.

Still, it’s an idea that appeals: pausing for a moment of calm in the middle of the day. Sitting down and sharing a meal — not just shoveling grub down your gullet and getting back to email. Being generous to yourself.

So, with J working evenings — and therefore missing dinner — lately the proper luncheon meal is something I’ve been endeavoring to resurrect. Nothing fussy: just a few light, spare arrangements of vegetables and maybe a nibble or two of chicken or smoked fish or cold hard-boiled eggs, enriched with a buttery sauce, or a drizzle of oil, or that gut-wrenchingly expensive but goodness-so-glorious balsamic vinegar I’ve been hiding in the back of the pantry.

This one, a riff on vitello tonnato — one of the quintessential luncheon dishes, indeed an institution of elegance! — never gets old, and can be put together in a matter of minutes as long as you have some cold chicken on hand. Cool and crunchy, and punctuated by warm bursts of tart tomato, it also happens to be ideal for these long, wilting summer days. Just put some flowers in a jar, pull out the good silverware, and set a table for two. Pour yourselves two glasses of wine. Sup.

And congratulate yourselves on being so goddamn civilized.

2 egg yolks
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 anchovy fillets
1 can tuna in olive oil, drained
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons capers
salt and pepper
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
1 endive
2 skinless chicken breasts: cooked, chilled, and sliced

1. Make the tonnato sauce: Combine the egg yolks and 1/4 cup olive oil in a small food processor or blender. Process for 2 minutes, until smooth and golden. Drizzle in another 1/4 cup of olive oil, a little at a time, replace the cover and process for another few minutes, until slickly thickened, pale yellow, and well-emulsified. Add the anchovies and tuna to the mixture and process again until smooth. Add lemon juice and 1 tablespoon of capers and blend. Mix in the remaining capers, season with salt and pepper to taste, and stir. Note: this recipe makes about 1 cup of sauce, but you probably won’t want to use it all for one meal. So: when you’re done blending it, pour the sauce into a glass jar with a lid, close it up, and set it in the refrigerator to chill for an hour or two (or until you are ready to use it) and then spoon out only what you need. The rest will keep, chilled, for 2-3 days: you can use it as a dip for vegetables or hard-boiled eggs or a spread on toast etc, etc, etc.

2. Turn on broiler. Toss tomatoes with 1/4 cup olive oil and spread on a baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Broil for 6-8 minutes or until the tomatoes are soft, their skins have split, and are slightly charred. Remove from broiler and set aside.

3. Trim the end from the endive and separate the leaves. Arrange the leaves on a large plate. Top the endives with thin slices of chilled chicken breast. Remove tonnato sauce from the refrigerator and spoon generously over the chicken and endives. Scatter the plate with the roasted tomatoes. Season once more with salt and pepper to taste.

SOFT PEPPERS IN A SUMMER SAUCE

SERVES 2

If this site has a spiritual godfather, it’s Nigel Slater. The popular British “cookery” writer pens a weekly column in the Guardian — and has authored many of the most dogeared cookbooks on my kitchen shelf. I’m particularly fond of The Kitchen Diaries, the U.S. edition of which was released in 2006, and which details a year in Slater’s culinary life through evocative journal-style essays, seasonal recipes, and simple photographs. His prose is candid and recipes uncomplicated — and the whole thing satisfies a bit of my Anglophilia while at the same time being perfectly adaptable to my own ramshackle life.

This recipe — truly just golden peppers roasted until charred and silken, stripped of their skin, and bathed in a quick garden herb and green olive oil sauce — happens to be cribbed and adapted from one of Slater’s most recent columns, and is the kind of fresh, effortless ode to midsummer produce at which he really excells. On their own, the peppers are a seductive sidekick to kabobs. Or: add few creamy cubes of mozzarella (as I have here) and a a bed of lemon-tossed Israeli couscous and you’ve scored a sweat-free vegetarian supper.

