summer – Page 2 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

2-3: Salad Niçoise

Jamie Martin Group 02: Salads, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters July 27, 2020November 24, 2020anchovies, black olives, black pepper, capers, chilled, dairy-free, dressing, eggs, emulsion, fish, flaked, French, garlic, garnish, gluten-free, green beans, minced, olive oil, peeled, potatoes, Romaine lettuce, salads, salt, seafood, sliced, summer, tuna, vinegar, white wine vinegar

Salads are usually a good choice when it’s hot out, and since we’re currently in the middle of summer (here in the U.S.), 2-3: Salad Niçoise (pronounced nee-swah) might be a good choice for an upcoming meal. Plus, it primarily uses readily-available canned/jarred ingredients, which can be helpful for both budgets and pandemic shopping.

Salade niçoise is a well-known dish (like the last recipe I covered, 14-8: Baked Alaska), and there are many different versions of it out there. Even Simply Delicious alludes to the different variations in their blurb above– although what they insist as a “must” (eggs, tuna, olives) seems to be up to interpretation.

14-8: Baked Alaska

Jamie Martin Group 14: Hot Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods July 4, 2020July 27, 20201998 dinner, 4th of July, American, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, cake pan, cakes, cognac, cooking class, dessert, egg whites, eggs, fairly easy, favorites, folded, granulated sugar, hot desserts, Hutton house, ice cream, inexpensive, jam/jelly/preserves, layers, liqueur, liquor, meringue, pastry bag, piped, raspberries, revisited, rum, stiff peaks, strawberries, summer, the sims, vegetarian

Today is Independence Day here in the U.S., so let’s do one of my favorite desserts and recipes from this book, 14-8: Baked Alaska. Obviously Simply Delicious didn’t invent this dish–it’s an American dessert that’s existed since Civil War times and is so well known you can even make it as a Sim.

I have a history with this particular version of the dish, however. I first made it as my “showstopper” dessert for a big family dinner I cooked as a teenager (along with a similarly-aged family friend) many years ago.

I also taught about 200 K-8 kids (ages 5-13ish) how to make this recipe and several others as part of an after-school cooking class program that was one of my first teaching-related jobs. I’ve been waiting YEARS to write this one, so now it’s your turn with it.

2-21: Shrimp Salad

Jamie Martin Group 02: Salads, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters July 1, 2020July 2, 20201980s, avocados, chilled, chives, chopped, cooked shrimp, crème fraîche, dressing, easy, eggs, fairly expensive, garlic, gluten-free, grated, hard-boiled, horseradish, lemon juice, lettuce, lunch, mayonnaise, minced, peeled, saffron, salad shrimp, salads, seafood, shellfish, shrimp, sliced, sour cream, stiff peaks, summer, untested, whipped, whipping cream

Summer 2020 has been quite the disappointment so far, and still being stuck at home is tough. If you’re looking for something to lift your spirits, 2-21: Shrimp Salad probably isn’t going to do it. However, if you close your eyes while you’re eating it, maybe you can pretend you’re on the beach instead of your couch.

This salad features not one but TWO cream-based dressings, so you know it’s fancy. I recently covered 2-5: Caribbean Seafood Salad which also features a shrimp-based salad. However, that one includes apples, bananas, and asparagus, so this one might be a safer choice.

7-31: Lime Cayenne Pork Chops

Jamie Martin Group 07: Pork, Section 2: Main Courses May 26, 2020June 16, 2020black pepper, boneless, cayenne pepper, chopped, cilantro, citrus, deglazed, diced, dinner, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, fruit, garnish, grated, green onions, grill pan, grilled, Hutton house, lime juice, limes, lunch, marinated, meal prep, oranges, parsley, pork, pork chops, relish, revisited, salsa, salt, Southwestern, summer, supreme, tomatoes, vegetable oil, zested

In these trying times (are you tired of hearing that yet?), it’s important to make the food you have go as far as you can, and to reduce the amount of food being wasted. Even before “the Rona“, I’ve been spending many a Saturday (or Sunday) meal-prepping for the upcoming week, which has brought down our grocery bills (and our waistlines, but apparently not as quickly).

7-31: Lime Cayenne Pork Chops was part of a “pork chop” meal-prep week, prepared in tandem with 7-53: Cider-Braised Pork Chops and served with some mixed roasted potatoes courtesy of the CSA box. It’s “meat and potatoes”, but maybe with a healthier twist?

My mom apparently made this back in November 1993, and it was “good” and “easy”. I’m not sure who ranked it as such (since she doesn’t eat pork), but we’ll go with that recommendation.

15-45: Strawberries with Cottage Cheese

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 27, 2020February 25, 2020cheese, cold desserts, cottage cheese, dessert, easy, fruit, Grand Marnier, grated, healthy, inexpensive, juiced, lemon balm, liqueur, marinated, mint, nuts, orange peel, oranges, pistachios, powdered sugar, strawberries, summer, toasted, untested, zested

I had extra strawberries left over from 14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler, so I tried to reuse them into 15-45: Strawberries with Cottage Cheese. Simply Delicious is big on using cottage cheese in an effort to be “low-fat” (all the rage in the 1980s when this book was published) and healthy, but they’re not usually very successful.

