Garden Cucumber Salad Recipe with Tuna and Sweet Basil

This simple salad with cucumbers, tuna, and fresh basil is perfect for a quick lunch!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  This simple salad with garden cucumbers, tuna, and fresh basil is perfect to make with garden cucumbers, and it's one of those recipes where the sum of the ingredients ends up being more than the parts!)

If you haven't had homegrown garden cucumbers, you may not realize how much better they are than the cucumbers you buy in the supermarket. Garden cucumbers are sweet and crisp, and when they're abundant in my garden I'm forever coming up with new cucumber salad recipes. This combination of tuna in olive oil and fresh basil was fantastic, and I thought it was such a nice blend of flavors I ended up making it again the next day so I could take photos. If you have a garden with fresh cucumbers and basil, don't miss trying this salad.

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Cooking Tips for Gardeners: Cooking with Fresh Mint

Mint adds an interesting flavor twist to Turkey and Quinoa Patties with Yogurt Sauce.

In Utah gardens sometimes keep producing until early October, but in September the hot-weather vegetables and herbs like tomatoes, squash, eggplant, cucumbers, and basil are definitely growing more slowly.  So let's give a big cheer for mint, which starts in the garden ultra early and lasts long into the fall.  I love fresh mint, and although I definitely have some favorite ways to use it, over the last few years I've really expanded my horizons with this hearty garden herb.  So for the latest in my series on Cooking Tips for Gardeners, here are a few thoughts about mint and recipe ideas using this flavorful herb.

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Grilled Curried Chicken Skewers with Spicy Peanut Sauce

These Grilled Curried Chicken Skewers are great with the Spicy Peanut Sauce!

(Updated August 2012 with better photos and instructions.)  I love having a grill that's on a covered deck, so even when summer is kind of winding down I can make things like these Grilled Curried Chicken Skewers with Spicy Peanut Sauce for a few more months.  The chicken skewers were adapted from a recipe in, Fine Cooking Annual, a cookbook where I've loved every recipe I tried.  In the book they were appetizer-sized chicken satays, but I cut the chicken bigger, marinated it longer, and made them for an entree.  I've made these several times since I first posted the recipe in April 2007 (obviously cooking under a covered deck then as well, although it was on the front porch in those days.)  I finally got organized and took a new photo, which really shows off how tasty this recipe is!

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Recipe for Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Chiles, Cheddar, and Cotija Cheese

Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchini with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Green Chiles, and Cheese for Meatless Monday!

My garden is still supplying me with zucchini at a pretty regular pace, so recently I decided a new version of stuffed zucchini should be on the menu.  I had some Cotija cheese that was left from a dish my brother Rand had made when he was visiting, so I guess that's what inspired me to go with a Mexican-themed version of stuffed zucchini this time.  If you're not familiar with it, Cotija is a type of hard, crumbly Mexican cheese.  It made a nice topping for these Vegetarian Stuffed Zucchinis with Brown Rice, Black Beans, Green Chiles, and Cheese, but if you don't have it you could use Parmesan, Feta, and or even a little more of the cheese blend that's used in the stuffing.

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Recipe for Lemony Green Beans (Green Beans with Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest)

Super easy and delicious Green Beans with Lemon Juice and Lemon Zest.

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now my garden is producing more green beans than I can keep up with, and these lemony green beans are one of my favorite ways to use them.)

If you have a garden that's producing green beans, I enthusiastically advise that you bookmark this recipe and make it over and over again. I didn't even have garden beans when I first tried the recipe, but I made it three times with the French green beans that come from Costco. In fact, the first time I made it, I ended up eating a whole pound of green beans myself and calling it lunch! Thanks to Cheap Healthy Good for inspiring me to buy Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers, which is where I found this idea for my new favorite way to cook green beans!

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Recipe for Baby Kale, White Bean, and Tuna Salad with Lemon

Baby Kale, White Bean, and Tuna Salad; perfect for a summer lunch!

Besides the obvious seasonal vegetables, there are a few other ingredients that just feel like summer foods to me.  One of them is my beloved Tonno Genova Tuna Packed in Olive Oil.  From the time I discovered this product over five years ago, I've enjoyed it in a variety of summer salads, often eaten for lunch out on the porch or back deck.  Then earlier this year I got infatuated with Earthbound Farm Ready-to-use Organic Mixed Baby Kales, and this Baby Kale, White Bean, and Tuna Salad with Lemon turned out to be a perfect marriage of two of my favorite products.  This new salad combination was inspired by my previous favorite white bean and tuna salad but this time baby kale is adding a touch of greens flavor instead of parsley.  If you like kale, white beans, tuna packed in olive oil, and lemon, this nutritious salad needs to go on your "must-try" list!

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Recipe for "Creamed" Zucchini (a Denny Family secret!)

The secret Denny Family "Creamed" Zucchini!

(Updated with better photos and more complete instructions, August 2012.)  Every family has their secrets, don't they?  My family is actually amazingly wholesome, but we do have this secret recipe for "Creamed" Zucchini, using an ingredient that's maybe slightly embarrassing for those of us who try to be healthy eaters.  If you're greatly concerned with not using processed foods, you may turn up your nose at our favorite zucchini recipe, featuring a humble ingredient like powdered coffee creamer. But I can tell you, everyone I've ever made this for has loved it!  And in a family where there are very few coffee drinkers, every one of my siblings has a bottle of Coffee-Mate in the cupboard just to make this recipe. And although powdered coffee creamer could hardly be considered a "healthy" food, when you make this you're eating mostly zucchini and the small amount of creamer that sticks to the squash.  Most of the "juice" containing the dissolved creamer stays in the pan or on your plate.

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Recipe for Zucchini Crust Vegetarian Pizza Margherita (on the grill or in the oven)

Vegetarian Pizza Margherita, with a crust made of grated zucchini.

This seems to be the summer for pizza crust experiments at Chez Kalyn, and this recipe for Vegetarian Zucchini-Crust Pizza Margherita was inspired by the Cauliflower-Crust Vegetarian Pizza I made last month.  After trying that pizza with a crust made of cooked cauliflower, cheese, almond meal, and an egg, I started wondering why you couldn't make a similar type of crust with zucchini.  Jake was skeptical, and it did take us two tries to get a crust we were happy with, but we both loved the way the zucchini added flavor to this crust and really complemented the simple tomato sauce, fresh basil, and fresh Mozzarella that are the traditional toppings for Pizza Margherita.  This is a pizza recipe that's not only vegetarian, but also gluten-free and low carb and it's another answer to that zucchini problem that so many people have this time of year.

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Recipe for Swiss Chard and Mushroom Squares

Flavorful Swiss Chard and Mushroom Squares will work for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

(Updated August 2012 with better photos and instructions, plus the option to use Hemp Hearts to make this a Phase One recipe.)  Back in the summer of 2008, I posted this recipe that was adapted from Regina Schrambling's Collard Squares, and when I had an abundance of Swiss Chard in the garden this year, I decided to re-do the photos.  These veggie-centric squares have just enough egg to make them breakfast possibilities, but the mushrooms add such savory umami flavor that they could work well for lunch or a light dinner as well.  This is probably the type of dish that will never be too photogenic, but I did like my new idea of cooking them in a Mini Loaf Pan for more defined squares, and this version also uses Hemp Hearts instead of breadcrumbs to make them Phase One for South Beach Dieters.  (I changed several other things in this recipe, but I'll keep the original printer friendly recipe in case someone has it bookmarked.)  I like to eat these with a dollop of sour cream, as you can tell from the new photo.

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Recipe for Tomato, Olive, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

All the flavors of summer in this Tomato, Olive, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  I make this salad every summer, as soon as Costco starts carrying the fresh mozzarella pearls and I have fresh basil in the garden!)

This is the perfect salad to make when it's fresh tomato season and your garden is bursting with tomatoes and fresh basil. However it can also have mood-enhancing properties if it's a very rainy first week of summer where you live, even if you have to buy tomatoes from Costco and it takes every basil leaf you can manage to snip from your puny plants. I have to confess though, it was the adorable mozzarella pearls made by Bel Gioisio Cheese I found at Costco that really inspired this salad. If you're not familiar with fresh mozzarella, it's a very soft cheese that comes packed in brine. The "pearls" are tiny pieces about the size of marbles, and they were delicious with the tomatoes and fresh basil.

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Recipe for Foil-Wrapped Grilled Tilapia Packets with Pesto, Tomatoes, and Green Onions

Tilapia pieces, seasoned with fish rub, spread with pesto, and grilled in foil with tomatoes and green onions.

I love to cook fish on the grill, but for delicate-textured fish like Tilapia, putting it directly on the grill grates is asking for trouble.  For thin pieces or delicate types of fish, cooking the fish in foil on top of the grill is an easy way to get amazing results.  In this recipe I seasoned the Tilapia pieces with my favorite Szeged Fish Rub and spread the fish with a thin layer of Basil Pesto with Lemon, then I wrapped it in foil with grape tomato halves and sliced green onions and let the foil packets cook on the grill.  We served it over rice to soak up all the delicious juice.  I made this on a day when both Jake and my brother Rand were sampling the recipe experiments, and both gave this an enthusiastic two thumbs up!

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Recipe for Julia Child's Eggplant Pizzas (Tranches d'aubergine á l'italienne)

Pizza made on a base of roasted eggplant, from a recipe found in From Julia Child's Kitchen.

If you're interested in food, you must have heard that August 15 would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday.  I was honored to be one of the bloggers asked to share thoughts of Julia in a tribute written for PBS Food, and my friend Lydia completely captured why food bloggers want to honor Julia in her post on Six Lessons I Learned About Food Blogging from Julia Child.  Julia was known for her appreciation of bread, butter, and wine, so when you're writing a blog focused on low-glycemic cooking, finding a suitable Julia Child recipe that will appeal to your readers can be a challenge.  That's why I was so excited to find Eggplant Pizzas in From Julia Child's Kitchen, my one and only Julia Child cookbook.  This recipe illustrates perfectly how Julia was ahead of her time with this low-carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, and low-glycemic pizza.

(This recipe is part of the Cook for Julia project that's part of the celebration at PBSFood.  Thanks for the inspiration Julia, and also for showing us that cooking gourmet food at home was not only possible, but also a lot of fun.  Check after my recipe for links to other blog posts featuring recipes from Julia, and see more  recipe ideas on Facebook from PBS.food.)

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Chicken Souvlaki Recipe

Chicken Souvlaki plus a tomato and cucumber salad is a perfect summer meal!

(Updated with new photos and better instructions, August 2012.)   Souvlaki is a dish that's so classic it's part of Wikipedia, which defines it as small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer. If I were writing the definition, I'd add that the Greek cooking trinity of lemon, garlic, and oregano would have to be included, and since I was using chicken this time I also added a touch of thyme to the marinade.   I like traditional Souvlaki made from pork, as well as Lamb Souvlaki, but for a light summer meal I don't think you can beat the combination of Chicken Souvlaki and a salad with cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden.  I made that this week when my sister Pam and brother-in-law Kelly came for dinner and took a few photos to update this favorite recipe. 

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Recipe for Braised Green Beans with Garlic, Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers

Delicious fresh green beans braised with garlic, tomatoes, olives, and capers.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  When the garden starts exploding with green beans, this is one of my favorite ways to use them.)

Although I love having a garden where I can grow a lot of my own vegetables, keeping up with garden vegetables can be a challenge, and if you're not diligent vegetables quickly grow too big. Green beans are the plant I have the hardest time with; they come on so quickly that often when I pick them I find a bunch of over-sized green beans. If you have garden where the beans sometimes get a little too big, this recipe for beans are braised with garlic, tomatoes, olives, capers, and a little water is a good method for making larger beans tender. (I'm mentioning that as a public service announcement, since I tried this recipe before I even had beans in my garden and the pictures in these photos are thin green beans from Costco!)

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Kalyn's Kitchen Picks: Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Stevia Packets

I've tried all kinds of stevia packets, and this is the only one I've been able to stick with.

This post has been a long time coming.  I think it was about 2006 that I was talking online with Karina and Susan about Stevia, trying to find a brand that would make me give up the little blue packets that I was pretty much addicted to in those days.  Through the years since then I've tried all different kinds of Stevia, and even recommended Stevia in the Raw Granulated Sweetener, which I love for baking.  This organic Stevia from Wholesome Sweeteners is the first kind of Stevia packets I've ever bought a second time, which I think is a pretty high recommendation!

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Recipe for Savory Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins with Feta, Parmesan, and Green Onions (plus 25 more fun ideas for baking with zucchini!)

Make these whole wheat zucchini muffins instead of leaving your zucchini on the neighbor's porch!

