Just peachy salad

Inspired by a macerated peach dessert prepared recently at the Charlottesville Cooking School, this salad is a delightfully fresh way to welcome summer.

It is at once tangy and a little sweet, but not enough to overwhelm the lettuce and other vegetables.

The avocado also gives it a rich mouth feel.

Just Peachy Salad
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 very ripe peach (skin should peel off easily)
6 basil leaves, chiffonaded
1 tablespoons nectarine vinegar
½ teaspoon raw sugar
½ avocado, diced
1 small seedless cucumber, sliced
½ head romaine heart. torn into bite-size pieces
2 mini red bell peppers, sliced into rings
Handful of microgreens such as mache or tatsoi, or sprouts
Fleur de sel or other tasty salt
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions
Peel and de-stone peach; chop roughly. Add basil, vinegar and sugar and marinade for about 15 minutes in the salad bowl while you chop the rest of the vegetables. Add the avocado to the peaches and mix well. Then add the other vegetables, salt to taste, then pour on the oil. Toss until well coated, then serve.

Best summer salad ever - insalata caprese

Photograph © 2013 Lori Korleski Richardson

One salad defines summer, and that's the Italian insalata caprese (salad in the style of Capri).

Simply, it's a ball of buffalo mozzarella, sliced thinly; fresh, very ripe tomatoes, also sliced thinly; fresh basil leaves, cut horizontally into tiny ribbons; salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar and olive oil to taste.

Some notes and variations that I have tried this summer and enjoyed:

• Many cooks don't have the technique needed to thinly slice a whole ripe tomato, especially a large heirloom, and don't even think of slicing a tomato without sharpening your knife first. To make it easier on yourself, core the top stem area, cut the tomato in half, put the cut sides down, then slice. This makes cutting up the mozzarella easier, too.
• Replace the salt with finely ground sel gris or other gray sea salt, or smoked salt crystals.
• Buffalo mozzarella too dear? Skip the commercial varieties (too bland and bad texture) and try some goat cheese, provolone, or even a triple cream that's somewhat on the firm side (Cowgirl Creamery on the West Coast and Caromont on the East have good ones). 
• A mixture of colored tomatoes are great for a party platter.
• Don't like vinegar? Don't want the extra calories of olive oil? Allergic to pepper? Can't tolerate salt? Fine. As long as the tomato is fresh and ripe, it can stand on its own.

As my husband can tell you, I'm rather harsh in my judgment of tomatoes, grilling waitstaff on whether the tomatoes in the salad are ripe (I do this only in season; out of season, I don't bother ordering salads with tomatoes in them) and sending the salad back if they aren't. I know why a restaurant may have food-service tomatoes even in August and September, but I don't have to pay for their lack of awareness or bad business practices.

Rubbing lamb the right way

Most of the time, I just brush those cute little lamb loin chops with olive oil, salt and pepper, then grill them quickly over a hot fire. Crunchy on the outside and oh-so-tender on the inside.

But yes, I do mess with perfection, and this time, I'm very happy I did. The advantage to broiling the chops instead of grilling them is that you can keep the spicy crust on them and it won't flake off into the fire. So try these on a cold night when you don't feel like freezing outside to grill your chops.

Lori K's lamb rub
Makes enough coating for 6-8 loin chops

Ingredients
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon crushed fennel seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds or 1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

In a spice mill, grind everything but the last three items until blended, but not too fine. In a large mortar bowl, grind the rosemary and garlic. Add the other spices and mix well. Add enough olive oil to make a thick paste.

Spread on the lamb chops, both sides, pressing in the rub. Let stand for 15 minutes, then preheat the broiler for 15 minutes.

Grill close to the heat, 3-4 minutes each side (3 minutes for very rare, 4 minutes for medium rare). Very good with a sauce of sautéed mushrooms and caramelized onions.

Scallops and a touch of bacon = fast dinner

Here's a delicious way to get dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes.

Lori K's scallop-bacon pasta

4 ounces dried whole-wheat spaghetti
1/2 pound scallops
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons cooked bacon bits
1 clove crushed garlic
4 large basil leaves, snipped into ribbons
1 tablespoon snipped parsley
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and add the spaghetti. Cook for 12-15 minutes until al dente.
Meanwhile, heat the olive oil and add the bacon bits and garlic. Wash and dry the scallops

You can use the time to prepare a salad: Lettuce, maché, yellow bell pepper, cucumber, radishes, tomatoes, feta.

