Marinated Sweet Peas with Back Bacon and Burrata

Marinated Sweet Peas with Back Bacon & Burrata
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Every year I overload myself with summer recipes I want to test, photograph, post, and share. And every summer I find myself in a race against the calendar to get them all ship-shape and blog-ready before everything gives way to pumpkins and pecan pie. There is so much produce to play with during the summer and so little time. So every year, I leave this season with food-related regrets. Missing sour cherry season this year really burned my biscuits. But one thing I did not miss was pea season. And out of the numerous peas-related adventures I embarked upon this year, these Marinated Sweet Peas with Back Bacon and Burrata were my very favorite.

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Watermelon Fava Bean Salad

Watermelon Fava Bean Salad
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So here we are in August. How did that happen? Every year I ask myself that same question. I look down woefully at my summer bucket list and scold myself for all the boxes left unticked. But this year, that isn’t the case. I kept my list sensibly short due to the COVID of it all. I figured there was no point in grand plans when even a trip to a grocery store requires more than its fair share of forethought. Initially, I was bummed but now that I’m more or less free of mid-summer blues, I’m thinking a small, manageable agenda is what I should’ve been doing all along. I mean, it’s easy to get the most out of summer when all you want are cold beers in the backyard and this Watermelon Fava Bean Salad.

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Layered Horiatiki Salad with Farro & Tzatziki

Layered Horiatiki Salad with Farro & Tzatziki
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This Layered Horiatiki Salad delivers exactly what it promises. The classic Greek salad stacked. This showstopper borrows its format from the legendary Seven-Layer Salad but all the flavors are Greek. The produce on the other hand is local. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers found in this towering beauty are grown year-round right here in Ontario’s vast greenhouses. In the summer it’s easy to lose track of the veggies you always have on standby. It’s understandable, there is an abundance of seasonal produce looking its best right now. But you got to give it up for the veg that always has your back. This salad is a monument to the tasty jewels the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers consistently serve up.

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Lemongrass Shrimp Vermicelli Bowls (bún tôm nướng)

Lemongrass Shrimp Vermicelli Bowls (bún tôm nướng)
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No, your eyes do not deceive you, this is another Vietnamese cuisine appreciation post. I can’t stop waxing poetic about its wonderful sense of balance. The marriage of raw and charred, herbaceous and sour, sweet and salty. I just love it so much, I can’t believe I lived my first 25 years without it. But I did, so I will kick these Lemongrass Shrimp Vermicelli Bowls (bún tôm nướng) off with my usual disclaimer. This is not an authentic recipe, this is merely the recipe I have concocted over the past five years of making vermicelli salads or bún in my own home with only YouTube and Google to guide me. All this is to say I am not an expert, just a fangirl.

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