So long, summer break

and hello, summer veggies!

School started up again for me last week but before life gets too crazy I thought it would be nice to add something to this poor, neglected blog.

This weekend, a good friend and I had a picnic on campus.  She brought some delicious homemade miso soup and hijiki rice and I decided to throw together some vegetables I bought at the Saturday Berkeley farmers market and make a salad.  Everything was so refreshing and wholesome and it was really nice to start off the year with some quality, home-cooked food.  

Arugula Summer Salad

arugula

red onions

heirloom tomatoes

yellow and green summer squash
peaches

basil

mozzarella cheese

simple dressing: olive oil and vinegar mixed with finely diced clove of garlic and some chopped basil

Just mix the above ingredients +/- any of your choosing and lightly dress.  It's so summery and delicious!

This weekend also marks the 40th anniversary of Chez Panisse so I thought it was very fitting that we cooked our own meal and used some seasonal ingredients.  Then I found out that Cheeseboard was giving out free slices that same night.  Oh well...

By the way, we got to go to Chez Panisse twice this summer.  I think my life is complete.

For dessert I made a peach galette.  I used a recipe I found online for the dough (a Lindsey Shere recipe too!) and just added some sliced peaches, also from yesterday morning's farmers market.

Unfortunately, the oven started smoking halfway through and all of the smoke detectors in my apartment went off.  After running around, madly waving couch cushions beneath the screaming alarms, I called the landlord.  Hopefully we'll have a new oven by tomorrow.  As for the galettes, they just got to sit in the cooling oven for the next half hour.  They probably could have used some extra time, but they turned out all right.  

The recipe for the galette dough can be found HERE.

The original recipe makes one 10-inch galette but I turned it into 4 mini ones.  I'd really recommend the dough because it turns out nice and flaky just like a pastry.  I would not recommend that you bake it in a faulty oven.

On a couple of the galettes I added some diced basil, just to be weird.  I should have added more or omitted it entirely because it wasn't really an obvious flavor and looked a little weird.  But experimenting is fun and I'd definitely suggest you try making these with all sorts of different fruits.  A plum galette sounds pretty good.

Now it's time to start they year off right and actually get some work done!  Hope to post again before too long.