The summer solstice may not arrive in the Northern Hemisphere for another seven days, but I’m not exactly known for my patience. I’ve been on summer mode for weeks. I’ve hit the beach at the Rockaways. I’ve knocked back frozen drinks on sun-dappled patios. I’ve cut out of work at 3 p.m. on a quiet Friday. I’ve eaten so, so much ice cream.
It’s time for my cooking to follow suit by leaning heavily on plump produce and requiring very little of me, a person who is already late to the park or the pool or the party. I’m talking zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers and corn with minimal fuss — or, ideally, with no application of heat at all.
With the freshest summer squash, Yasmin Fahr’s zucchini salad with bread crumbs (above) is in order. The zucchini itself is left raw, softened by a zippy mustard and lemon marinade. The marinade does call for anchovies, but our wonderful readers are already one step ahead with a tried-and-tested substitution: “I veganized this recipe by switching out the anchovies for one tablespoon white miso, a dash of tamari and a dash of caper brine. Turned out great!” one commenter wrote. The only bit you need to turn on a burner for is the briefly toasted topping.
Zucchini Salad With Bread Crumbs
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For Hetty Lui McKinnon’s cold sesame noodles with cucumber, corn and basil, you needn’t turn on the stove for anything other than quickly boiling chewy rice or wheat noodles. (And if you already have cooked leftover noodles in the fridge, all the better!) Cut up the cucumbers, strip the corn of its kernels, pluck a handful of basil leaves and stir together a three-ingredient dressing. That’s it. No, really.
If it’s not too hot to squeeze in a little sheet-pan or stir-fry number, Yasmin’s heap of juicy, lightly scorched zucchini, tomatoes and feta may be just the meal for you. Season the produce with a little soy sauce, cumin and red-pepper flakes before it’s broiled, and add the cheese to the mix not long after. I’d eat it all directly off the sheet pan, ripping off hunks of baguette to sop up the juices.
Hetty’s stir-fried cucumber and tofu, a vegan riff on cucumber-and-pork stir-fry, shouldn’t heat up the kitchen much, either. Because you want the cucumbers to maintain a delightful crisp-tender texture, they need only a couple of minutes in a wok over high heat after you’ve browned the tofu.
But back to giant-air-quotes cooking, courtesy of Ali Slagle: Tomato! Cheddar! Toasts! I know you don’t need a nudge to slide thick, glistening tomato slices onto bread during the summer. But the way she treats the cheese here is a revelation. Instead of melting the shredded Cheddar, she mixes it with mayonnaise before slathering it on toast, a tip she picked up from a cookbook by Chris Kronner. Over the still-warm bread, the combination becomes “a creamy base somewhere between a queso and pepper-free pimento cheese,” she writes.
“This is less of a recipe and more of a great reminder to ravenously enjoy summer tomatoes, and for that, I’m so glad,” a reader wrote. Hear, hear!
Tomato Cheddar Toasts
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One More Thing!
You thought I’d write about supple summer produce and not include desserts for all of your mangoes and berries and cherries? It’s like you don’t know me at all.
Baking in the summer is already asking a lot, so let’s keep oven efforts to a minimum. David Tanis’s mango crumble is so simple, I thought it might be missing a step. It isn’t! It’s just that easy. Jerrelle Guy’s strawberry spoon cake is so unfussy, you can use frozen fruit instead of fresh, if that’s what you have on hand.
And because pitting cherries is enough work in itself, don’t even bother baking them. Just make Melissa Clark’s cherries jubilee to jazz up all your summer sundaes.