2 large yellow peppers
2 large orange peppers
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves + 1 tsp for garnish
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
3 large cloves garlic
4 oz. fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/2″ cubes
1/2 teapsoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Set the broiler. Slice each pepper in half across the center and trim out the membranes and seeds inside. Place clean peppers into a  baking dish, skin side up, and drizzle with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Place under the broiler for 10 minutes, or until their skin has begun to blacken and blister. If the peppers are not done, rotate them so they char evenly, and continue broiling for another few minutes.

2. Remove charred peppers from the oven and cover baking dish with a clean dish towel. Allow to sit for 10 minutes, so that the peppers cool and steam under the towel. Then peel the charred skin from the peppers and discard it. Place peeled peppers back into baking dish.

3. Place basil, mint, garlic and remaining olive oil into a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth, about 1 minute. Add salt and pepper and pulse again to combine.

4. Drizzle basil sauce over peppers. Scatter mozzarella around the baking dish between the peppers. Place dish back under the broiler for 5 minutes, until the peppers are warm and the mozzarella has begun to soften and melt slightly. Garnish with 1 teaspoon of shredded basil. Serve warm.

SUMAC & OREGANO LAMB LOLLYS
AND A SHEPARD’S SALAD

SERVES 2-3

Lamb:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon sumac
1 tablespoon crumbled fresh oregano
6 petite lamb chops, frenched*

1. In a large Ziploc bag, combine olive oil, salt, and pepper. Place lamb chops inside bag, seal bag, and shake it well until lamb chops are glossed with olive oil. Open bag and sprinkle in sumac and oregano. Seal bag again and shake once more until the lamb chops are coated with sumac and oregano. Place bag of lamb in the refrigerator to marinate for 20-30 minutes.

2. Heat grill — or, if you are working on a stove top, a grill pan — to medium/high heat. Remove lamb chops from the marinade, allowing excess oil to drain off before placing them on the grill. Cook for 2 minutes per side (the chops will be rare to medium/rare) or until seared and slightly firm to the touch.

* “Frenched” lamb chops are ones in which the meat and fat have been partially removed from around the rib bones for an elegant presentation (though for the less-than-elegant, frenched bones also make convenient handles from which to gnaw.)

Salad:

3 kirby cucumbers, peeled and diced
1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh mint, shredded
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled
salt and pepper to taste

Combine cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion in a medium bowl.  Add lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss in feta cheese. The salad is best the day it is made, but will keep for 24 hours.

(BARE FEET AND) A BILL HOYT

MAKES 1 COCKTAIL

When I was a girl of 7 or 8 my favorite drink was plain tonic water, on the rocks. On midsummer Saturday afternoons, my parents would come home from playing tennis with friends and mix stiff gin cocktails to sip on the patio — and I’d clamor for a glass of my own. Mom would stack one with ice cubes and fill it to the top; fizzy and bitter, the bubbles may have tickled my nose and made me giggle — but even then I sensed instinctively that the taste on my tongue was thoroughly adult.

Of course, I’m adult now too — and have long since starting mixing my tonic water with stronger stuff — but I’m still utterly devoted to the peculiar charms of quinine. Which is why I felt an immediate kinship a few years ago, when over a (rather debauched) beach weekend, a college friend introduced me to his father’s standard summer drink. No reinvention of the wheel, it was essentially a traditional gin and tonic with the gin swapped out for a generous glug of dark rum. But it tasted delicous and felt somehow mischievous: like a salty-dog twist on a blueblood standard. In honor of my friend’s pop, I immediately dubbed it The Bill Hoyt. And I’ve been hoisting it to celebrate summer (and sand between my toes and striped towels and trashy mystery novels) ever since.

2 1/2 oz. dark rum (I use Mount Gay)
2 oz. tonic water
1/2  lime

Fill an old fashioned or collins glass completely with ice. Pour in rum. Top with tonic water and juice of 1/2 lime. Stir. Garnish with lime wedge. Put your feet up.

STRAWBERRY VANILLA JAM

MAKES 4 PINTS

2 pounds strawberries, rinsed, drained, and sliced in half
1/2 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1. Place the strawberries in a large non-reactive pot and sprinkle with sugar. Using your fingers, squeeze the strawberries into the sugar until the fruit looks like a chunky pulp and the sugar has dissolved into the strawberry juices.