Stir the bacon bits from time to time.

About 8 minutes after you start the spaghetti, add the scallops to the bacon bits. Cook them until they are just firm, about 4 minutes each side.

Drain the spaghetti; if it looks like it's sticking together, rinse in hot water.

Add the bacon-scallop mixture to the spaghetti and toss. Add the spices and toss again. Serve with salad and bread if you'd like.

An easy bread salad

Also known as panzanella

Although I make this salad by feel, it does require a few things that cannot be substituted: Homegrown tomatoes (or ripe ones from a farmer who's not shipping them somewhere), high-quality extra-virgin olive oil and stale artisan bread. If your tomatoes are really juicy and your bread is sufficiently stale but not hard, you can just cut the bread in cubes and skip the soak.

Lori K's easy bread salad
Serves 6

Ingredients
1 large day-old baguette or equivalent stale artisan bread
2 large ripe tomatoes, cubed (one red, one yellow adds color)
2 tablespoons capers, drained
Sliced kalamata olives to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
6 basil leaves, ribboned
handful of arugula if you have it
Sea salt and peppercorns, freshly ground

Instructions
Soak the bread in hot water until softened but not soggy. Squeeze out the water. Put in a big bowl. Toss in everything else, adjusting oil, vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. Chill and serve.
Vary the flavor by soaking the bread in broth, adding peperoncini slices for a kick, a little rosemary or replacing the vinegar with lemon juice.

Baby lettuces: Best (almost) naked

One of the joys of the home garden is fall lettuce. As the nights get colder, the tomatoes and peppers wane, but perky little leaf lettuces keep chugging right along, except when a warm spell comes along and causes them to bolt (that's gardening speak for sending up a stalk and going to seed).

And picking off the leaves before they get too big ensures a tender, sweet salad. You don't need to do much to them; unlike lettuce that has spent too much time in the garden and then the refrigerator, they still have their delicate flavor. I'm sure you have a favorite dressing for salad, but now's not the time to show it off. Dress the tender leaves with a drizzle of good olive oil, then sprinkle with a grind of dried oregano, basil, red pepper, black pepper and sea salt.

The vinegar that adds so much flavor to most of your salads just overwhelms the fresh, baby lettuces. Save it for later, when your imported lettuces will need all the help they can get.

Fast and French

French food, for most people, conjures up hours in the kitchen, striving for perfection of sauces and presentation. Not so for Jacques Pépin, born and kitchen-trained in France. He wrote "Fast Food My Way" (Houghton Mifflin, $30, 250 pages) five years ago, and although it's not a beginner's cookbook (there are no notes on basic cooking techniques), most of the recipes are, as promised, fast - which translates as uncomplicated and straightforward. Pépin also has included many menus, which is a great help in balancing out a meal.

It's a small book, but has lovely and inviting photographs by Ben Fink, all in bounce-off-the-page color.
The cookbook has a wealth of vegetable recipes and salads, and a few recipes for most kinds of seafood and meats. A substantial dessert section includes a tiramisu that is not unlike the one I hit upon when assembling one for a dinner for 100, and I'm sure it is just as delicious.
The recipe I used last night was definitely a winner: chicken breasts with garlic and parsley. Pépin says he adapted the idea from a traditional French way of cooking frog legs. Well, if he can adapt, so can I. I didn't have parsley, but my basil is loving this cool, wet weather, and I love the way it works with garlic and lemon.

Fast chicken breasts with garlic and basil

(adapted from "Jacques Pépin: Fast Food My Way")

Ingredients

3 boneless skinless chicken breasts (organic preferred; each about 7 ounces, cut into 1-inch cubes)

2 tablespoons rice flour (Pépin=Wondra)

1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (Pépin=parsley)

1 tablespoon butter (Pépin=2 tablespoons unsalted)

1 lemon, quartered

Instructions

Dry the chicken cubes with paper towels and toss them with the flour, salt and pepper in a bowl. Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet until very hot but not smoking. Add the chicken cubes and cook in one layer turning occasionally, for about 3 1/2 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine the garlic and parsley in a small bowl. Add the butter and the parsley mixture to the skillet and sauté for 1 minute longer, shaking the skillet occasionally to coat the chicken. Divide among 4 plates, add a wedge of lemon to each plate and serve within 15 minutes.

Editor's note: Want this cookbook? Click on the photo or the name of the book to go to Powell's Books; it's $21 there.