A Plate Full

That’s what I purchased at the farmer’s market this week.  Oh, and Pluot plums, but more on them in another post.  It’s summer.  It’s time for lighter food, and easy preparation.  It’s time for the freshest, most available, and abundant fruit and vegetables we can find.  They don’t need a long and involved cooking process and in some cases, like this, they don’t need cooking at all.  This is tomatoes with Italian burrata cheese.  Drizzled with your best olive oil, and sprinkled with coarse salt.  Amazing. The burrata cheese comes from The Truffle on 6th Ave. here in Denver.  I’ve been buying heirloom tomatoes for a couple of reasons, the local tomatoes haven’t really come into their own just quite yet and these taste more like summer tomatoes right now, and  second, they’re pretty!  They’re deep, deep purpley red, and striped green, bright yellow with red centers, orange……so great looking on your plate.  The cheese is the basically mozzarella  with a ricotta center.  It’s so soft and luscious.  It fills your mouth with a clean fresh cream taste, the perfect foil for tomatoes (and very nice on slathered on grilled bread).  No cooking involved, slice, plate, drizzle, sprinkle.  You, your guests, and your mouth will be so very happy.  And you’ll have time to put your feet up, drink another glass of wine, and watch the sun go down.  I’m so happy summer is here.

Now these babies…..

So lovely with their ivory and fuchsia skins, and more beautiful on the inside with a faint pale green ring and bright pink and white center. This bunch was very peppery, I would cut them into smaller pieces for an addition to a salad. The consistency is not as crunchy as the smaller red radish we get all year, but more of denser sort of carrot slice feel. As an appetiser they would be great on a crostini with a smear of goat cheese underneath, some fresh herb scattered on top, how elegant that would look!

Go see what your local farmer’s market has, I promise, you’ll find some wonderful and surprising things!