Tomato-Basil Tart

When summer heaps its blessings of real garden-fresh tomatoes and pungeant basil upon me, I find as many opportunities to use them in the kitchen as I can. This recipe, using a pate brise crust and your choice of cheeses, is easy to make and delicious to consume. Plus, its beautiful, simple presentation inspires hungry awe in your family and guests. I made two of these tarts for a local houseconcert a couple of weeks ago and they were very well received.

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Delicious Summer Duo Tart

1 pate brise crust, pressed into a tart pan and baked in a 450 degree F. oven until crust is lightly browned and thoroughly dry.

1 1/2 cup shredded baking or melting cheese, like gruyere, swiss, mozzarella, queso fresco or feta (reduce the amount if you use feta)

4 garden-fresh roma tomatoes, cut into thin wedges and drained on paper towels

1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves

4-5 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup mayonaisse

1/4 cup grated aged cheese, like parmigiano reggiano, pecorino romano or cotija cheese

Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the baking cheese into warm tart crust. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 degres F. Arrange tomatoes on crust. Process basil and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped. Combine garlic, basil, mayonaisse, aged cheese and remaining cup of baking cheese in a bowl and spread over tomato wedges.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until cheese is melted and golden on top.

Let rest for five minutes before cutting and serving.

Golden Crescent Rolls

This recipe was also given to me by an Amish neighbor. These crescent rolls melt in your mouth! The first time I had them, I was a guest at an Amish quilting and the smell wafted through the house and mingled among the Pennsylvania-Dutch gossip that drifted from corner to corner of the quilt frame. While I think our host must have done something magical with her crescents to make them taste so fabulous and come out so fluffy, mine were good enough to be gobbled up immediately by my family.

Make sure you have plenty of real butter on hand!

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Edna's Golden Crescent Rolls

2 packages of yeast
3/4 cup warm water (around 105-110 degrees F)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
4 to 4 1/2 cups flour
2 additional tablespoons butter

In a mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, butter, eggs, salt and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.

Place in a greased bowl, turn once to grease the top, and cover. Let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled.

Punch down, divide in half and then roll each portion into a 12-inch circle. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and brush over the dough.

Cut each circle into 12 wedges. Roll each wedge up crescent-roll style.

Place on a greased baking sheet 2 inches apart with the point-end on the bottom.

Cover and let rise until doubled.

Bake at 375 degrees F. for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Brush with the additional butter.

No-Cook Cucumber Relish

This recipe was originally given to me by an Amish friend whose family uses it as a sandwich spread. For me, it reminds me of the bread-and-butter pickles my mom used to make around this time every year. While this doesn't take as long as those pickles did, the basic ingredients are the same. I make a couple of batches and freeze it. Some I eat on sandwiches and hot dogs and some I eat straight out of the jar. ;-) If you want to use it like bread-and-butters, just slice instead of grating or chopping the cukes.

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No-Cook Cucumber Relish

7 cups unpeeled grated, chopped or sliced cucumbers
1 cup diced green peppers
1 cup diced onions

Make a brine using:

1 cup vinegar
2 cups sugar

Stir to dissolve the sugar, but do not heat! When sugar is dissolved, add:

2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon celery seed

Pour over cucumber mixture and refrigerate in a covered container. Let it stand for 24 hours in the fridge before using. Freeze some for later.

Vanilla Ice Cream

We've tried a lot of vanilla ice cream recipes and certainly none of them have ever been rejected, but once we'd tasted this recipe, we realized we'd never need another. This recipe comes from The New Best Recipe book from the people from Cook's Illustrated, and it's a custard-style ice cream, which means it's made with lots of egg yolks. So if you're in the country and have access to fresh, free-range eggs (and there is a difference, believe me) and raw milk, this recipe is the way to go. We use a hand-crank ice cream freezer because we like for everyone to earn their ice cream, but the same outcome can be had with an electric ice-cream freezer.

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split in half and scraped out, or 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
4 large egg yolks

Fill a sink or large bowl with ice-water and have a strainer ready over another large bowl that will fit inside the sink or large bowl. Heat the milk, cream, 1/2 cup of the sugar and the vanilla seeds and pod (if you're not using a vanilla bean, wait until later to add the extract) in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring to bread up the vanilla seeds, until steam appears and the milk is warm, about 175 degrees, which takes around five minutes. Do not boil the milk.

