Too Hot To Cook

Never!

The trick - lighter meals - and today recipes are all about produce!

On the menu:

Chilled Avocado Cucumber Mint Soup

Green Bean and Maroon Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

Blueberry Panna Cotta

Admittedly, avocados are not local- but they are so good, and this is the season. Cucumber and mint - readily available at the EGFM. The recipe is so simple - no cooking!

And it looks beautiful too!

The recipe:

2 cucumbers, roughly chopped

1 avocado, seeded

2 or 3 scallions, rough chop

1 1/2 cups plain kefir (try the goat milk kefir from Shellbark Hollow) or buttermilk

1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream

juice of 1 lemon - 1/4 cup

1/4 cup chopped mint

salt and pepper, to taste

Place the cucumbers and avocado in a food processor - whirl till smooth. Add the remainder of the ingredients and whirl to combine. Refrigerate for about 4 hours before serving.

For a side dish I used these beautiful maroons from Burkholder's Organics - they're carrots with a lovely red / maroon color - peel lightly so you don't lose the color.

Look at how beautiful they look after slicing -

For the salad I simply steamed some green beans till crisp - then chilled in an ice bath. I tossed the beans with the maroons - and then dressed with a lovely citrus vinaigrette.

And now for dessert -  blueberry panna cotta - the easiest, elegant dessert.  Start with the best berries - Blueberry Hill Farm and Frecon Farm had lots of berries at market.

I'll admit this is a decadent dessert - 2 cups of heavy cream! The recipe is for 4 servings but you could easily stretch it to 6 servings. Yum - all of the little black flecks are vanilla seeds from the vanilla bean.

 Want to try a lighter version - here's one made with buttermilk.

An EGFM shopper - Mary - offered up her easy, fortified peach yogurt - she likes to cut up a fresh peach from Frecon and mix it in with her favorite peach yogurt - now that's peachy!