If you're a gardener, you probably know that August 8 is Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day.  I'm all in favor of giving away zucchini, but I also like to encourage people to use them! A few years ago I wrote a Round-Up of 20 Zucchini Recipes to honor this day, and if you're running out of zucchini ideas, that post has a lot of good ones.  Personally I'm celebrating the day with this new recipe for Savory Zucchini Muffins with Feta, Parmesan, and Green Onions, a muffin that I loved as soon as I took a bite!  I've also collected fun-sounding recipes for baking with zucchini from some of my favorite food bloggers, so if you really have a lot of zucchini, check after the recipe and print out a few zucchini recipes to share with the neighbors when you sneak the zucchini on to their porch!

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Recipe for Moroccan Cabbage Slaw with Carrots, Cumin, Lemon, and Mint

I'm always interested in a new salad idea with cabbage and this Moroccan Cabbage Slaw is a keeper!

My fondness for cabbage salads is well-documented on the blog, and this unique Moroccan Cabbage Slaw with Carrots, Cumin, Lemon and Mint is my latest cabbage slaw favorite.  The cumin combined with carrots gives this slaw the Moroccan twist, and when my nephew Jake and I tried the recipe we added the chopped mint, which really made the flavors pop in the salad.  I'm a big fan of green onions as well, so we also used a generous amount of those.  Mint makes this a summertime slaw recipe, and for a Meatless Monday Meal I'd love this salad combined with some lovely Grilled Vegetables from the garden!

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Hamburger Kebabs (Kabobs) Recipe

A delicious alternative to burgers for ground beef on the grill!

(Hamburger Kebabs were first posted in June 2006 for Retro Recipe Challenge at Laura Rebecca's Kitchen; this post was updated with better photos and instructions August 2012.)

If you're looking for something to make from ground beef that's a bit more unusual than regular burgers, these delicious kebabs (or kabobs) made with ground beef and seasoned with chopped onion, parsley, pine nuts, and dried oregano are a fun idea.  I first made these for a blogging event where you had to use a cookbook published between 1920 and 1975, and  I found this recipe in James Beard's How To Eat Better For Less Money, a book I've had for many, many years!  Even though the book is so old that you can now buy it for a few dollars, it still has some good cooking information.  One thing that puzzled me the first time I made this recipe was the instructions to marinate the kebabs in "French" dressing.  Then I realized James Beard meant vinaigrette, and it made more sense.  I just brushed the vinaigrette on before I put them on the grill, and it did keep the meat juicy and delicious.

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Recipe for Green Goddess Tomato-Mozzarella Stacks (with Green Zebras and Fresh Mozzarella)

Simple stacks of green zebra tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and Green Goddess dressing!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  Right now Green Zebra tomatoes are abundant at my house, and I love these little stacks of fresh tomato goodness.  Of course you can use any type of tomatoes if you don't have Green Zebras.)

Now that I've finally made Green Goddess Salad Dressing, I've been thinking about creative ways to use this dressing other than just drizzling it on a green salad (although salads with this dressing are spectacular!) Right now the garden is giving me lots of Green Zebra tomatoes, and I created this dish by imagining how the slightly-citrusy flavor of the Green Zebras would work with the complex flavors in the Green Goddess dressing. And wow! I loved this take on Caprese Salad with Green Zebra tomatoes, slices of fresh mozzarella, and Green Goddess dressing drizzled over. Of course, there are endless variations on this theme, so feel free to use any tomatoes you'd like and experiment with other kinds of cheese to enjoy with your Green Goddess dressing.

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South Beach Diet Phase One Recipes Round-Up for July 2012 (Low-Glycemic Recipes)

Kalyn's favorite Phase One Recipe for July 2012 was Grilled Lemon-Cumin Chicken with Charmoula Sauce

Everywhere I've gone lately people are talking about how July has gone screaming by, and now it's over!  I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels a sense of dread when the summer months are approaching the end, but now that I don't go back to school in the fall, I consider August and September to both be part of summer.  That gives you plenty of time left to try some of these tasty Phase One Recipes I've posted on Kalyn's Kitchen or found on other months during the month of July.  Summer foods are so easy to make diet-friendly, so I hope you enjoy some of these drool-worthy dishes while summer is still hanging on!

(You can use the label Low-Glycemic Recipe Round-Ups to see all the posts like this one.)

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