What’s not to love about pizza? Oven-baked bread covered with creamy tomato sauce and topped with fresh mozzarella cheese. Just thinking about it, makes my stomach grumble. This food is a hit with most Americans, and rightly so. You can pretty much put anything you want on a pizza and eat it however you choose. Meat, vegetables, seafood; it all belongs on a pizza. In America, there are many regional forms of pizza, and I’ll eat them all.
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I had some produce from my trip to Green City market last weekend that I needed to use up. Namely tomatoes (hence the inspiration for this tomato season post) and some colorful peppers that I thought would look extra colorful from some time on the grill.  But I didn’t stop there - how about grilling my tomatoes too? And making a sauce out of them? Oh just wait, it gets better…

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I accepted cherry tomatoes, and even grape tomatoes. Then plum tomatoes came along and I was ok with that too. But strawberry tomatoes? I think we’re going a little overboard. What is the point anymore? Must we liken our tomatoes to every kind of fruit known to man? I mean, wouldn’t you just kill me if I told you to make tomato paella with sliced strawberry tomatoes? Can’t a tomato just be a tomato?

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This is one of those pictures that really doesn’t need any words to persuade you how good it is. So beautiful on it’s own, I almost left you here without an explanation. But then… talkative old me decided I just couldn’t do that to you - I mean, you must be wondering just where this salad came from. Right?

I had this masterpiece in Argentina, at La Cabrera no less (the steakhouse I wrote about here). Since it was our second time back to the restaurant and we knew how big the steak portions were, my friend and I decided to split one order of steak and go with a salad instead. This one salad made of hearts of palm, tomatoes and avocados sounded interesting to her.

We ordered it and fell in love.

Recipe after the jump!

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I am so not ready for the season to change. I am a total summer girl at heart and the cold weather is only beneficial for me if I am at home, curled up on the couch watching a good movie or reading a great book! But it’s life and I am preparing for winter! Well, at least I am but my poor beautiful vegetable garden isn’t.

This is where I need your help! This past summer I decided to plant my very first garden and to be honest I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to planting and taking care of it. I guess I was lucky (or maybe I was a gardener in my past life) but the garden grew and I had all sorts of fresh produce in my back yard! Unfortunately, now my garden is dying because of the cold weather. So, what do I now?

I have basil plants that I would love to save, I have heard that the best way to save herbs is to freeze them but I am not sure what the best “freezer” method is.

Help?

Also, I have tomato, cucumber and green pepper plants, what do I do with them? Am I suppose to dig them up and throw them away or do they stay planted with the chance of growing back next year (is that even possible)?

Help please! Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sarah- Go Chiefs and Go Bears!

P.S. I still need to try making Fried Green Tomatoes again!

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So there I was yesterday, wandering around Trader Joe’s as I often do after work, waiting for dinner’s inspiration to come to me. I had had a big lunch and wanted something lighter for dinner, and with the temperature breaking a very humid 90 degrees in Chicago, I didn’t want anything too heavy. In fact, I wanted to avoid turning on the oven at all costs.

When R called to see what was for dinner, I was standing in front of the cheese section (oh, glorious cheese section!) and reported, “I don’t know… but probably something involving goat cheese.” So I picked up a log of goat cheese and a ball of fresh mozzarella and soon the gears in my brain were whirring. I’ll let you in on my train of thought…

That ripe tomato at home would be perfect with the mozzarella. Great. Instant caprese. But I should probably have some protein… no chicken, tofu would be weird… what about beans? OH! What about that chickpea salad that Molly at Orangette always raves about?

Bingo.

I knew that reading the food blogs would pay off someday.

At home, I began to prepare my trio of salads: caprese, chickpea and greens. But when I went to reference Molly’s recipe, I realized I had forgotten a crucial ingredient: Parmesan! Let this be a lesson to us all: never doubt yourself when hovering around an extensive cheese section - always buy the cheese! Nevertheless, the chickpeas were already drained and the lemon was already squeezed so, figuring there was nothing to lose, I crumbed some goat cheese atop the salad.

It turned out not to be a terrible choice. The creamy texture of the goat cheese actually went well with the crunch of the chickpeas, but I can definitely see how Parmesan would be a better choice. (Molly, please forgive me for butchering Brandon’s recipe!) But I did love the salad and can’t wait to have the leftovers for lunch today.

All in all it was quite the satisfying meal. True, there may have been a bit too much cheese on the plate by a nutritionist’s standards, but clearly, that didn’t bother me.

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