"summer salad" news and stories

Looking for a salad topper? Think beyond the usual standards, such as feta, goat cheese and blue cheese, and consider which cheeses pair well with the vegetables of the season. Since it's summer, and most of us have access to several different kinds of lettuce and aromatic herbs, it can be even harder to make an appropriate pairing. Where to begin? We asked Eduard Frauneder, co-chef and co-owner of Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar for his advice on the best cheeses for summer salads.

Yesterday, I mentioned the produce anxiety I face when the summer starts to head into fall. One way I combat the unrest I experience during the waning days of peaches and heirloom tomatoes is to eat meals that are simple, easy combinations of the best of the season. After I unpacked my farmers market haul yesterday, I made a very basic salad for lunch.

You can think of it as a very chunky guacamole, and if you were looking for a tasty dip, you could chop everything a bit finer and serve it with tortilla chips. I like eating more like a creamy salad, the corn kernels blending into the avocado chunks and hiding in the tomatoes. I made mine completely plain, seasoned with just with salt and pepper, although if you wanted a bit more acidity, you could dress it with a squeeze of lime juice. My basic recipe is after the jump.

Here is another one from the recipe card file I picked up at an antique store years ago. I was flipping through her salad section today, to see if she had any interesting thoughts on how to use the bunch of kale that's been in my fridge for the last week (I always make it the same way and was hoping for some inspiration) when I stumbled across this one. It isn't actually anything particularly special, but I found the idea of an arranged salad with a quick blender dressing sort of appealing. Very retro and yet appropriate for the time of year.

On a whim I threw a little salad together tonight that turned out to be one of the best things I've made lately. it was almost all ingredients I picked up yesterday at a local Farmers' Market. It was half a pint of orange cherry tomatoes sliced in half, three blondie cucumbers (like Kirbys, only yellow instead of green) peeled and chunked, four ounces of cubed feta and ten shredded lemon verbena leaves. I drizzled a little olive oil on top of it and gave it a good shower of ground pepper.

The lemon verbena tastes like both green freshness and lemon zest. It's not an herb that you find in every market, but if you can get your hands on it, it is well worth the price and search.

I don't eat watermelon enough. I love it and it's summertime, but for some reason I don't remember to buy it (or if I do the selection at my local supermarket is...eh). But I have to buy some and make these watermelon bowls from the fun food blog WhatWereEating.com.

They're descibed as "summertime in a cup," and from the looks of them we won't argue. Full recipe after the jump!