Recipe for Grilled Eggplant, Grape Tomato, and Feta Salad with Amazing Basil, Parsley, and Caper Sauce

Even if you don't make this salad, don't miss the Donna Hay-inspired Basil, Parsley, and Caper Sauce!

For anyone who saw the title of this recipe and said "I don't like eggplant," I need to remind you of my discovery that grilled eggplant is really one of the best things about summer.  I was never an eggplant fan until I started growing the thin Japanese Eggplants in my garden, and cooking them on the grill.  If you've never had grilled eggplant, you've never really had eggplant!  However, if I can't possibly talk you into eggplant, then you still should try the Amazing Basil, Parsley, and Caper sauce that we used as a dressing in this recipe.  The sauce recipe and the inspiration to combine it with grilled eggplant came from Donna Hay's New Food Fast, and this is another one of those summer herb sauces that would be good on nearly anything.

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Chinese Cucumber Salad Recipe

An unusual and delicious salad to make with garden cucumbers.

(Updated with better photos and instructions, July 2012.)  When I run across people who are somewhat indifferent to cucumbers, I always wonder if they've ever had fresh-from-the-garden cukes, which I think are one of the most delicious things about summer.  When cucumbers first start to appear, I just wash them, slice in half, and eat with a little salt.  Later in the summer when they start to be abundant I might make a cucumber salad like this one.  The recipe came from a cookbook I've for years, called Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things.  It's a book with some unusual and interesting ideas for using up garden veggies, and this cucumber salad was definitely a winner.

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Recipe for Meat, Tomato, and Mozzarella Stuffed Zucchini Cups

"Cups" made from giant zucchini slices and filled with a meat, tomato, and mozzarella mixture.

 
(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  It's monster zucchini season here and last Friday I spotlighted Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata.   This recipe for zucchini Meat, Tomato, and Mozzarella Stuffed Zucchini Cups uses "cups" created from slices of overly-large zucchini, and this is another of my very favorite things to make when the zucchini gets out of control.  Enjoy!)

Despite the rather messy plating job, I'm excited about this new way of making stuffed zucchini by slicing an overly-large zucchini into two-inch slices, then hollowing out the slices to make zucchini "cups." Normally I'm a fan of round 8-ball squash for Stuffed Zucchini, but this year my 8-Ball squash hardly produced anything. Meanwhile, my regular zucchini plant kept producing zucchinis that were too big, causing me to get creative. Don't you think hollowing out a zucchini cup like this and filling it with meat and cheese sounds like a delicious way to use zucchini? Zucchini is definitely on surplus status around here, so there may be some other zucchini recipes coming up this week as well.

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Recipe for Grilled Lemon-Cumin Chicken with Charmoula Sauce

Chicken seasoned from a lemon-cumin marinade, grilled, and served with flavorful Charmoula Sauce

Every summer, my post about How to Make Juicy Grilled Chicken Breasts turns into one of the most popular posts on the blog, and chicken breasts are something I cook far more during grilling season than I do at other times of the year.  I'm always looking for ways to make grilled chicken into something special, and when I was flipping through an old cookbook and saw a recipe for Chicken with Charmoula Sauce, I remembered how I loved that sauce on Steamed Green Beans and Carrots.   I experimented with a marinade that I thought might bring out some of the lemon and cumin flavors in the Charmoula, and the result was this recipe that several people gobbled up when I tested it.

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Slow Cooker Recipe for Spicy Vegetarian Pinto Bean and Chard Burritos

Pinto beans and swiss chard cook in the slow cooker to make a delicious filling for vegetarian burritos.

I think it was a recipe I came across for swiss chard sauteed with cumin (plus an abundance of swiss chard in the garden) that inspired me to create this slow cooker recipe for a spicy vegetarian mixture of pinto beans, swiss chard, spices, and salsa that's stuffed into burritos.  This is definitely one of those recipes that produces a very unphotogenic mixture when it comes out of the slow cooker, but if you like swiss chard and pinto beans, please don't let that keep you from making this.  I loved the combination of flavors with the pintos and swiss chard, and other than chopping the swiss chard a little smaller next time, this was a lucky recipe experiment where I wouldn't change a thing!

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Recipe for Kalyn's Tabbouleh with Almonds

My favorite version of Tabbouleh Salad, with parsley, mint, and lots of slivered almonds.

(Updated with new photos and step-by-step instructions, July 2012.)  Tabbouleh (also spelled Tabbouli and Tabouli) is something I've loved from the first time I tasted it and I've been making this for years, especially in the summer when I have plenty of fresh parsley and mint from my garden. Some people may turn their nose up at the fact that I use a pre-seasoned tabbouleh mix for the bulgur mixture, but years ago I had a woman from Lebanon come to a party at my house, and she went crazy over my version of Tabbouleh. With fresh lots of fresh parsley and mint, and a generous amount of slivered almonds, I think the taste of this Tabbouleh can't be beat. 

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Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata Recipe

This is a tasty casserole or side dish made with those inevitable monster zucchinis!

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites.  When my neighbor Mike showed me a monster zucchini hidden among the zucchini leaves in his garden, I knew it was time to feature this really delicious way to use those huge zucchini.  

People who haven't grown zucchini themselves may see the title Monster Zucchini and Basil Strata and wonder if monster zucchini is a new zucchini variety, but anyone who's had a garden knows about those monster zucchini that hide under the leaves.  You don't discover them until they're so big that it seems like the only thing to do with them is make Zucchini Bread or Zucchini Muffins.  I'm not a fan of monster zucchini, so I try to watch my plants and not let them get too big, but when the garden is winding down I always have a few that get out of control.  When I discovered an enormous zucchini recently I decided to update this recipe that I first made in 2005 with a monster zucchini that greeted me when I got home from a trip.  This recipe does have a few eggs to hold it together, but I'd consider it a casserole or side dish and it's one dish made with monster zucchini that really is very good.

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