Farmer’s Market Panzanella: Salted Tomatoes, Zucchini, & Crunchy, Garlic-Herb Walnut Bread Crumbs + My Favourite Summer Recipes

The wine was flowing as the sun dipped into the ocean.  Laughter was heard far from our picnic area as I danced barefoot with dear friends.  Friends that hadn’t been together in years but whose friendship was as strong as the moon’s pull, gathered for a festive dinner on the beach.  A couple weeks ago, these were the nights of our summer.

My summer memories from Alabama always include local bands playing music on the waterfront while we danced with warm beers in our hands.  Those days, eating anything other than crawfish were rare and spending any time in the kitchen just took away from beach and boat time.  Our recent trip to California brought back these carefree summer-time memories and I carried that same easy-breezy mentality when I returned home to the kitchen. The days of summer always make me yearn for impromptu backyard BBQ’s with friends and dishes you can throw together quickly.

 

 

As the sun is gradually starting to set earlier here at home, it is a grim reminder that summer is slowly coming to an end. And I realized: I haven’t shared one of my summer recipes!  Summer begs for simple dishes: playing up the flavors of seasonal produce with a pinch of salt, fresh herbs and a simple oil and vinegar mixture. The crisp, fresh taste of summer doesn’t need much to highlight its most complex flavors, which is exactly what I’ve done here. The mere act of salting tomatoes and letting them marinate in their own juice transforms these brightly coloured fruits into a flavour explosion in your mouth!  Add some crunchy “pangritata” (a seasoned bread crumb and walnut mixture from Jamie Oliver), crisp green beans and some sweet, cooling zucchini, and you have one of the easiest summer salads that will impress any guest! 

Over the past few months we have been enjoying vegetables and whole foods in their purest, most simple form to ensure we get the most out of our farmers market finds as well as our summer nights.  Some of my favourites include blistered snap peas and broccolini with a sweet tahini sauce, sprouted mung beans and lentils with sweet roasted carrots and a cilantro yogurt sauce, harissa-spiced noodles with garlic greens and arame, and sliced zucchini and yellow summer squash with mint and macadamia nuts. (By the way, I have wanted to share all of these with you but haven’t had the time to photograph! Hopefully soon!).  

To give you a bit more inspiration for the last days of summer, here are some of our family’s favourites:

• an easy quinoa salad by Bon Appetit that I can’t stop eating
• a celebration of summer with this fruit tart from Sarah at My New Roots
• a way to use up the abundance of summer zucchini with a healthy version of Brooke’s zucchini bread over at Chocolate and Marrow
• one of the most delicious fresh herb-marinated fish, and sliced raw veg recipes from Aran at Cannelle et Vanille
• a perfect backyard BBQ lamb burger with whipped feta and grilled tomatoes from Ashley at Not Without Salt (you can trade in the lamb for ground turkey as well!)
• summer in a bowl with Green Kitchen Stories’ Summer pasta with smashed tomatoes 
• my very favourite succotash from “The Kind Diet”

 

I hope you have found some inspiration to lengthen your summer evenings with this easy and quick salad.  Invite over some friends, throw some food on the grill, turn up the music, and keep the wine flowing.