Fresh Corn and Tomato Salad

A few months ago a co-worker told me about the blog Chow which features San Francisco area restaurants and well as recipe suggestions. A couple of days ago the recipe which arrived in my InBox from Chow was a Fresh Corn & Tomato Salad . Since I had all of the ingredients for it on hand and since I was still in search of summer, I decided to give it a try (truth be told, I substituted frozen corn since I didn't have fresh corn on the cob). Again, this salad was a hit and just what I needed on a cool July day. Of course it's hard to go wrong with any salad which starts out with a 1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil! I loved the freshness of this salad and the combination of the sweet corn and tomatoes with the basil. It also couldn't have been any easier.

Cucumber Tomato Salad

July has been an extremely gray, foggy, and cool month here in the Bay area. San Francisco's high one day recently was a new record at only 56 degrees, and there was a couple of days this week that I used my space heater in my Berkeley office. Needless to say, I've been longing for the "feel" of summer! This just isn't what this Midwestern boy who spent the last 11 years in Southern California is used to for a time called "summer"! I was able to get a bit of the summer feel with this Cucumber Tomato Salad. After Steve's first bite he even explained "this tastes like summer". This quick and easy salad tasted extremely fresh and healthy. The addition of the feta cheese and optional olives provided a nice contrast to the balsamic vinegar. Every summer while growing up my dad always had a much bigger than necessary garden. Lots of varieties of tomatoes were in abundance each year since they are his favorite veggie. One of my mother's favorites were the cucumbers which she would used to produce a couple varieties of popular pickles. This salad conjured up some nice summer memories of the Kansas farm (and some not so nice like the hours of pulling weeds in the heat and humidity!).

Lemon Yogurt Cake

Our neighbor's lemon tree has produced a bountiful crop this year and they recently told us we could take what we'd like. They didn't have to tell me twice! In search of a new recipe to try which featured fresh lemon, I thought a pound cake might be fun to try. The second cookbook I pulled off my shelf had just what I was looking for...Lemon Yogurt Cake. While it didn't have the usual richness from butter like a typical pound cake, it was wonderfully moist with a great flavor. In addition to the lemon zest providing a fresh flavor to the cake, the lemon syrup and lemon icing both delivered an amazing taste while not being too in-your-face with lemon. On my first attempt I simply poured the lemon syrup over the freshly baked cake as the directions indicated, but I ended up with too much of it saturating the top center of the cake and leaving it with a gooey under baked appearance (as you can see in the photo). My second attempt at this recipe produced better results and it was warmly received at the office. This time instead of pouring the syrup over it, I used a pastry brush and basted each of the sides and ends of the loaf several times to more evenly distribute the sweet lemon wonderfulness. The combination of sweet, tart, and rich moistness really make the cake outstanding!