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4 Ingredients to Cook with Right Now

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I love summer vegetables– especially grilled corn! Louisa from Living Lou is sharing four of her favorite summer ingredients, along with accompanying recipes to make the most of the in season veggies.
4 Ingredients to Cook with Right Now
Guest post by Living Lou
The summer is the best time to get in the kitchen because of all the fresh produce available. I live in Toronto, which means the winters are pretty dreary for produce (very jealous of anyone in California, you guys get all the good produce all year-round). So I like to make the most of it while I can. Peaches and blueberries are two things I can’t get enough of right now, but now that it’s August (the summer really is flying),  I want to focus on a few ingredients that will be available this month. Head to your local farmer’s market or the grocery store and pick up these four of-the-moment ingredients. 
Corn
There is nothing better than sweet corn on the cob (and did you know, corn is native to North America? It’s thought to have been first cultivated in Mexico thousands of years ago). I love to slather my corn with butter and salt. A quick tips is to always buy corn with husks. The husks should be bright green and the silks should be slightly moist and yellow or brown (this means they’re fresh). Try it in my new favorite recipe for charred corn and farro salad. 
Basil
Fresh herbs are one of the best parts of the summer and basil, the slightly sweet, minty and anise flavored herb is one of my favorites. I find fresh basil is great for finishing dishes or tossing raw into a salad – it doesn’t hold up very well in hot preparations. I’ve been on a big salad kick and this recipe for grilled zucchini salad is packed with fresh basil and capers. 
Zucchini 
Zucchini is one of the most bountiful crops of the summer, if you’ve ever grown zucchini in your garden you’ll know this! It’s hard to keep up with the amount of zucchini one plant can produce. But one of my favorite ways to use this sweet and slightly grassy vegetable is to grate it up and make zucchini fritters.  
Eggplant 
Eggplant thrives in the summer so this is a great time to make use of this vegetable. I’ve found that eggplant is a great meat-alternative for vegetarians because the texture is quite meat-like. With a somewhat earthy and bitter flavor, eggplant becomes something fantastic when it hits the grill. It brings out a smokiness you might not expect. Eggplant soaks up flavor, so marinating is a great option for this vegetable. Try grilled eggplant skewers this weekend or a Greek-inspired eggplant salad. 
What ingredients are you cooking with these days? Let me know in the comments below!


xoxo
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12 Comments

Jordyn Brown

We have a huge garden at our house and right now we have tons of zucchini, squash, tomatoes, corn, and cucumbers! That means lots of fresh produce with every meal, but also canning lots of yummy stuff so we'll have veggies all winter long 🙂

xoxo, SS

The Southern Stylista

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