It hasn’t been as godawful hot here like it was last week, but still it’s hot. Dinnertime is of course the hottest part of the day, which makes for a very crabby cook. I’ve tried to make myself a little easier to be around by making cold salads pretty much every day for dinner. This book, obviously, has helped.

Salad for Dinner,by Jeanne Kelley, is not a vegetarian cookbook, though it may sound like one. One chapter of the book is dedicated to meat free salads, but the rest are focused on seafood, fish, poultry, and meat. The salads are substantial, inventive, simple, and really just beautiful. She has some classics in the book, like salade nicoise. My nicoise salad (above) is actually not at all like the one in the book–which has artichokes and peppers and a delicious sounding anchovy vinaigrette–but hers is not very much like the classic salad anyway.

Some salad seem to be an idea of a dinner turned into a salad: Vietnamese pork meatball banh mi salad, spicy sriracha buffalo chicken salad. And some salads are beautiful, seasonal ingredients that come together to make a perfect salad: Oregon summer grilled chicken salad (with peaches and blackberries). The book is a fantastic resource for different kinds of salad greens, dressings, lists of make-ahead salads, and how to make up your own salad for dinner. I may have checked the book out from the library, but it will be on my shelf for good soon enough.

I’m going to leave you with a salad recipe that isn’t from the book at all, rather from another excellent cookbook, River Cottage Everyday. This salad was so damn simple and good I had to share.

Fresh Peas and Ricotta salad

adapted from river cottage everyday by hugh fearnley-whittingstall

• 1 lb peas (fresh if you can get them)
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese (again, the fresh stuff is so much better)
• 3 or 4 green onions thinly sliced
• olive oil
• lemon juice
• a herb (thyme is nice or basil or mint or even tarragon, but not all of them together)

Cook the peas in salted water. Rinse them in cold water until they’ve cooled off. Mix with onions and herbs.  Pour a few big glugs of olive oil and squeeze about a 1/2 lemon on top. Make sure everything is coated and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Gently mix in the ricotta and serve. If you want to make this into a meal, some chicken would not be out of place.

toothpicks + grapes

=sculptures and snacks

Raid the recycling! Slap it together with hot glue! Decorate with tape! and whatever else is lying around!

My kids call it the guy house, “because it’s for guys, Mom, not dolls.” Playmobile guys, lego guys, little people guys, calico critter guys, everybody can go swimming in the stripy pool!

What I really wanted to do was spray paint the whole thing one color (safety orange!) but my kids were having such a blast decorating it that I couldn’t spoil the fun. Tape turned out to be the easiest way to make it awesome. Mostly we used duct tape and the washi like tape from target.  Bonus: the tape box made a sweet hammock.

Go glue things together!

We had a weird spring, so the strawberry crop was a little weak, but that didn’t stop us. We (I) picked a bunch and we (they) ate a bunch, then we came home and cooked a bunch. Strawberry jam was of course on the docket, but this year I also made strawberry fruit roll ups and strawberry syrup. The fruit roll ups were fantastic! I used this recipe, but cut the sugar down to a few tablespoons.

The strawberry syrup, though, that’s where it’s at. Last year I checked out the book Canning for a New Generation so many times from the library I finally just bought the damn thing. Canning books usually put me off because the recipes are super labor intensive. This book is different. The author, Liana Krissoff, doesn’t assume you have any fancy canning supplies, only a big pot and some jars. She even tells you how to make some equipment–throw rubber bands around your tongs and you have a jar lifter!  Also awesome is that all of the recipes are for small batches. Some people are into sweating at the stove canning all day, I’m not really big on sweating.

The recipes in the book go from basic to slightly more adventurous. She also includes recipes for using all that stuff you canned, which is always helpful.  What I’m saying is, the book is good, check it out! Now back to the strawberry syrup. It is crazy sweet, but I didn’t want to mess with the sugar content because I was canning the stuff.  We used the tiny bit that didn’t fit in the jars for strawberry soda. You only need the littlest bit, because again it is super sweet, and it is also super strawberry-y.  Holy crap! Mixed with pamplemousse sparkling water, this is hands down the best soda I’ve ever had.

Strawberry Syrup

adapted from Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff

• 4 lbs strawberries, washed and hulled
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice

Makes about three 1/2 pint jars, or two with some leftover to make sodas right away. The book doesn’t say, but I’m guessing these are good for 6 months or maybe a bit more.  Cheers!

Color coded egg carton scavenger hunt before:

Color coded egg carton scavenger hunt after: