While it’s easy to find something fresh and delicious in the summer months, today’s tip is a good template for year-round dinners. Simply combining broiled or grilled protein (chicken, fish) and seasonal vegetables with a tasty sauce makes a healthful, flavorful dinner any time of year.

Just make (or buy) the yogurt sauce and chermoula sauce in advance (see “What Is Chermoula, below).

You can also use tzatziki—a cucumber-garlic-yogurt dip often found ready-made in with the other refrigerated dips—or its Indian relative, raita. Click on the links for recipes.

We adapted this recipe from a Good Eggs meal kit. You plate the food individually, or pass a platter with flatbread (naan, pita, tortillas) to pass around.

> Summer squash: The difference between green squash and yellow squash.

 
 
WHAT IS CHERMOULA SAUCE?

Chermoula is a North African marinade and sauce popular in the cuisines of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia.

As with pesto recipes, there are countless regional variations both in ingredients and proportions. But chermoula usually starts with a mixture of fresh herbs (especially cilantro), olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, garlic, and salt.

Flavorful chermoula is typically used with fish and seafood, and its green color adds brightness to what we personally refer to as “the ubiquitous beige and brown foods.” Variations include black pepper, fresh coriander, ground chiles, onion, pickled lemons, and saffron, among others.

Chermoula is also used to flavor meat, poultry, and vegetable dishes. You can use it to coat fish and chicken before broiling; we love it as a condiment with lamb.

Here’s the recipe for chermoula sauce.
 
 
RECIPE: SMOKY CHICKEN & SUMMER SQUASH

While we crave the smoky, summery flavor of food off the grill, we don’t have access to one in our small city apartment. Our broiler is our substitute. As a time saver (and to avoid cleaning the broiler), we often buy pre-broiled chicken breasts at Trader Joe’s.

You can make the chermoula and yogurt sauces up to 3 days in advance. You can use the chermoula or yogurt sauces on the salad in addition to the wraps, or pick another salad dressing of your choice.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. MARINATE the chicken at least 30 minutes before cooking, to 2 hours or overnight. Mix all ingredients of the marinade in plastic zip-lock bag. Add the chicken and make sure that every piece is covered evenly. Marinate in a fridge for at least 30 minutes to 2 hours or, better yet, overnight. Place the chicken and all of the marinade in a baking dish.

2. PREHEAT the broiler and line a sheet pan with aluminum foil. Wrap the flatbread in aluminum foil. Bring the sauces from the fridge and place in serving bowls to warm, and set aside.

3. RINSE and slice the squash and spring onions at an angle, into coins. Toss with a pinch of salt and some olive oil and arrange in a single layer over half of the sheet pan. Place the chicken on the other half, leaving space in between each piece. Drizzle the marinade over the chicken if desired, but don’t reuse any protein marinade (uncooked marinade can retain bacteria from the raw proteins).

4. BROIL on the top rack of the oven for 8 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables have browned. Then, place foil-wrapped bread on the bottom rack of the oven to heat for 2 minutes, or until warmed through. While the chicken is broiling…

5. WASH the romaine and prepare any other salad ingredients of your choice.

6. REMOVE both the sheet pan and bread from the oven. Plate and serve chicken and veggies with a dollop of yogurt sauce, a drizzle of chermoula, and warm lavash!

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*Thinner is better: Thinner squash are more tender than fatter ones, and better suited for rolling in the flatbread.

†Spring onions substitute: Spring onions are not the same as green onions/scallions. They are immature bulbs of red or yellow onions, with bulbs about 1-inch in diameter and green tops that can either be eaten fresh or cooked. If you can’t find them, pick the smallest yellow onions from the bin.

‡Easy marinade: Some Americans have defaulted to marinating chicken in bottled Italian salad dressing, which may be convenient but is pricier and less elegant in flavor than an easy homemade marinade. Just combine oil, acid (vinegar or citrus juice), minced garlic, salt, and pepper, plus a bit of honey or maple syrup for a nuanced sweetness. As a guide, start with 6 tablespoons olive oil, 4 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce, 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice or wine vinegar, and flavorings of choice: 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoons honey, 3 to 6 cloves of minced garlic, and to taste, a few dashes of hot sauce, salt, and pepper.
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[2] Chermoula sauce (photo courtesy Off The Meat Hook).

[3] Green and yellow summer squash are “fraternal twins” in the same species (photo courtesy Produce On Parade, which has a delicious recipe for both squash in a green curry sauce).

