Weekend Cooking: Summer Recipes

Labor Day Weekend marks the unofficial end of summer.  The kids are back at school, football season kicks off today, and, as my daughter informed me just moments ago, pumpkin spice lattes have returned to Starbucks.

I'm usually not as ambitious or adventurous in the kitchen during the summer, but did stumble upon a few recipes that have earned a spot in the regular rotation.

Southwestern Black Bean Salad from skinnytaste.com became an instant family favorite this summer.  You just can't go wrong with tomatoes, black beans, avocados, corn, and a delicious cilantro-lime flavor. I've served it both as a side dish at dinner and alone for a light lunch. The photo is from the skinnytaste website.

Another chilled vegetable recipe I've made multiple times this summer is Honey-Mustard Green Beans with Pecans from Real Simple. It's very easy to prepare, but must be done an hour or so ahead to allow time for the beans to chill.

Pan-Seared Tilapia with Lemon and Caper Sauce was also a big hit. This recipe, from Simply Scratch  via Pinterest, would work well with any mild white fish. I plan to make it often! Next time, however, I won't serve it with the honey-mustard beans... the plate looks lovely, but the flavors don't really complement one another.

Finally, I have to share the recipe for this Banana-Sour Cream Cake from Kraft. I'm not generally a fan of recipes that begin with a cake mix, but will make an exception in this case... it's rich and very delicious! Instead of baking it in a 9 x 13 pan and cutting it in half, I used two square pans and adjusted the baking time.

Have you added any new recipes to your repertoire this summer?

Weekend Cooking, hosted at Beth Fish Reads, is open to anyone who has a food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up over the weekend.

Tuesday Intro: The View From Penthouse B

Since Edwin died, I have lived with my sister Margot in the Batavia, an Art Deco apartment building on beautiful West Tenth Street in Greenwich Village. This arrangement has made a great deal of sense for us both: I lost my husband without warning, and Margot lost her entire life's savings to the Ponzi schemer whose name we dare not speak. 

Though we call ourselves roommates, we are definitely more than that, something on the order of wartime trenchmates. She refers to me fondly as her boarder - ironic, of course, because no one confuses a boarding house with an apartment reached via an elevator button marked PH. In a sense, we live in both luxury and poverty, looking out over the Hudson while stretching the contents of tureens of stews and soups that Margot cooks expertly and cheerfully.

The View From Penthouse B
by Elinor Lipman

My library hold arrived late last week, and I couldn't resist beginning The View From Penthouse B  right away. It's my first Lipman novel - very New York, very 21st century, and thoroughly entertaining.

What do you think of the opening paragraphs? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

The Sunday Salon: Right Now

Time // 8:10 AM

Place // In my favorite chair, with Zelda lounging at my feet.

Eating // Nothing yet, but I'm considering pancakes.

Drinking // Coffee... black

Reading // Right now I’m reading The View From Penthouse B  by Elinor Lipman. My library hold arrived and it's much more suited to my current mood than Half of A Yellow Sun  (which I've put aside after only 60 pages, but plan to pick up again later).

Listening // I have one CD left (of 14) in Salt Sugar Fat  by Michael Moss.... what an eye-opener! TransAtlantic  by Colum McCann is still on my phone, but I haven't listened all week. One third of the way in and I just don't care about any of the narratives, but will keep trying. I hate to waste an audible credit.

Blogging // I have lots of comments to catch up on today, but no motivation to write reviews... sigh.

Loving // Twin A's excitement and happiness as she moved into her off-campus apartment this weekend.. it warms my heart.

Anticipating //  Fall, my favorite season. Bring on the sweaters... and the pumpkin spice lattes!

Wordless Wednesday: Sunday Evening on the Lake

Tuesday Intro: Half of a Yellow Sun

Master was a little crazy: he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings, and had too much hair. Ugwu's aunty said this in a low voice as they walked on the path. "But he is a good man," she added. "As long as you work well, you will eat well. You will even eat meat every day." She stopped to spit; the saliva left her mouth with a sucking sound and landed on the grass. 

