Simple Summer Recipes

It’s that time of the year again: summer! You know, when the temperature starts to rise here in San Antonio, the kids are out of school, the cool pool water never sounded so good, and the last thing you want is a heavy meal. In other words, it’s summertime and the livin’ is easy! Maggie and Kelly are sharing a few simple summer recipes to help make your life in the kitchen easy.

Steak Panzanella (Maggie)

Panzanella sounds super fancy, but really it is just a rustic Italian salad that uses leftover bread and fresh veggies. Our family has modified it slightly to make it less carb-laden and heavier on the protein. But I have to admit, my carb-loving, bread-eating 10-year-old loves this! He doesn’t even complain about the veggies.

Ingredients

• 1 cucumber
• 1 box small tomatoes
• 1/4 red onion or 1 scallion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 4–5 oz. fresh mozzarella
• 1 bunch fresh basil
• 1 lb. flank steak or tri-tip
• 1/2 baguette, sliced thin and then quartered
• 2 oranges
• 1/2 c. white wine vinegar
• 1/2 c. + 3 Tbsp. olive oil
• Salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

1. The night before, marinate steak in the juice of 1 orange and 2 cloves of crushed garlic.
2. Turn oven onto broil. Chop baguette into bite-sized chunks. Toss in 3 Tbsp. olive oil, 1 clove crushed garlic, salt, and pepper. Lay bread in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Broil for two minutes and then turn bread. (This makes yummy croutons!) Let cool.
3. Grill steak to your preference (medium rare for our family). Let rest, then cut into bite-sized pieces. You can even grill this a day or two ahead of time when you are cooking another meal on the grill.
4. Chop up the veggies: bite-sized chunks for the tomatoes and cucumber (you may want to peel your cucumber first) and thin slices of red onion.
5. Chiffonade the basil.
6. Cut the mozzarella into bite-sized chunks.
7. Make the vinaigrette: combine the juice of one orange, the vinegar, oil, one to two cloves of garlic, salt, and pepper in a food processor and blend.
8. In a large bowl, combine the croutons, steak, veggies, and mozzarella. Toss with vinaigrette and serve. If you think you’ll have leftovers, then let people add the croutons individually—that way they don’t get soggy overnight.

My kids don’t love everything that comes out of my crock pot, but this particular recipe is always a winner with them. Ironically enough, it’s also the easiest recipe in the slow cooker section of my Paprika app. (Of all my iPhone apps, this one is maybe my favorite and most frequently used. If you love collecting recipes online, try it!) This is a great recipe for when you are feeding a crowd. For parties, serve the pulled pork with slider buns, because it’s just more festive to eat tiny food![hr]

1-2-3 Slow Cooker Pulled Pork (Kelly)

Ingredients

• 1 three- to four-pound package pork for carnitas (or boneless pork shoulder roast)
• 1 18-oz. bottle of your family’s favorite barbecue sauce (shout out to my home town favorite, Hays Co. Bar-B-Que Sauce!)
• 1 12-oz. can of Coke (HEB had the big liter bottles of HEB Original Cola on sale for $1 a bottle recently, so I just measured 12 oz. out of that, and really any soda will do. Just make sure you get the full sugar variety, not diet.)

Instructions

1. Put the pork in your slow cooker.
2. Pour the whole bottle of barbecue sauce and 12 oz. of Coke over the roast.
3. Cover and cook on LOW for eight to ten hours or until the meat shreds easily with a fork.
4. Transfer the pork to a cutting board, and shred it with two forks.
5. Stir the shredded pork back into the sauce, and serve on whole wheat hamburger buns.

I always buy a coleslaw salad kit to go with this meal (the HEB store brand is good and usually the least expensive). I prepare it in the morning, cover it, and keep it in the fridge until it’s suppertime. Most of my family likes to make their sandwiches with pork, coleslaw, extra BBQ sauce, and maybe some pickles on top. We often toss any leftover pork with ramen noodles for our daughters’ lunch boxes. Enjoy![hr]

Fresh Veggie & Shrimp Pasta (Maggie)

Summer is my favorite time of year for food. The fresh veggies are abundant, from either the farmer’s market or the grocery store. Meals just look more colorful and interesting.

Like most kids, mine love pasta. But I refuse to make it without lots of great veggies and some good lean protein. But like any busy mom, most of my meals are quick to prepare and quick to clean up. So I’m sharing one of our favorites: fresh veggie and shrimp pasta.

Ingredients

• 1 zucchini
• 1 red onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 box small tomatoes
• 2–3 ears of corn
• 2–3 cloves of garlic
• 1 lb. raw shrimp (shelled and tails off)
• 1 box Bucatini
• 1 c. white wine
• 1 c. chicken stock
• 1 stick butter

Instructions

1. Boil water in pot big enough for the Bucatini.
2. Using a mandolin, thinly shave zucchini, red onion, red bell pepper, and garlic.
3. Cook pasta according to directions.
4. Cut corn off the cob.
5. Drain pasta.
6. Using the pasta bowl, add shrimp with just enough oil or butter to keep them from sticking.
7. When the shrimp is mainly cooked, add all veggies and sauté for a few minutes (less than five). You may want to put the lid on the pot; this will help the tomatoes burst open.
8. Add pasta, butter, white wine, and chicken stock. Cook until the tomatoes break open and the liquid cooks down by about half.
9. Season with salt and pepper to taste. You may want to add grated Parmesan cheese or crushed, dried red pepper.[hr]

Corn & Black Bean Salsa (Maggie)

Summer picnics. Evenings by the pool. Dinners at friends’ houses. Potluck meals at church. Whatever the occasion, if it is summertime and I’m asked to bring a meal, this Corn & Black Bean Salsa is my go-to dish.

It is the easiest and most versatile side-dish I make. Serve it with tortilla chips and it becomes a dip, or skip the chips and make it a side salad. I served it poolside last week at Rob’s 40th birthday party, and three people asked for the recipe. So here goes:

Ingredients

• 1 can corn
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes
• 1/2 red onion, chopped finely
• 1 bunch cilantro, chopped coarsely
• 1/4 small bottle Italian dressing (your choice)

Instructions

Here’s where it gets really tough.

1. Drain all the cans.
2. Rinse the black beans.
3. Combine everything in one bowl.

That’s it!

Chill and serve (with or without tortilla chips).

If you want a slightly fancier version, substitute the canned corn for fresh corn (slightly steamed), substitute the Ro-Tel tomatoes for fresh tomatoes & jalapenos, and substitute a homemade vinaigrette for the bottled kind. I make a homemade vinaigrette with fresh squeezed orange juice, white wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic.

We’re serving it tonight with hamburgers. Rob will use it as a burger topping. The kids will eat it with chips, and I’ll have it as a side salad. So versatile and so easy!