Meanwhile, whisk the yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a medium bowl until combined and pale yellow. Whisk half the warm milk mixture into the beaten yolks, 1/2 cup at a time, until combined. Whisk the milk-yolk mixture into the warm milk in the saucepan over medium heat amd cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until steam appears, foam subsides and the mixture is slightly thickened or measure 180-180 degrees. Do not boil or eggs will curdle. Immediate strain the mixture into the bowl you have ready and set it in the ice-water bath. Cool and stir until it comes to room temperature. Cover, refrigerate, and chill until it gets down to 40 degrees, 3-24 hours.

Remove and discard vanilla pod. If you're not using a vanilla bean, add the vanilla extract now and stir well. Pour the custard into the ice-cream freezer and churn following the manufacturer's instructions. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until solid, at least a few hours, depending on the freezer. We usually wait until the next day to serve it. It will keep up to two days.

Black Raspberry Cobbler

The previous owners of our little cabin in the woods christened the acreage by which it's surrounded "The Thicket" because of the thick growth of brush and cane fruits throughout the woods. All around the cabin grows berries of all kinds, mostly red raspberries, blackberries and black raspberries. Our first year in The Thicket, I was pleased to find that I could fill many baskets with blackberries and black raspberries, and we seized the opportunity to eat as many fresh berries as we could. But we also made Black Raspberry Cobbler, a fabulously delicious treat that we topped with homemade vanilla ice cream.

You'll notice that there are several steps in between which you do not stir your ingredients. Folow these directions and you'll end up with a moist cobbler with a delicately crispy top crust.

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Black Raspberry Cobbler

1/2 cup melted butter
3/4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups black raspberries
1/2 cup sugar

Pour the melted butter into the bottom of a 7"x11" baking dish. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, 1 cup sugar, flour and baking powder. pour this mixture over the butter but DO NOT STIR.

Pour the berries over the batter and butter but DO NOT STIR.

Pour the remaining sugar over the berries but DO NOT STIR.

Bake the cobbler at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, or until the crust is browned and set. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream!

Banana Split Muffins

Years ago, Tina, one of my best friends, made these muffins for our family and we were immediately smitten. This recipe is just slightly different from the one she made for us--hers had Miracle Whip and this one has real mayonnaise. Before you shun the recipe because of the mayo factor, notice that the batter doesn't include eggs. The mayo replaces the eggs and makes the muffins deliciously moist. It's a perfect recipe for when you have some of those near-liquid bananas to use. Sixteen-year-old Bard and four-year-old Baby made six batches of these today, giving us enough to eat and enough to freeze for quick breakfasts.

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Banana Split Muffins

1 1/3 cup mashed bananas (about 6 medium)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup semi-sweet miniature chocolate chips
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup real mayonnaise, not light or fat-free
1/3 cup drained, chopped maraschino cherries
12 maraschino cherries, cut in half

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. In another bowl, combine bananas and mayo. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the chocolate chips and chopped cherries. Fill greased or paper-lines muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until muffins test done. Press a cherry half, cut-side-down, into the top of each muffin. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire cooling rack. Makes one dozen muffins.

Alfredo Sauce

Here's a simple sauce that offers a whole lot of flavor. Be sure to use freshly-grated parmesan cheese, not the Kraft kind, because that has stabilizers and anti-caking agents that keep it from melting, and it ends up a globby mess. Grating your own cheese is so easy with a MicroPlane Grater and a hunk of Parmagiano Reggiano. By the way, I just read in Cook's Illustrated that this raw cow's milk cheese manufactured in the North of Italy really is superior to any U.S. parmesans for a variety of reasons, including animal care and feeding/grazing, hand-processing as opposed to mechanized processing, and aging time. Apparently the U.S. manufacturers of parmesan take quite a few shortcuts, and it shows when put to the taste test. So if you're ever tempted to replace your more expensive Reggiano with a Wisconsin parmesan, remember that. Creates quite a dilemma for locavores. Unless, of course, you live in Northern Italy.

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Alfredo Sauce

1/4 cup butter
1 cup heavy cream or whipping cream (try to find some that isn't Ultra-Pasteurized because it thickens better)
1 clove of crushed garlic
1 1/2 cups freshly-grated Parmagiano Reggiano or other high-quality grating cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Melt butter over medium heat in a medium-sized saucepan. Add the cream and heat very slowly for about five minutes, then add garlic and cheese and whisk. Heat through and cook on low until thickened. Stir in parsley. Serve this over fresh fettucine noodles!