I was determined to get a lot of use out of our grill this summer, so I have cooked several new recipes on the grill that were great. One is a Grilled Lemon-Parsley Chicken Breast recipe from Cooks Illustrated that had a quick 30 minute marinade with 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, and 1 tablespoon minced garlic.  It turned out really well and everyone loved it.  I’ve also started grilling more veggies on the grill, just with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Our favorite is grilled zucchini.

I’ve been really inspired this summer by the beautiful vegetables available at our farmers market.  I’ve been trying a number of new recipes using different vegetables.  Some of our recent favorites have included making corn salad and cooked corn with corn cut off the cob.   I also just tried two recipes that I got from Barefoot Contessa cookbooks (I now have the full set and am working my way through all of them!) Zucchini Pancakes from Barefoot Contessa at Home was a big hit with the entire family (I served them with baked chicken for dinner).  My sister introduced me to Salmon & Melting Cherry Tomatoes from Barefoot Contessa Foolproof.  We grilled the salmon instead of panfrying it and it was wonderful, but my favorite part was the Melting Cherry Tomatoes recipe.  I used it over three meals in two days: we ate it with the salmon for dinner, then with scrambled eggs the next morning for breakfast, and I used the last of it on a pizza I made for dinner.  It’s a simple sauté of olive oil, sweet onion, garlic, cherry tomatoes, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil.  Delicious!