Summer Recipes
Love being back home in my own kitchen after almost a 2 month hiatus. Now I can get back to my cookbook and also get back to trying some new recipes. Prior to leaving for the east coast, I was on a jackfruit kick. I made Jackfruit “Carnitas” Tacos and Taco Bowl. I had been wanting to do something else with it that would require BBQ sauce because who doesn’t love BBQ sauce? After researching some ideas, I was inspired by The Veg Life blog to create a Hawaiian Jackfruit & Pineapple Kabob.
This was exactly the type of jackfruit recipe that I was looking for because it includes one of my favorite things to eat: pineapples! It’s so simple to make. Just cut up red and green bell peppers, red onions, and pineapples into thick slices. Marinate the jackfruit chunks (unripe from a can) in your favorite bbq sauce. Then stack them all up on a skewer and grill. I don’t have a grill, so I sauteed everything on a frying pan and then placed them all on a skewer afterwards for presentation. I cooked my jackfruit separately so that I could give them a nice char. I also made fire-roasted tomato rice to serve with it and smothered additional bbq sauce over my cooked skewers. I highly suggest the fire-roasted tomato rice. I used canned fire-roasted diced tomatoes and cooked the rice in that with chicken broth (you can use water if you want to keep the entire recipe vegan). I also sauteed fried garlic and onions separately to mix into the cooked rice and topped it with chopped cilantro.
While I was in NYC this summer, I also made Tomato & Roasted Corn salad and Yucca Pizza Crust. The Tomato & Roasted Corn salad is a pretty basic recipe but it’s delicious and so refreshing. Mix tomatoes, roasted corn, red onions, and shredded basil, sprinkle salt and pepper, and then top with EVOO and balsamic vinegar. I love both tomatoes and corn so I can easily devour this salad. The Yucca Pizza Crust I have made before and have included the recipe in a previous post. This time I made a BBQ Cauliflower Yucca Crust Pizza (pictured above in the back), which is a great alternative to BBQ Chicken Pizza, and a Margherita Pizza (pictured above in the front) with pineapple and mushrooms. I got carried away and added too much cheese though so the pizza slices were harder to pick up. It’s just sometimes challenging to hold back on the cheese, ya know? Mmmm…
An old favorite recipe of mine, which I think can be made all year round, is tomato confit. You can find my recipe in a previous post. It’s really easy to make and you can do so much with it. I personally like to mix it with pasta (noodle-y pasta is my preference) or smother it over my fried eggs in the morning for breakfast. But you can also serve it on a crostini as an appetizer, use it in a sandwich or on toast as a spread, and drizzle over grilled meats or fish. The aroma after you take the tomato confit out of the oven is amazing. Try it!
Which summer recipes would you recommend? I could always use some more ideas!