 Ugwu did not believe that anybody, not even this master he was going to live with, ate meat every day. He did not disagree with his aunty, though, because he was too choked with expectation, too busy imagining his new life away from the village. They had been walking for a while now, since they got off the lory at the motor park, and the afternoon sun burned the back of his neck. But he did not mind. He was prepared to walk hours more in even hotter sun. He had never seen anything like the streets that appeared after they went past the university gates, streets so smooth and tarred that he itched to lay his cheek down on them.He would never be able to describe to his sister Anulika how the bungalows here were painted the color of the sky and sat side by side like polite well-dressed men, how the hedges separating them were trimmed so flat on top that they looked like tables wrapped with leaves."

Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I started this book over a week ago for The Backlist Book Club, but have read only 60 pages. The writing is wonderful, the story is interesting, and although I have had little time to read, I still hope to finish before the end of the month.

What do you think of the opening paragraphs? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

The Sunday Salon: Even the Best-Laid Plans...

I suppose I should have known better. Summer reading, at least for me, is a myth. I wish for long relaxed hours reading outdoors, but historically I read much less during the summer months. It seemed like things might be different this year. July was a great month, thanks in part to some unexpected travel, but August is shaping up to be more typical. Here we are at the midpoint and I've finished only one book. It was longish, but still...

Remember my stack of planned reading from a couple of weeks ago? I doubt most of it will happen over the next two weeks. Here's how things stand now:

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver: Finished. A solid 4 stars... can't wait to discuss it with my book club.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie:  On page 66 after two short reading sessions. I really like the beginning of this book. The writing is lovely, and I'm using a cheat sheet to keep track of unfamiliar African names.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann: 33% done. I was listening to this on my iPhone, but have also downloaded an ebook from the library to make it a read/listen combination. I like it, but it hasn't really captivated me the way Let the Great World Spin  did. At least not yet.

Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss: Listening to CDs (on #8 of 12) in the car. This wasn't even on my August list, but Joy's three posts convinced me to borrow it from the library. The book is fascinating, yet maddening.

Since planned reading really doesn't work all that well for me, I've decided there will NOT be a list for September. However, Audrey and I are planning to read The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. You're welcome to join us!

How's your summer reading going?

Author Birthday: John Galsworthy

From today's Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of Nobel laureate John Galsworthy (books by this author), born in Surrey, England (1867). He's the author of the Forsyte Saga, a series of novels that satirically portray British upper-middle-class families. 

He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1932, and he used the prize money to help establish an international organization for writers, PEN. It's an acronym they chose for the group after someone pointed out that the words for "Poet," for "Essayist," and for "Novelist" in most European languages have the same initial letters (P-E-N). He refused knighthood, saying that he didn't think that writers should take titles. In 1967, his Forsyte Saga was adapted into a BBC TV mini-series, which was hugely popular in England.

I remember reading The Forsyte Saga over the course of one snowy week in January 2004, when PBS's Masterpiece Theater was rebroadcasting the season 1 mini-series prior to unveiling season 2. It was a reading experience that stands out just as much as the novel itself. The snow fell continuously, the wind howled, the roads were treacherous... and I sat by the fire, drinking endless cups of tea, lost in the drama of late Victorian and Edwardian England. It was bliss.

My edition included three novels and two interludes: The Man of Property (1906); the interlude (short story) "Indian Summer of a Forsyte" (1918); the novel In Chancery (1920); the interlude "Awakening" (1920); and the novel To Let (1921).

After reading The Writer's Almanac and remembering how enjoyable the novels were, I searched amazon and found the complete collection - all 9 novels and 4 interludes, and 2650 pages - for just 99 cents. I plan to "Buy now with 1-Click" momentarily.

While poking around, I also found this 2012 article from the New York Times  describing The Forstye Saga series as "the bodice-ripper that started it all". The "it", of course, being Downton Abbey. [Currently 144 days, 12 hours, and 4 minutes until season 4 premiers in the US]

Have you read The Forsyte Saga  or watched the series? If you're a die-hard Downton fan like me, it might be a good project for the next 144 days.

photo credit