return of the summer salad

We've been slacking a little on our Saturday lunch tradition, what with heading out to the beach one Saturday and returning the next Saturday. So...Sunday dinner was the mostly local meal this week. Since the heat has been extraordinarily oppressive here as of late, I decided to make various favorite summer salads. It's just hard to hover over a stove or oven when it's around 100° outside.

We came home to an overgrowth of basil in our yard which made tomato-mozzarella salad an easy choice to start our meal. We especially love it with slightly coarse sea salt and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

The textures just blend so marvelously.

Another go-to summer salad for us is Black Bean Salad. Two cups of cooked black beans, two cups of blanched, then cut from the cob, corn, with one medium bell pepper diced and a quarter cup of finely diced onion mixed with 2-3 tbsp of each olive oil and red wine vinegar then sprinkled with sea salt and pepper to taste. Very easy and tasty summer treat!

Another dish, that's not exactly a salad but will use up your plethora of summer squash, is this side that's essentially pan-fried squash. Slice 4 small-medium sized squash (you want it on the smallish side so it's not too wide or seedy) into about 1/4-1/3 inch slices. Half (from top to bottom) and peel 1-2 yellow onions slicing each half in about the same width as the squash. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat with 2-3 tbsp olive oil. Place the squash and onions in the heated pan with 3 cloves of minced garlic and 1/2 tsp salt and a fair amount of freshly ground pepper. Stir every couple of minutes until the onions are starting to turn clear and the squash is starting to soften. Turn off heat, cover dish and leave for about 5 minutes. Turn out pan-fried squash into bowl and wait another 5-10 minutes. When I'm eating this with salads, I like for it to be closer to room temperature than piping hot.

Finn prefers his mozzarella sans balsamic vinegar. His tongue hasn't quite developed to appreciate the sour yet.

But it's quite a tasty plate of "Saturday lunch" food, if I do say so myself.

*gone fishin' up over at The Book Children*