[5] Crookneck yellow squash can often be found at farmers markets (photo courtesy Only Foods), which has lots more information about them.

[6] Eight-ball squash, the size of softballs, are an heirloom variety (some are hybrids), can be found at some markets—or grow your own with seeds from Burpee.

In terms of cooking and eating, there is no difference; although some find that yellow summer squash (straight neck or crook neck) to be a bit sweeter.

Both belong to the genus and species Cucurbita pepo, which originated in Mexico. Their species siblings include winter squash such as the field pumpkin and acorn squash, among others. All are subspecies of the pepo species.

How can these latter thick-skinned winter squashes be siblings of the delicate-skinned summer squash?

Summer squash is picked while still immature and thin-skinned so that the skin and seeds are still soft and edible. They also grow on bush-type plants that do not spread across the ground, like winter squash and pumpkin. A few healthy and well-maintained plants produce abundant yields.
 
 

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This vanilla milk is made with honey. Here’s the recipe from A Well Fed Life. You can use your sweetener of choice (ours is Splenda).

An easy way to make coffee milk: Just add coffee syrup, as in this recipe from Cocktail Crafty.

July is National Ice Cream Month. In our neck of the woods, gourmet ice cream sandwiches have been the rage for a while.

What makes them “gourmet,” beyond the super-premium ice cream, is the sandwiching—usually homemade cookies in chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter and snickerdoodle.

When we make our own cookies for homemade ice cream sandwiches, we make chocolate-dipped graham crackers. When people ask what they can bring, we assign them a batch of cookies.

There’s plenty of time to invite friends and family for a casual ice cream social* this weekend or next. You set out the fixings, and let guests make their own sandwiches.

Then, make up your menu:

 
Limit the cookie, ice cream and garnish choices the first time out. See what gets consumed most; then you can vary the choices next time.
 
UTENSILS

 
BEVERAGES

What beverages go best with ice cream sandwiches?

Youngsters might clamor for soft drinks, but coffee and tea, hot and iced, go best.

You know your guests: Are they insistent on beer and wine, or would they be happy with an iced coffee—with a shot of vodka or coffee liqueur?

Consider these options, each of which can be enjoyed plain or with a shot:

 
RECIPE: VANILLA MILK or COFFEE MILK

Ingredients Per 8-Ounce Glass

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*To estimate how many cookies or waffle quarters you’ll need, multiply 2 cookies/sandwich times 2 sandwiches/guest.

Ice cream socials date back to 18th-century America, long before the dawn of electric freezers—not to mention electric ice cream makers. The ice cream was hand-cranked.

While a laborious undertaking, ice cream socials were very popular, traditional gatherings. According to Wikipedia:

 
ICE CREAM TRIVIA: THE FIRST FLAVOR

Many people would guess that vanilla was the first ice cream flavor, but that is far from the case.

You have to think back to the origins of ice cream, around 2000 B.C.E. in China, when the first ice cream was made from snow, flavored with fruit syrups.

The concept reached the Middle East via traders, and Alexander the Great brought it to Greece after conquering Persia in 331 B.C.E., where it became a treat for the nobility, who had the servants to fetch snow and ice from the mountains and turn it into dessert. The shaved ice and snow were combined with fruit toppings, honey and nuts—the first sundae, perhaps.

Vanilla, which originated in Mexico and was used to flavor the cacao drink, didn’t become a flavor in Europe until the 1600s. As in Mexico, only the wealthy could afford it.

Thomas Jefferson is credited with introducing vanilla to the United States in the late 1700s. He became familiar with vanilla at the court of King Louis XVI, while serving as U.S. minister to France (from 1785 to 1789). When he returned to the U.S., he brought 200 vanilla beans with him, and his cook had learned to make ice cream.

Here’s the history of vanilla.

Alas, when one’s palate evolves, those overly-sweet syrups from street vendors no longer bring pleasure. And the day-glow colors? Sheesh!

One way we’ve worked around this is to make adult snow cones with a better syrup like Monin or Torani—still pretty sweet—combined with a matching liqueur, in a 1:1 proportion.

If you have an ice crushing machine or a snow cone machine, it’s a great idea for a casual summer cocktail party.

And then, there’s the iced coffee snow cone, a riff on one of America‘s favorite warm-weather beverages.

We adapted this recipe from one by Nuggets Market—12 locations in northern California.

You can have a family-friendly iced espresso, or add Kahlúa or your favorite coffee liqueur.

Instead of coffee, you can make a variation with chai concentrate (we use Original Oregon Chai Tea Latte Concentrate), or with strong-brewed tea.

