First of all, I want to say how happy I am to be back blogging (if you don’t know where I was, read this). Spending a week at the beach doing very little besides reading, napping, and eating gave me lots of time to do some thinking and planning for the blog. So get excited for a summer full of yummy recipes.

Ok, now onto today’s post. After nine days of heavy meals, I returned to DC very excited to eat light, healthy summer fruits and vegetables. It also just so happened that for my first night back, I was having a friend over for dinner who was about to leave for a work trip to Afghanistan (and thus would be missing out on all the same fruits and veggies I was craving). So in honor of this, I put together the following spread:

Featured:

– Homemade Pesto (with basil from our garden) and Smashed Tomatoes served on Toasted French Bread

– A Lemon Kale Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

– A Cauliflower and Garbanzo Bean Salad

Appetizer

Pesto-

2 cups basil, washed and de-stemmed

1/4 cup olive oil

2 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon pine nuts

A dash of salt and peper

1. Place everything in your Cuisinart mixer or blender and blend until smooth. You may need to scrape down the sides and pulse several times to get everything smooth.

Tomatoes-

2 tomatoes

1. Chop the tomatoes into large chunks and then place in a large bowl and mash until they are all broken down.

2. Now place the pesto in a bowl and the tomatoes in a second bowl, and serve with toasted french bread.

Lemon Kale Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

Recipe adapted from here. 

Salad-

1 bag kale, de-stemmed

Juice of 1 lemon

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

A handful of red grapes, cut into quarters

1 avocado, cut up into small pieces

A handful of toasted pine nuts (to toast throw in 350 degree oven for 3-5 minutes until they are lightly browned)

Dressing-

1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/2 shallot, diced

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Pinch of sea salt

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon white sugar

1. Mix your kale, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Use your hands to massage the kale for a minute or two. Then add the grapes, avocado and pine nutes.

2. Mix all of your dressing ingredients and mix well. Wait to put on the salad until right before you serve it.

Cauliflower and Garbanzo Bean Salad

Recipe adapted from here. 

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup olive oil (approximately)

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons cumin

1 can garbanzo beans, drained

1 red onion, cut into strips

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (do less of either this or the chili powder if you don’t like anything spicy)

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Optional: if not serving with another salad like I was, you could serve this over a bed of lettuce, arugula or mixed greens would probably be best.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place the cauliflower on a baking sheet with sides. Drizzle olive oil (not all, leave about a tablespoons worth), salt and cumin on top and mix the cauliflower just enough to evenly spread everything. Roast for 15 minutes, then add the the garbanzo beans and do another 10 minutes. Then let everything cool.

2. Heat the rest of the olive oil in a medium size pan on the stove. Once heated, add the onion and cover the pan. Saute over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender. Once done, remove from heat.

3. Pour the lemon juice over the cauliflower mixture and then add the onions. Put in serving bowl and mix thoroughly. Again, if you are only serving this (and not with another salad), you could serve over some arugula or mixed greens to round it out.