Month: July 2013

Summer’s Bounty in One Bowl

Published by Kathy Hunt

Whether you belong to a community garden. shop at farm stands and farmers’ markets or tend your own vegetable patch, right now you’re undoubtedly enjoying some of the best of summer’s bounty. Ripe, luscious tomatoes. Crisp, juicy cucumbers. Cool mint and mildly peppery parsley. Thanks to the generosity of gardening friends and my husband’s passion for all things tomato-based, I’m often thinking of different ways to prepare and eat these gorgeous herbs and veggies. When we tire of gazpachos, salsas and tabbouleh, I turn these gifts into simple salads and let their flavors and colors shine. The following salad can be topped with feta, grilled and diced haloumi or crumbled Stilton or Gorganzola cheese. You can also use the salad as a filling for pitas and soft tortillas. “TOC” (TOMATO-ONION-CUCUMBER) SALAD Serves 4 to 6 4 large, ripe tomatoes, seeded and cut into chunks 2 cucumbers, peeled, seeded, quartered, and sliced 3 large scallions, whites only, chopped 1 small red onion, quartered and thinly sliced 1 garlic clove, minced Handful of fresh mint, chopped Handful …

Clamoring for Grilled Clams

Published by Kathy Hunt

Summertime and the grillin’s easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the shellfish supply is high. (And, no doubt, the ghosts of Ira and George Gershwin are horrified.) Although a lot of folks stick to cooking shrimp and the occasional lobster on their grills, I like to make my summer, shellfish meals a bit more intriguing with bivalves. Not sure if you’ve met this gang? You’ll surely recognize the members — clams, mussels, oysters and scallops. Of the aforementioned four, clams, specifically hard-shell clams, are my current favorite. As their name indicates, hard-shell clams possess hard shells. The other variety, soft-shell, has a brittle, thin shell that, because of a long, protruding siphon, doesn’t close completely. The clams that I grill are East Coast littlenecks. Possessing a grayish shell less than two inches in diameter, these are the smallest hard-shell clams. To clean my clams, I scrub them under running water with a stiff bristled brush. I then place them in a bowl of cold, salted water to soak. Here’s the cool thing about live clams. They …