slice and serve

I get so lazy with cooking over the summer. I don't feel like using the crock pot a lot because it is already hot enough inside my house. And we take longer getting home and getting into the swing of the evening because we still feel like playing in the beautiful weather. Or sitting longer with an open bottle of my favorite summer wine ever, Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon. 

So by the time we are all starving and I am trying to throw a non-hot, non-extra-food-prep, non-toddler-offensive dinner together, all I can muster is the main course. Vegetable sides? Who needs em?! We get enough sides at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas to make up for the rest of the year. But enter the Farmer's Market, in all its glorious ripe vegetables. We have decided on two easy to throw together side dishes that we have yet to get tired of to end our no-vegetable streak.

One of our new favorite things to make for dinner is Caprese salad. With tomatoes and basil fresh from the Farmers Market and yummy cool Mozzarella cheese. We slice the tomato as thin as possible, cover with washed and dried Basil leaves, add sliced mozzarella cheese from a fresh block, and then drizzle the whole thing with balsamic vinaigrette. I could eat this every day and die happy. 

Our other favorite standby was taught to me by a mom who I helped babysit for in college. She made this for dinner one day and I fell in love. So simple and so delicious. Slice up a ripe (but not squishy) avocado, halved grape tomatoes, sliced red onion, tossed with poppy seed dressing. This side is great fresh for dinner and yummy for lunch the next day. Hope you enjoy some summer sides tonight!

A fruit is a vegetable with looks and money. 

Plus, if you let fruit rot, it turns into wine, something Brussels sprouts never do.

~P. J. O’Rourke