Summertime Goodness.

Huge, dark, bursting boysenberries that just melt in your mouth.  Soft, sweet, juicy peaches as big as baseballs.  Tomatoes red, ripe and pulling down the vines in my garden.   

I love the goodness summer brings.  And I love cooking sweet goodies and cool salads with whatever summer brings my way.  

In the past two weeks that's meant boysenberries, peaches from the local farmers market and cherry and beefsteak tomatoes from my garden.  I've harvested almost all my lettuce and the zucchini is, sadly, done for this year.  But thanks to the very hot and sunny weather here in the usually cloudy northwest, my tomatoes are turning red right and left.

The best thing in my book is coming up with dishes to enjoy using these delights.  Boysenberry Galette, Peach Crumble Pie and Caprese Salad.

First, sweet, then the savory.

A Boysenberry Galette is so quick, easy and fun to bake up.  Just mix the washed berries with cinnamon and sugar, roll out pie dough, spoon the berries inside, then fold it up around the outside, brush with a little milk or egg, sprinkle with sugar.  Bake 375 for 45 minutes.  Cool.  Eat.

Pie making is not my thing.  So I admit, I cheated here just a little.  I used a store bought pie shell for the bottom of this pie.  Just prick it with a fork and par bake it at 400 for 10 minutes, let it cool.  While this is happening, slice the peaches and mix with 2 tbsp brown sugar, 2 tbsp flour and 1 teaspoon cinnamon.  Make the crumble by mixing 6 tbsp butter into 1/3 cup each of brown sugar and flour and 1/2 cup oatmeal and more cinnamon.  Once the pie shell is cool, fill it with the peach filling, top with the crumble topping and bake at 375 for about an hour.   Cool.  Eat.

Caprese Salad is even easier than all of the above.  No cooking.  Very little prep.  Perfect for a hot day dinner.  Wash and de-stem 2 cups of cherry tomatoes.  Rinse several stems of basil leaves.  In a serving bowl, add 16 oz container of Trader Joes marinated mozzarella balls, cherry tomatoes, snip the basil leaves over the top.  Toss. Refrigerate until ready to serve.  Eat with crusty, french rolls.

I hope you enjoy the summertime goodness coming your way as much as I'm enjoying it here!