Best Summer Fruit Salads

My memories of summer include all sorts of fruity goodness. From sitting under a guava, mango or tamarind tree with “liberated” bootie to drinking coconut water right from the shell.

There are lovely breezy evenings, spent in the backyard of our tiny carriage house in Park Slope, sitting under a trellis housing a pretty rosebush. When it got too hot to cook indoors, we’d fire up the grill and we’d stay outside until dark.

The simple pleasure of enjoying cold slices of watermelon was enough to cool us off until bedtime.

I also have this great memory of a summer in Cape Cod, walking up from a friend’s house and picking blueberries on our way to the pond, and spending the day with the kids frolicking in and out of the water. Late in the afternoon, we sat and ate the bucket of blueberries (which were supposed to be for a pie or pancakes). Luckily, we were able to pick more berries on the way back to the house.

I also remember having a fantastic little salad at a café near Union Square made of micro greens,slices of orange, cranberries and blackberries, plump blonde raisins and nuts, and topped with raspberry vinaigrette. That was different…

Apparently, fruit salad lost its appeal in recent years and relegated to the uncool. I don’t get that. I love fruit. I especially love that we can get fruit year round, but that there are still plenty of seasonal offerings from semi-local farms.

There’s a new Pinterest board (the starter includes over 20 links with collections of recipes and ideas, beer pairings, and a link to a fantastic generator for wine pairings).

Remember that avocado, olives and tomatoes are actually fruit and pair well with other fruits. Fruit salsa goes well with grilled meats. You can grill some fruit (especially then stone fruits).

Sugar is rarely necessary. You can top with honey or syrup. Liqueurs and spirits are good for sauces. Any citrus action is always good action. Fruit likes herbs too (not just mint, but thyme, parsley, cilantro, and basil). Grilled fruits love Balsamic vinegar.

Most fruit have a good cheese that compliments it well, as well as a beer and a wine to chase it down.

Lemon, honey and Dijon make an awesome dressing! Yogurt and sour cream can serve as a creamy finish as well as a binder. Mascarpone and cream cheese and queso crema, feta and Boursin, and cottage cheese add different dimensions to the sweetness or tartness of different fruit.

You can make fruit salad crunchy with nuts. You can add quinoa or couscous. Fruit can be part of a pasta salad. You can freeze fruit into spectacularly beautiful popsicles. Fruit also loves bacon. Of course it does.

You don’t have to go totally retro to fruit in aspic—though I think those make for some interesting centerpieces. But neither do your fruit salads need be boring. Remember: fruit salad can mean far more than just throwing six different kinds of berries and some grapes on a bowl!

Adventures in Spiralizing Veggies

Our newest kitchen toy is a tiny hand spiralizer. Certainly, on the weekend Twitter feed for #KaliFoodGoddess, I’ve included more than one zoodle recipe because they seem like pretty awesome things to have in your repertoire for future reference.

Spiralizing veggies to pass as noodles are great for those following a raw diet, for those who must avoid pasta whether for gluten allergies or because they must adopt a zero-carb or vegan diets – whether as a lifestyle choice or for health reasons (diabetics, in love with a militant tree-hugger, whatever).

I joke, but there are many reasons why this trend has reached popularity. Any food trend that encourages the use of fruits and vegetables is one I welcome, and new ways to prepare these foods is also welcomed.

The first thing I made were spiralized oven fries. They cooked in 15 minutes and were crunchy and creamy. More importantly, it took less prep time than if I’d peeled and julienned—but this assumes that your knife skills are just average.

The second spiralized dish we had was a simple salad with cucumber and tomatoes in a simple vinaigrette. And then we had a raw zoodle side dish with a pesto sauce – the very first recipe I saw and loved.

I love salads and spiralizers allow for a different presentation, but if you are not into the raw moment, there are plenty of recipes that call for sautéing (usually 5 minutes or less), or roasting (less than 15 minutes), and in some cases you can boil (for less than 5 minutes).

Handheld spiralizers make spaghetti and spaghettini widths, and the more popular veggie slicer models have 3-5 different size blades for a variety of shapes. Certainly, if you have the knife skills, it may not be worth buying tech, but the recipes are still worth checking out nonetheless.

Check out all the fantastic work that Ali 

has put into http://www.inspiralized.com/

You can julienne and create matchstick width to resemble linguine. Likewise, good handling of a good peeler will get you ribbons (paper thin or as thick as your favorite tagliatelle). A combination of knives, peelers, and mandolins (if you already own it) create similar results.

And yes, I realize some of you prefer death to giving up pasta, but if you open up to a few changes, you can add spiralized veggies to your diet and help keep a summer waistline (if that sort of thing interests you).

The changes I suggest will add flavor and texture to your repertoire of taste sensations and how can that be wrong? If an eggplant lasagna can mimic the old original with noodles, so can other veggies bring a whole new dimension to pasta recipes. This is the gentlest way to incorporate meatless dishes to your diet. Also, most of these dishes are perfect for your bento boxes! 

Check out the Pinterest board for recipes - from salad to appetizers, soup to dessert.

No Churn Premium Vanilla Ice Cream

Have you ever saved a recipe knowing that you just needed to save it, because you had to make it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, and to an expectant transcendental change. I’m talking about a recipe that will change everything. The fantasy recipe that appears in dreams in muted lights...

Enter the Magic Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from the Summer 2010 issue of Cook’s Country, the folks who also do Cook’s Illustrated (including the PBS cooking show). We like them because they test their recipes thoroughly. This doesn’t mean that it will always meet with our palate, but their research does make it easier for us to tweak dishes because we already know the things that may or not work, and what each iteration will yield, and we can avoid the undesirable results.

This recipe does not require an ice cream machine, but it would be easier if you have an electric mixer. You can use a whisk, but it would take a little longer. By longer, I'm speaking of a matter of minutes. A child could do this, and the best part is that it will impress the pants off your guests. (Assuming that's a goal!)

Magic Vanilla Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart

½ cup sweetened condensed milk

1 ounce (about 2 tablespoons) white chocolate chips

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

½ cup sour cream

1 ¼ cups cold heavy cream

Pinch of salt

Place condensed milk and chocolate chips in a glass bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds to a minute. (The milk will become like molten lava, so do not test it by touching it.) Stir the mixture and make sure you incorporate the chocolate into the condensed milk. It will resemble a caramel sauce. Let it cool off. Stir in salt, sour cream, and vanilla extract. 

Note: use real vanilla extract, the good stuff, not the fake (vanilla-flavored extract). This will make a difference after freezing and will make the taste pop. It's worth the expense.

Whip cream with an electric mixer or a hand mixer to soft peaks. (I used a metal bowl and placed it and the whisks in the freezer about an hour before using.) Whisk a third of the whipped cream into the chocolate sauce and, once fully incorporated, fold in the rest by hand. 

Note: make your own whipped cream. This will only take 2-3 minutes. Go natural, don't ruin it with processed crap. It's worth it, I promise!

Finally, place in an airtight container and freeze until firm. We have these small, individual portion containers—at about ½ cup each portion, you’ll have between 6-8 servings.

The final product will have a silky finish and it tastes like premium ice cream. The condensed milk gives it a creamy texture, and the whipped cream adds airiness – that lightness that lets it melt in your tongue and make you moan.

Already as we enjoyed our first batch of the Magic Vanilla Ice Cream, we were thinking of ways to tweak it. I suspect that we’ll try this recipe (possibly with blended berries) and make popsicles with it. I also want to try it with milk chocolate chips and do a mixed serving.

Of course, this is a treat, not an everyday thing! If you must, do the ice cream dance to counterbalance the calories. Enjoy!