Summer Fruit Bruschetta with Banana Bread and Cream Cheese Vanilla sauce

The sauce:

3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 dash of cinnamon
1 cup yogurt (plain or vanilla)

Combine the cream cheese, brown sugar and vanilla.  Blend well — easier if using a hand mixer, but will come out smooth with just a bit of elbow work.  Add the yogurt and mix until smooth.  Refrigerate for 1  hour.

1 chopped Banana
2 fresh peaches or nectarines, chopped
1/2 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 lime
4 slices of thick banana bread

Prepare the fruits, combining the bananas, peaches and raspberries in a bowl.  Mix in the lime juice and refrigerate (up to 2 hours).

Once you are ready to serve, plate the banana bread, with pile of the mixed fruit on top, and a drizzle of the vanilla cream cheese sauce.  Serve immediately.

Some variations

• Toast the banana bread just prior to serving
• I’ve not had banana bread in the house, and have substituted this with cinnamon flavored bagels, or cinnamon bread.
• Sprinkle finely chopped pecans over top, after the sauce is drizzled on
• Make this fall inspired by using apples, raisins and walnuts, and  use pumpkin bread.  Add a bit of fresh (canned) pumpkin to the sauce

However, because of the vast amount of recipes, and their variations, I sometimes hold back and don’t bother to post a recipe — why, when there are 308,000 search results, should there be 308,001? Well, my own take on a recipe is what makes this blog work, I suppose. So, I’ll start to post a bit more.. even though you might find 308,000 other recipes of the same title, none of them will be exactly what I post here.

To that end…

Potato Salad..

From about mid-May, to the end of September, potato salad was made often by my mother — served with almost any meal — from the lowly hot-dog, to a nice pork roast, as well as fried chicken, a good steak, or just beer brats.

Every summer get-together had some version or other of potato salad, and, even within my own family — my grandmothers, my aunts, my mother — all the versions of potato salad were slightly different — one put in onion, one didn’t. One put in sour cream, one didn’t.

My own version of this recipe is akin to both my Gram, and my mothers version — it contains a lot of egg – my favorite part of this salad. I hope you enjoy it as much as I always have, and as my family always does.

One quick note here — I do not have measurements for this recipe. It’s one of those recipes you never actually use a recipe for. I just do it by eye. I will try and give some bit of guidance, however. This recipe assumes you will use between 10-12 medium sized red potatoes.

Potato Salad

Red potatoes
1 egg to each potato – (e.g. if you are using 14 potatoes, use 14 eggs).
Mayo – about 1-1.5 cups up to 2 cups if necessary
Mustard – anywhere from about 1/2 to 2/3 cup
Celery — usually 2 stalks, diced
Onion – a medium onion, diced
Kosher pickles (the more sour, the better), one large, minced
1 medium red pepper, diced
Salt and Pepper, to taste

The key to this potato salad is to have lots of boiled egg — one egg for each potato you use. Boil the eggs.

Wash the potatoes well, and then boil until soft, but not mushy. They need body to stand up to the mayo – you don’t want mushy potatoes here. If you overcook them, make mashed potatoes and try again ;).

Allow the potatoes and eggs to be completely cooled. I usually cook both the eggs, and the potatoes the day before, and then refrigerate overnight.

Dice both the eggs and potatoes. The eggs should be a small-medium dice, whereas the potatoes should be bite sized.

Prep the celery, onion, pickles and red pepper as above – diced. Have the mayo and mustard ready to go in.

Add the vegetables, eggs and potatoes to a large mixing bowl, and gently mix together. Now, add at least one cup of the mayo, and 1/2 cup of mustard. The best way to mix this is without a spoon — use your hands. Cover the mixture with the mayo & mustard, adding more to taste as necessary. I always over-add both the mayo and mustard as the potatoes will absorb a bit before serving.

Once you’ve mixed it well, add salt and pepper to taste, and chill for a few hours (or overnight) to allow the flavors to meld.

A friend from IRC – Wordsmith – knows of my penchant for trying new and different recipes and one day, about 1 1/2 years ago, I was hungry and not in the mood for anything. He told me to try strawberries and cucumbers. At first, I was like..what the heck kind of combination is that!?! But.. I ended up trying it, and falling in love with the tangy/sweet flavors.

Since then, I’ve found there are a lot of recipes for strawberries and cucumbers out there in the world — from salads and soups, to grilling and stir-frying. Who knew?!

I took the concept of this recipe from Wordsmith, and played around with it. I added the sugar and lemon juice, which seem to balance out the flavors once the vinegar is added. I used warm water to dissolve the sugar, though it isn’t necessary if you are not going to serve this immediately.

Strawberries and Cucumbers

1 pint of strawberries, cored and sliced
1 English cucumber, sliced – peel if it is a bitter peel.
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons warm water
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Combine the sugar, lemon juice and vinegar in the warm water. Peel the cucumber if necessary — I usually only do this if the peel is bitter. And even then, I like to leave a little on. I peel the cucumber so it is, in essence, striped. Looks pretty that way, ya know. Pour the sugar/lemon/vinegar juice mixture over the cucumbers and allow to sit for about 15 minutes or so.

Meanwhile, core and slice the strawberries. I like to slice them, you may just want to quarter them. Up to you.

Add the strawberries to the cucumbers and toss to mix. Serve.

Notes:

• If you are going to serve this later, you don’t need to use the warm water to dissolve the sugar — just mix it with the lemon juice and vinegar, and you are good to go.
• This salad is so good with left over chicken, or salmon. It’s also great with poached salmon. It’s also great with broiled salmon. Okay…..it’s just really really good with salmon, already ;)
• I’ve seen some recipes that add mint, use brown sugar, soy sauce, cider vinegar, add spinach..there are endless variations to this recipe.

This recipe is nice in summer, when you can pick the basil from the garden, or get it fresh from the market.

Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic and Basil Pasta Sauce

1 roasted garlic bulb
1 minced clove garlic (raw)
1/3 cup butter, cut into small pieces to soften
1/3 cup olive oil
1 handfull basil, chopped or as a chiffonade
Salt and Pepper to taste (kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper)
1 pound linguini, cooked al-dente
1/4 cup shredded cheese — parmesean, romano, asagio

Add roasted garlic paste, raw garlic, butter (softened), oil, salt and pepper to pasta bowl and mash together lightly — enough to mix the garlic and butter into everything.

Add basil and mix lightly again, reserving a small bit of basil for garnish.

Pour hot cooked pasta over sauce and toss to coat. Sprinkle with shredded cheese, and garnish with basil.