Serve them in a vessel of choice. Since we never got around to buying paper cones, we use a rocks glass and a spoon.
 
 
RECIPE: ESPRESSO SNOW CONES

Ingredients For 2 Servings

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the 2 espresso, vanilla extract, Coffee Mate and optional liqueur, and let chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. Once the mixture is chilled…

2. SHAVE the ice. Fill a blender halfway with ice cubes and use the “crush” setting. Don’t fill the blender more than halfway or the top ice won’t get crushed.

3. FILL the serving cups one-third full with whipped cream. Add the ice, pour the espresso mixture over ice, top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF SNOW CONES

Snow cones are the oldest form of ice cream—if you substitute a bowl or cup for the a cylindrical cone, which came much later (the history of ice cream).

The original “ice cream,” made in China some 4,000 years ago, consisted of flavoring snow with syrup. Fast forward to the 1850s, and you have ice shaved from large blocks into a paper cone or cup, topped with syrup.

Shaved Ice In 11th Century Japan

In 11th-century Japan, kakigori, a shaved ice dessert, is believed to have already existed. It was made from ice harvested in winter and stored in ice houses: a luxury available only to the wealthy nobility.

Ice was shaved into a metal bowl and eaten with a sweet sap from vines, hydrangeas, and ivy, with some golden syrup on top.

Around the 19th century, with the ice-making technology of the Industrial Revolution, kakigori was finally affordable to the general public.

The first kakigori shop was opened in 1872. The ice was flavored with fruit syrup, and optionally topped with adjuki beans and sweetened condensed milk.

Kakigori became a common treat, leading to modern versions of Japanese shaved ice and Hawaiian shave ice [source].
 
Snowballs In 19th Century Baltimore

On the other side of the world, in the U.S., historians trace the snow cone to Baltimore in the 1850s. When blocks of ice first began to be manufactured commercially, ice wagons would transport the huge blocks from factories to businesses—not just locally, but interstate.

[2] Classic snow cones: super-sweet, in day-glow colors (photo © La Estrella Bounce).

[3] Favorite childhood treat: a rainbow snow cone (photo via Katlin Cockrell | Pinterest).

[4] A Baltimore specialty: egg custard snowball with marshmallow topping (photo © Scott Suchman | Baltimore Magazine).

One of the easiest toppings to make at home was egg custard, a simple mix of eggs, vanilla and sugar (hold the cream!). It gave the “snow” a creaminess, closer to ice cream than the bright-colored fruit flavors that subsequently became popular.

Sources name Baltimore as the home of the “egg custard snowball,” where it remains a prevalent summer snack (photo #4—it’s now often topped with melted marshmallows).

By the 1870s, Baltimore theaters would sell snowballs in warm months. According to Wikipedia, “Signs in theaters instructing patrons to finish their snowballs before coming in to the second act are the earliest tangible evidence of snowballs.”

Around the city, snowballs were served on newspaper, but in the classy theaters, butchers’ boats were used. In the 1890s, patents for electric ice shavers were filed as Baltimoreans sought faster alternatives to hand-shaved ice.

Snow Cones In Texas

As the recipe spread, the name evolved. Plop the shaved ice into a paper cone or cup and call it a snow cone.

In 1919, Samuel Bert, who would invent an ice-crushing machine the following year, sold snow cones at the State Fair of Texas. But ice continued to be largely hand-shaved until Ernest Hansen of New Orleans patented the first block-ice shaving machine in 1934.

According to Wikipedia, during the Great Depression, snowballs became more readily available around the U.S. A cheap treat, they were nicknamed Hard Times Sundae and Penny Sunday.

Hansen’s ice shaver produced ice that had the consistency of snow, unlike the other ice shavers, which produced rough, crunchy ice (think granita)—a true snow cone [source].

With milk rationing during World War II, snow cones became a go-to icy treat.

Today’s snow cone syrups, available in dozens of flavors, have one thing in common: They’re all made in vibrant—not necessarily natural—colors.

[2] Zucchini on the vine. Zucchini is very easy to grow, with a large yield (photo courtesy Burpee).

What we like even more is summer zucchini, which we can often find for half the price of the winter offerings.

For a party or a family dinner—or to whip up quickly when friends drop by for a beer or glass of wine—try this cheesy zucchini pizza from The Baker Chick, one of our favorite food bloggers. Sign up for her emails at TheBakerChick.com. It’s well worth getting her recipe emails every week or two.

