Steak Salad with Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Eggs

Here's a warm weather dish made from lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and eggs from our CSA, Fresh Fork Market. Start by hard-boiling some eggs. Make the dressing by whisking together 1/4C olive oil, 2T red wine vinegar, 1T Dijon mustard, 1T fresh, chopped rosemary and salt and pepper to taste. Allow the meat to marinade in the dressing while you put the salad together. The meat was left over steak but chicken or pork would work as well. Toss together in a salad bowl lettuce, chopped cucumber, and quartered cherry tomatoes. Add the shelled, sliced eggs and toss with the meat and dressing. Serve with warm sour dough bread and a big red wine. Nice cool dinner for a warm summer evening.

Pulled Pork Sandwich with Hoppin' Johns

Hoppin' Johns is a tradition side dish served all over southern bbq country and there are many recipes. This is a compilation of many we reviewed. All of them are basically a mix of black-eyed peas and rice, with various additional spices. You can start with dry peas or canned ones. We used canned ones. Start by cooking some rice (1/2C uncooked rice) in chicken stock (you could use vegetable stock or water if you wish). Set the rice aside. In a sauce pan, brown 2 strips of diced bacon and remove from the pan. Add to the same pan 1 bay leaf, 2T fresh thyme, 1 clove minced garlic, 2 or 3 chopped green onions, 1 rib of diced celery, 1/2C diced bell pepper, salt and pepper to taste. Saute the veggies until tender and then add 1-14oz can of diced tomatoes. Simmer to allow the spices to come together. Just before serving add the cooked black-eyed peas (1-14 oz can or equivalent) and rice and heat through. We cooked it this way so the peas and rice didn' t get to "mushy". This will serve 4 easily.

The pork for the sandwich was left-over.

Grilled Trout Stuffed with Mushrooms and Shrimp

We put this recipe together from several we found online and the help of our son Greg. Start by dicing 1/2C mushrooms, 1/2C shrimp, 1/2C onion and 1/4C bell peppers (we used a variety of colors), and 1T fresh basil. Saute all of the above in 2T butter until the mushrooms give up their water and the shrimp are pink. Fill the cavity of 3 trout with the mix, drizzle on some lemon juice and truss them up to keep the stuffing in place. We cooked them on the Weber for about 7 min on a side. The green beans were sauteed in olive oil with one clove of minced garlic and some cherry tomatoes. The redskin potatoes were done on the Weber as well. Toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper and skewer them. Put them on the grill about 15 min before the fish.

Stuffed Squash Blossoms with Pasta

Dee had squash blossoms as a kid..fried like mush-rooms, but I never had. We found them at the farmer's market and bought some. The stuffing was simply ricotta cheese with a chopped sauteed garlic clove and 2T fresh basil. We sauteed the garlic to tone down the strength a bit. Stuff the chees mix into the blossoms, roll them in an egg wash and coat with bread crumbs. Gently fry them in olive oil until they are golden brown. We served them with fresh whole-wheat pasta and red sauce. The blossoms added a subtle nutty flavor the to cheese stuffing.