Don’t be deceived by their pretty picture here. It’s not ice cream. It’s cottage cheese. Just keep that in mind going in.

14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler

Jamie Martin Group 14: Hot Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 25, 2020February 26, 20204th of July, à la mode, apples, baking powder, biscuit cutters, biscuits, butter, cobbler, cookie cutters, cored, dessert, dough, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, filling, fruit, gift ideas, granulated sugar, hot desserts, hulled, nectarines, party food, pastry, peaches, peeled, salt, sliced, strawberries, summer, untested, vegetarian, whipping cream

Finally, we’ve reached the first recipe (for this project) made in my new (to you) kitchen: 14-22: Strawberry-Peach Cobbler. It was summer and 4th of July, so something with fruit that goes well with ice cream was bound to be a hit.

Speaking of 4th of July, I made 2-37: Chicken-Salami-Rice Salad for a party that I attended with a guy that I had just started dating. 10 years later, this is the first recipe I cooked in my very first house, that I bought with that same guy (who I ended up marrying not long after I made that first recipe).

Told you this book has some memories.

15-17: Summery Cantaloupe

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods January 27, 2020March 9, 2020blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, breakfast, brunch, cantaloupe, cassava, chilled, cold desserts, currants, dessert, easy, fairly inexpensive, fruit, fruit salad, gluten-free, honey, honeydew, lemon juice, lemons, marinated, MD2019, melon, melon baller, mixed fruit, Mother's Day, port wine, raspberries, sherry, side dish, strawberries, summer, untested, vegetarian, watermelon

Obviously, the name of this recipe is 15-17: Summery Cantaloupe, and if you’ve seen any of the pictures of the recipe (like above, as a header image), you’ve put it together that the melon pictured is in fact, not a cantaloupe.

The CSA box that week provided a very nice watermelon, and so that’s what I went with for part of my Mother’s Day 2019 brunch (MD2019). Yes, I’m also behind on writing these up.

I’ve made Simply Delicious fruit salads for Mother’s Day before–if you’re looking for similar ideas, check out 15-19: Layered Fruit Salad and 15-30: Champagne Sundaes from 2017‘s brunch. If you’re up for the challenge of carving a cantaloupe (or in my case, watermelon), continue on.

15-26: Strawberry Pastries

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods November 11, 2019July 30, 2020chilled, cold desserts, custard, dessert, dough, dusted, Easter, egg yolks, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, fruit, granulated sugar, half-and-half, pastry, powdered sugar, puff pastry, sifted, Silpat, sliced, spring, strawberries, summer, untested, vanilla bean, vegetarian, wax paper, whipped, whipping cream

Still working my way through the backlog–we’re up to Easter with 15-26: Strawberry Pastries. Strawberries start to creep up everywhere in the springtime, and this dessert dish is a pretty classic use of them. ?

This recipe suggests using vanilla custard, but I’ve seen other similar recipes use fillings like Bavarian cream or crème fraîche. This is essentially a fancier version of strawberry shortcake (which often uses whipped cream), so I suppose it’s all dependent on how heavy or light you’d like to go with it. ?

15-36: Pear-Orange Sorbet

Adam Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods March 3, 2019October 29, 2020boiled, brandy, cold desserts, cored, dessert, easy, fairly inexpensive, food processor, frozen, fruit, Grand Marnier, granulated sugar, grated, Greenback apt, ice cream maker, liqueur, orange juice, orange peel, oranges, pears, purée, revisited, sorbet, summer, vegan, vegetarian

The photo of this delectable dish is enhanced by the superior dishware chosen to accentuate the fluffiness of the iced desert within. I made 15-36: Pear-Orange Sorbet before a few years ago when we first started this project, but I forgot to take photos. I finally got back to it in January 2019.

The recipe card describes this dish about as well as I could. The ripe pears did have an intense fruity flavor that was intriguing. Can’t beat that.

15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait

Adam Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods February 15, 2019October 29, 2020chilled, cold desserts, creamed, creamy, crème fraîche, dessert, egg yolks, eggs, fairly easy, fairly expensive, folded, frozen, garnish, gluten-free, granulated sugar, grated, layers, lemon juice, lemon peel, lemons, loaf pan, mashed, mason jars, meringue, parfaits, party food, purée, raspberries, sliced, sour cream, summer, untested, vegetarian, whipped, whipping cream, zested

A nice, cool parfait is the perfect dish for summertime. Raspberry and lemon are two of my favorite flavors and they blend together nicely to create this creamy dessert. My version of 15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait will look much different from what you see here, but it is equally as delicious even though it is lactose-free.

The set designer and photographer did a particularly good job of staging the photo for this recipe card. The fresh raspberries and lemon rind really add a nice pop of color. The choice of tablecloth, wine, grapes, and flowers each provide a nice contrast to the yellow and white creamy colors of the dish and the parfait itself.

Editor’s note: This entry was written last summer, but didn’t get posted until now.