Shredded zucchini and mozzarella are spread on pizza crust over a ricotta/garlic mixture. (We also made a version with red sauce and kalamata olives—equally delish.)

The zucchini dries out a bit first, but it totally crisps up with the bubbly cheese.

“This is really simple but just so good,” says Audra, The Baker Chick. “I didn’t quite realize how much I would love this.”

You will, too! Audra made this as a pan (square or rectangle) pizza, but you can use whatever pan you have.

We added a different garnishes on different slices of the pizza. We loved them all!

We added the garnishes both after the pizza came out of the oven, and during the last 5 minutes of baking, with a slight preference for the latter (except for the fresh basil, which shows best then added out of the oven).

Bonus Tip: You can mix the ingredients the day before. Then, it takes just five minutes to roll the dough, sprinkle them on top and pop into the oven. In 15 minutes, it’s ready.

RECIPE: EASY ZUCCHINI WHITE PIZZA

Ingredients

1. PREHEAT the oven to 500°F. Drizzle a quarter sheet pan with olive oil, using a paper towel, basting brush or your fingers to make sure the entire surface is coated. Set aside. (You can also use a pizza stone.)

2. GRATE the zucchini and squeeze out all the water, either by pressing in a fine mesh strainer or with a paper towel.

3. MIX the zucchini with the mozzarella, adding salt and pepper to taste. In another bowl…

4. COMBINE the ricotta and garlic. Add salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste.

5. ROLL out the dough on a floured surface and stretch into the pan. Spread the ricotta mixture over the dough, and top with the zucchini/mozzarella mixture.

6. REDUCE the oven temperature to 450°F and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.
  

July 10th is National Piña Colada Day, for which we offer two Piña Colada cheesecake recipes.

The first is no-bake, family friendly recipe from from Invo Coconut Water.

It’s gluten-free, made with a coconut crust and a lighter filling that uses coconut water instead of cream of coconut. It is adapted

The second recipe is a richer version from Betty Crocker, using a traditional graham cracker crust, cream of coconut, rum and pineapple juice—the latter three, ingredients in a Piña Colada cocktail.

Here’s the history of the Piña Colada and the original recipe.

Two Pina Colada cheesecakes follow. The second one, below, is made with rum!
 
 
RECIPE #1: PIÑA COLADA CHEESECAKE WITH GLUTEN FREE CRUST

Ingredients For The Crust

 
For The Filling

 
Preparation

1. MIX the crust ingredients and press them onto the bottom of a springform pan.

2. WARM the coconut water in a small pan or microwave, sprinkle on the gelatin, and allow it to dissolve for 3 minutes.

3. COMBINE the sugar and cream cheese. Beat in the gelatin mixture and fold in the pineapple chunks. Pour the batter into the pan and crust refrigerate for 5 hours. If using the pineapple rings garnish, press them into the top of the cake an hour into the firming.
 
 
RECIPE #2: PIÑA COLADA CHEESECAKE WITH RUM

Ingredients For The Crust

 
Ingredients For The Filling

 
For The Glaze

 
For The Garnish

 
Preparation

[2]This recipe from Taste Of Home is decorated like a pineapple Upside-Down Cake, with pineapple rings and maraschino cherries.

[3] You can use a conventional pineapple cheesecake glaze with this recipe from Kraft; but we prefer to carry through the Piña Colada theme with option #4.

[4] This garnish of toasted flaked coconut seems the perfect topping (recipe from Blahnik Baker). Pass around some crushed pineapple for a topping. If you have the time, make a small dice of fresh pineapple.

2. MIX the crust ingredients in small bowl. Press the mixture onto the bottom of the pan. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set.

3. BEAT the cream cheese and 1/4 cup sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, until just blended. On low speed, beat in the remaining filling ingredients except the pineapple. Gently fold in pineapple and pour the filling over the crust.

4. BAKE for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes, or until the edge of the cheesecake pulls away from the pan but the center still jiggles slightly when moved. Run a small metal spatula around the edge of the pan to loosen the cheesecake.

5. TURN the oven off and open the oven door at least 4 inches. Let the cheesecake remain in the oven for another 30 minutes. Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for an additional 30 minutes. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight before serving.

6. MAKE the glaze. In a 1-quart saucepan, mix the reserved pineapple juice plus enough water to equal 2/3 cup, along with the cornstarch and sugar. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly, until the glaze is slightly thickened. Cool 20 minutes at room temperature.

7. TOSS the glaze with in large bowl with the pineapple and mango. Spoon onto the top of cheesecake when ready to serve. Garnish with mint leaves.
 
 

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