I love The New York Times food section. It's always a wonderful source for reliable recipes, incredible food stories, and even more incredible writing. We are looking at more weeks of temperatures in the 90s in DC, and the thought of cooking anything over a hot stove makes me cringe. But there is hope out there, and plenty of good things to eat (101 in fact), if you try the salad recipes Mark Bittman featured in TNYT.
Most of the recipes don't take more than 20 minutes to prepare, so you'll have time to fix something to eat and enjoy the rest of your meal while sipping a refreshing glass of wine. Mark Bittman has covered all the food bases too.
There are salads for vegans, carnivores, seafood lovers, noodle fans, and every other kind of eater, and an exploration of all 101 dishes will take you into the fall season when you can again turn on your stove without fear of spontaneous combustion.
The recipes make use of the fantastic produce that's available and in season now, and most require little if any knife skills or advanced cooking techniques. Here is, verbatim, a recipe I have myself, in some form or another, prepared for years:
"A nice cucumber salad: Slice cucumbers thin (if theyâ??re fat and old, peel and seed them first), toss with red onions and salt, then let sit for 20 to 60 minutes. Rinse, dry, dress with cider vinegar mixed with Dijon mustard; no oil necessary."
A perfectly beautiful salad with no fuss, right? So what are you waiting for? Hurry to your farmer's market before the season ends so you don't miss out on all the gorgeous produce. Then go home, print out the recipes, and start slicing and dicing for your first recipe. And set up a menu calender so you can look forward to weeks of delicious new dishes that celebrate the bounty of summer produce.
Photo: Francesco Tonelli The New York Times