2. Place pot onto the stove top over a medium flame. Split a vanilla bean and scrape the seeds and into the pot, along with the pod. Simmer mixture for 20 to 30 minutes, occasionally skimming the foam from the surface. Then, remove from heat and stir in balsamic vinegar.

3. Ladle the hot jam into clean, hot pint jars and seal them tightly with lids. When making batches this small, I usually store the jam in my refrigerator (and gobble it up so quickly!) so I don’t bother with a hot water bath processing. But if you are planning to keep your jam in your pantry for a long period before consuming it, follow the USDA guidelines for sterilizing canned goods, available here.

A BLUEBERRY GALETTE
FOR A BIRTHDAY

1/2 cup dried cherries
1/3 cup Maraschino liqueur
1 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, chilled and sliced into small chunks
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup blueberries
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar

1. Place dried cherries in a small bowl and cover with Maraschino liqueur. Set cherries aside to soak and soften for at least 30 minutes.

2. Set oven to 375 degrees. Make sweet pastry crust: In a large bowl, combine 1 tablespoon sugar, flour, and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Drop in butter, then working with your fingertips work the butter into the flour and sugar until the flour is slightly golden and the mixture is crumbly. (You don’t need to worry about completely working in the butter: the goal is to end up with a buttery meal with crumbs of varying sizes, from as fine as cornmeal to a few the size of small peas.) Then drizzle cold water into bowl a splash at a time and mix quickly with the tines of a fork or your fingers. (Don’t overwork: do just enough to let the dough come together into a ball in your hand.) Wrap dough tightly with cling wrap and set in refrigerator to chill for 10 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, combine blueberries, softened cherries, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Remove dough from refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough out to a 1/4″ thick round and transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. (The edges of the dough round will be rough: don’t worry about it being a perfect circle.)

4. Spoon the blueberry and cherry mixture into the center of the circle, mounding it slightly in the center and leaving at least 3 inches of dough uncovered around the circumference. Then fold those uncovered edges of dough up over the blueberry mixture to form an edge. The center of the galette should remain uncovered. Sprinkle dough with turbinado sugar and place in oven. Bake for 30 minutes or until the blueberries are hot and soft and the crust has turned a deep, golden brown. Cool for 15 minutes. Serve slices slightly warm or at room temperature.

DEVILED EGG SALAD

MAKES 4 SANDWICHES OR 2 DOZEN CANAPES

8 eggs
2 tablespoons Hellman’s mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Colman’s mustard powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon turmeric
5 dashes Tabasco sauce
A sprinkling of smoked paprika

1. Boil eggs. This is one instance where you want eggs that are at least four or five days old as opposed to straight from the farm, as truly fresh eggs are a beast to peel. Everyone seems to have a slightly different method for preparing hard-boiled eggs, but is the one I’ve been using for years and it does seem to produce reliably firm and golden results: place eggs in a medium to large saucepan, so that they form a single layer across the bottom. Fill the saucepan with enough cold water to completely cover the eggs. Add a pinch of salt (this should also ease peeling a bit). Set the pot over a medium flame and bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiling, remove the saucepan from the flame and cover it. Let sit, covered, for 12 minutes. Gently spoon the eggs into a large bowl, then fill the bowl with ice cold water to let the eggs chill. Once cool to the touch, you can either store the eggs in your refrigerator to use later (they should keep for 4-5 days) or proceed on to step 2.

2. Peel eggs and discard shells. Roughly chop the eggs — white and yolk — into 1/2 inch pieces, and drop into a medium bowl. Add mayonnaise, mustard powder, Worcestershire sauce, turmeric, and Tabasco. Stir until combined and creamy, though make sure to be gentle so that the mixture maintains a chunky texture.

3. For sandwiches, toast 8 slices of whole grain or rye bread. Spread 4 slices with 3 tablespoons each of egg salad. Sprinkle with smoked paprika and top with a second slice of toast. For canapes, spoon 1 1/2 teaspoons of egg salad onto a whole wheat cracker or toast point. Sprinkle with smoked paprika. And, serve.