Spätzle with parsley and Parmesan.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 3/4 cups flour, plus extra for kneading
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 quarts low sodium chicken stock
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons fresh chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan, plus extra for garnish
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. In a medium bowl, combine water, flour, eggs and salt with a wooden spoon. Place dough mixture on a clean cutting board. Flour both sides of the dough and roll into a long rectangle, approximately 12 by 2-inches and 1/8-inch thick. With pizza cutter, cut into strips, 2-inches in length and 1/4-inch wide.

2. Bring chicken stock to a boil in a large saucepan. Fill a large bowl with ice water. Drop spätzle in batches into boiling stock and cook until pasta floats to the surface. Remove and immediately transfer to the ice bath. Drain spätzle and hold on sheet pan. Continue with the other batches.

3. Once you’ve completed the cooking, in a medium saute pan, add butter, and melt over medium heat until butter turns a light brown. Add garlic and cook until it becomes lightly colored. Add spätzle to the pan to heat through. Add parsley, cheese, salt and pepper, to taste.

It’s really wonderful, very filling and is pretty simple. If you’ve never made your own noodles, this is a great dish to give it a go. It can be made gluten free with Red Mill flour as well.

Sautéd Broccoli with red pepper and garlic alongside our Teriyaki Salmon.

This is a really simple side, but the combination of garlic, crushed red pepper and just the hint of olive oil is really wonderful. You’ll have some interesting aromas in the kitchen and it’s really a nice combination to the sweetness of the Teriyaki glaze on the strong salmon. I won’t bother to go over the fish recipe again. This quick post is really all about the star side!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound of broccoli crowns, cut into florets (about 2 or 3 cups)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons of dried crushed red pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Place raw broccoli into a large bowl and toss with olive oil to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add red pepper.

2. Heat a large saucepan over medium high heat. Add garlic, broccoli and sauté for about 6 to 8 minutes, or until the broccoli reaches your desired tenderness. You may need to add a little more oil as you go.

3. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately.

It’s absolutely delicious and really fast. A batch takes no more than 7 or 8 minutes at the absolute most. Enjoy.

First of all, deepest apologies for the blurry photo of the finished product. I’m think my camera may have not been properly set on my manual macro settings and I got camera shake. Unfortunately, wifey and I had already eaten said tomatoes before I noticed the error. Rest assured, they look fairly appetizing upon exit from your oven. We had these guys with grilled spinach and feta chicken sausages and side salads. The creamy Danish Blue Cheese melted nicely with the breadcrumbs and the beefsteaks held up nicely to the broiling process. I always think I’ve found a winner when my wife says, “I’d order this in a restaurant.” Those words make for one happy would-be chef.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium/large beefsteak tomatoes (buy them the day of to make sure you can get some reasonably firm specimens. If they’re too ripe, they’ll turn out stewed)
• 1/4 cup of dry breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1.5 to 2 ounces of Danish Blue Cheese
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
1. Pre-heat your oven using your broiler setting. Low is fine, but if your oven forces a temperature on you, shoot for 350 to 400 tops.

2. Cut the top 1/4 of the tomatoes off. Use a pairing knife cut out a good portion of the ribs and seeds from the tomatoes and scoop them out with a spoon. Be sure to leave some of the seeds and juices so the breadcrumbs and cheese have some of those great tomato flavors to merry.

3. Mix breadcrumbs, herbs and olive oil in small bowl, mashing to coat. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and pepper and place in a small roasting pan.

4. Top each with 1 or 2 tablespoons of blue cheese and top it off with as much of the breadcrumb mixture as you’d like.

5. Toss it under your broiler and and cook tomatoes until slightly soft and cheese melts. Mine took about 10 to 11 minutes. Just be sure to check on them to be sure they don’t get too soft.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about some of my new breakfast experiments, as I’ve found a chicken and turkey Chorizo that Vita can eat. That means breakfast burritos y’all.

I take a little joy in knowing that fall (my favorite time of year) is just around the corner, but am admittedly a little sad to know that warm days lounging in polo shirts (and the best tasting tomatoes of the year!) are almost behind us here in Michigan.

To celebrate the ending of summer, I plan on grilling and whipping up as many cool refreshing salads as I can before the daily temperature continuously drops into the 70s and 60s. One such salad is Vita’s concoction. We eat it almost twice a week. It’s that good, and that easy.

Recipe – Tomato, Green Bean and Mozzarella Salad

Ingredients:

• 15 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 and a half cups of fresh green beans
• 1 tablespoon chopped basil (or use 3/4 tablespoon Gourmet Garden Basil because it works great in applications like this and is a wonderful substitute if you don’t have fresh)
• 10 halved fresh Mozzarella balls
• 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (only use if you opt for fresh basil instead of tubed)

Preparation:
1. Clean and snap ends from green beans. If need be, halve the beans with a pairing knife if they’re particularly long.
2. Salt and boil a large pot of water. Toss in your beans and simmer at a light rolling boil for approximately 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Immediately drain beans in a colander and transfer your beans to an ice bath to stop the cooking process (this keeps your beens crunchy in the salad, and cools them off, which is refreshing!).
4. Place your beans in a large serving bowl.

5. Add tomatoes, mozzarella, salt, pepper and basil to the beans and toss lightly in olive oil.

There you have it. Couldn’t be easier or more delicious. The cherry tomatoes ooze their delicious flavor over the beans in the tossing process and mingles ever so nicely with the flavors of the mozzarella and the cool green beans. It really is one of my favorite dishes that Vita has ever made me. We always make plentiful amounts, because it’s nice, light and healthy. Hopefully, you’ll give it a shot and enjoy some of summer’s parting shots of flavor.