Ingredient: balsamic vinegar

Halloumi and Grilled Veggie Salad

Adding grilled veggies and halloumi to salad greens makes this salad hearty and delicious. The halloumi and vegetables can be cooked outside on the grill or indoors on the stove-top in a grill pan.

Halloumi is sheep and goat’s milk cheese from the island of Cyprus. A unique characteristic of halloumi is that it has a high melting point making it ideal for grilling or pan-frying. When halloumi makes contact with a hot grill or pan, the exterior begins to turn golden brown and the interior becomes soft.

If you can’t quite wrap your head around grilling the halloumi on a grill, check out this video of Curtis Stone showing you how it is done. Grilling cheese until it’s golden? Sign me up.

To make the grilled veggie and halloumi salad, slice 8 ounces of halloumi into 1/2” slices. For the vegetables, prepare one peeled red onion by cutting into wedges. Cut the two zucchini into thick slices, one red pepper into thick strips, and eight mushrooms cleaned and halved. Place veggies, halloumi, olive oil, salt, and pepper in a large bowl stirring to coat all the ingredients.

Next, in a small bowl whisk together 3 tablespoons of tahini, 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Heat grill or grill pan to medium-hot. Cook veggies and halloumi in batches, turning once until charred. Place both halves on the lemon on the grill and cook until you can see grill marks on the lemon.

Arrange salad greens on a large platter, top with grilled veggies, halloumi, tahini dressing and fresh parsley. Season to taste. Squeeze grilled lemon over salad. Serve immediately.

Other veggie-forward meals that you may want to check out:

Tomato Bruschetta with Aged Balsamic Drizzle

One of my favorite things to do with a bowlful of garden tomatoes is to make tomato bruschetta with an aged balsamic drizzle. Sweet, juicy tomatoes flavored with shallots and garlic atop of a crispy slice of baguette. Bruschetta is the garden’s gift to people who love to snack.

I don’t recommend making bruschetta with store-bought tomatoes, they just don’t have a desirable flavor and texture. You might be able to get away with using the little grape tomatoes if you are desperate for bruschetta when tomatoes aren’t in season. But, I typically only pull this recipe out during the summer months.

Bruschetta is a quick and easy appetizer to serve with drinks or as a starter served with soup or salad. Much of this recipe can prepped ahead of time. Bruschetta can be assembled just before serving or I like to set up bruschetta bar and let my guests assemble their own.

How to Make Bruschetta

Once you’ve chopped the tomatoes, the other veggies and seasonings, the bruschetta mixture should sit in the fridge for a while. This will allow the flavors to develop. The next step is to make the balsamic reduction. The drizzle of balsamic vinegar adds a tangy sweetness to the tomatoes. Reducing balsamic vinegar on the stove top in a small saucepan until syrupy is easy and yields a delicious result. If you haven’t tried making it, do it! You won’t be disappointed.

So, the clock is ticking on garden tomatoes…..tick, tick, tick! So, before they are gone, grab a gorgeous baguette, slice it up, brush the slices with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Broil or grill until golden and crispy. Top with tomato mixture, and a drizzle of the balsamic reduction. Consume and repeat!

If you want to understand what makes a good French baguette then check out this short video.

Other appetizer recipes you may want to check out:

Burrata Caprese Salad

Traditional Caprese salad is made with fresh mozzarella and tomatoes. But, when tomato season is in full swing, I like to kick my Caprese salad up a notch by using heirloom tomatoes and burrata. Heirloom tomatoes offer a dizzying array of colors, shapes, and textures, plus they are delicious. Burrata is fresh mozzarella which is stretched thin and flat. Then a mound of a cream is placed in the center and the mozzarella is wrapped around the creamy center. It is decadent, delicious, and definitely worth seeking out! So, give Burrata Caprese Tomato Salad a try.

What is Burrata?

This year I found a nursery that grows a huge variety of heirloom tomato starts. I spent half of a morning walking through their greenhouses looking up pictures and information on my phone about unfamiliar tomatoes. The staff was super helpful and gave me recommendations on their favorites. Now, I am starting to see the fruit maturing into gorgeous specimens.

I always grow tons of basil. For the last few years, I have planted three basil plants which are very happy in my herb garden box. The plants end up looking like bushes, deliciously fragrant and huge bushes. I chop those babies down two or three times during the summer and make big bashes of pesto. Some of the pesto I use right away on pizzas or pastas. The rest of the pesto I freeze in ice cube trays and transfer the frozen cubes into freezer bags to use during the rest of the year.

But, I am going off on a little bit of tangent here, aren’t I? Back to the heirloom tomato and burrata Caprese salad. I like to slice up the large tomatoes into slices, cut the medium-size tomatoes into wedges and half the small or cherry tomatoes. I like to use a variety of shapes and colors and lay the tomatoes pieces out on a platter.

Then, I take the burrata and rip it up into pieces and place them into the nooks and crannies of the tomatoes. Many people put whole basil leaves in their Caprese salad but I like to stack a bunch of basil leaves one on top of another and then roll them up into a little cigar shape. Next, I will cut the basil cigar into thin ribbons and then sprinkle the ribbons all over the tomato and burrata mixture. Doesn’t that look pretty?

To finish the salad, I drizzle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salad and season with salt and pepper. Delizioso!

How to Make Burrata Caprese Salad

Other recipes you may want to check out?

Portobello Mushroom Pizzas

I love pizza. Let me be very clear, I could eat pizza every single day of my life. I am not necessarily proud of that fact but it is the truth. For me, there is no greater comfort than warm, melted cheese stretching from the plate to my mouth. Bring it on.

But honestly, sometimes I don’t feel like messing around with dough. I am one messy cook, I get flour everywhere even if I am only rolling out store-bought dough. Enter Portobello mushrooms. They are perfect stand-ins for pizza crust. Mushrooms are hearty and meaty and their cup shape perfectly holds sauce, cheese, and any toppings that you enjoy.

For a quick and easy weeknight dinner use jarred or canned tomato sauce. I use for mozzarella for its ability to melt into stringy gooeyness, provolone for its flavor, sand parmesan for its sharp bite. I like the combination of cheeses but you can skip the provolone and I still think you will be happy with the result.

For the toppings of this Portobello mushroom pizza, I love sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes, and ribbons of basil. But, you can swap out these toppings for anything that you prefer.

I also love olives and onions. Sometimes I use pesto for the sauce instead of marinara sauce. I have a stash of pesto in my freezer from last summer’s bounty. I freeze the pesto in an ice cube trays. Make these your own with your favorite toppings or whatever you have on hand.

The secret to pump up the flavor of the Portobello mushrooms is brush them with a garlic butter mixture before you fill them with sauce and toppings and pop them in the oven. Trust me, it is delicious.

Other mushroom recipes you may be interested in: