Adapted from Alice Waters's recipe (https://food52.com/recipes/14155-alice-waters-ratatouille)

Serves 3

• 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided, plus more to taste
• 1 medium onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 4 to 6 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 bunch basil, tied in a bouquet with kitchen twine + 6 basil leaves, chopped
• 1 pinch dried chile flakes
• 1 sweet peppers, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 medium summer squash, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 2 ripe medium tomatoes, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• Salt to taste

Courtesy of The New York Times

Serves 4

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
2 (12- to 18-ounce) packages shelf-stable or refrigerated potato gnocchi
¼ cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
¼ teaspoon red-pepper flakes, plus more for serving
Kosher salt and black pepper
2 pints small tomatoes, such as cherry, grape or Sungold
¼ cup thinly sliced or torn basil leaves (optional), plus more for serving

The fattoush salad has always been one of my favorite salads. It is a lettuce-less salad and has bread in it -- what's not to like! But fattoush salads are the kind of dish where everyone's grandmother makes it differently. This recipe is the closest I've found to my ideal fattoush salad.

Ingredients

1 whole wheat pita bread
[roughly equal parts cucumber, tomato, red pepper + half-part onion]
1 large English cucumber OR 2 small Persian cucumbers, diced

Inspired by something I saw on a menu, I created this nice summer salad.

Lettuce
Cherry tomatoes
Red Onion
Red pepper
Corn
Avocado
Hard-boiled egg
Bacon (sub: shredded brisket, fried onions)

Dressing:
Mayo
Grated parmesan
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper

or vinaigrette thickened with a little mayo

1 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 large tomato
2 jalapeño peppers, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp salt

This recipe is courtesy of our friends Sarah and Jason. They gave us a wonderful wedding gift set of a deep dish pizza pan, italian spices, and a great cookbook. Helpfully, they included this recipe as well!

Recipe in progress, using these two as guides:
http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/recipes/strawberry-fennel-g...
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/strawberry-tomato-and-fennel-...

This recipe is a hybrid of Sharon's recipe and and a very intense online recipe. My guess is that both are derived from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Serves 6. Bakes in a 9x9 pan.

Meat sauce:

Cook and stir together until meat is brown and onion is tender:

• 3 Italian sausages (approx 0.5 lbs, mixed between mild and spicy; can substitute ground beef for all or part)
• ½ cup chopped onions
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• ½ cup sliced mushrooms

I am a big fan of any number of "middle eastern salads" - lettuce-less salads which go by different names (with slightly different twists) in a variety of middle eastern and mediterranean cuisines. Yes, there is a difference between a fattoush salad and a shirazi salad, but frankly, I find that what I want is the same basic recipe with a few optional modifications, depending on how the dish will fit into the week's menu.

The basic vegetable components of the salad are:
Diced tomatoes (or halved cherry tomatoes)

This dish makes a great week-long side dish for summer - a chilled, but protein-rich vegetarian dish!

1 can black beans
1 can pinto or small red beans
1 can small white beans
2-3 jalapenos, chopped
1 medium white onion, diced
1 bunch cilantro, lightly chopped
juice of 2 limes
1 can or 2 ears corn (boil, cut off kernels)
salt and pepper to taste
salsa, to taste

Avocado
Tomato
more limes to taste

Mix together all but avocado and tomato and let the flavors marry overnight. Add chopped avocado and tomato, and more limes and salsa to taste, upon serving.

Audrey whipped this up to go with grilled or pan-seared salmon. It was easy and delicious!

For the salsa fresca:
2 parts cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 part rough chopped kalamata olives
1 part diced red onions
1 part feta, crumbled
lemon juice
olive oil (if possible, from a jar of sundried tomatoes)
Salt and pepper, to taste

For the salmon:
Wash and thoroughly dry the fillet.
Season the flesh side with salt and pepper, a dash of smoke salt, garlic powder, lemon pepper, and a dash of herbs de Provence

Heat grapeseed (or other, high-heat) oil in a skillet

I grew up eating americanized gazpacho (from various supermarkets and restaurants) that, though good, has nothing on a true creamy Spanish-style gazpacho. On my first trip to Spain, I had an absolutely delicious gazpacho in a random (and probably tourist trap) restaurant on Las Ramblas in Barcelona. I still remember that dish and seek out true Spanish-style gazpacho wherever I can.

So I was delighted to find, upon reading James Michener's Iberia on my second trip of Spain, a recipe for authentic gazpacho included in this wonderful travelogue of the author's time in Spain in the 1960s. Even though Spain has changed much since this book was written, it is still a very interesting account of the country, and I would highly recommend this book for anyone traveling there. (As a side note, unrelated to gazpacho, while I was in Toledo, I sought out a restaurant that Michener frequented and spoke with the owner, "la jefa," who fondly remembered him.)

(And back to the soup... beginning on p. 340, incidentally where my book is starting to come apart) Michener says "gazpacho is Spain," and he is absolutely correct. He tells the reader, "If you ever travel in Spain and come upon a restaurant that serves gazpacho, take it, because no other dish in the country will you remember with such affection." After describing the recipe, he remarks "No part of this strange recipe sounds very good, but taken together and properly blended, these ingredients produce a soup which is as distinctive as vichyssoise."

Whenever I make gazpacho, I use Michener's recipe because I know it is pure, authentic Spain. No exact measurements, no modern interpretations - just the soup as it has been made for generations. In describing the typical preparation, he notes that Spaniards prefer the soup made with one cup of olive oil and no more than a tablespoon of vinegar. He then says that "Americans, of which I am certainly one, prefer not more than a quarter cup of oil and four tablespoons of vinegar." After a bit of experimentation, we found ourselves somewhere in the middle. This recipe is our version of the dish, americanized to be sure, but all Spanish heart.

There is no "real" recipe to Jon's chili beyond the base set of ingredients and improvisation with spices and available ingredients. If there are fresh peppers, they go in. If there's homemade salsa, it definitely goes in. Beer (Shiner Bock I find is best) cuts the spice level nicely without removing the flavor.

I sautee the onion/garlic/jalapenos until tender, then add the meat and brown it. Add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes, then add whole habaneros and the first spices (salt, pepper, first group of spices). Add 4 cups of water and some beer and bring to a boil.

I began making my own hot sauce during Peace Corps - peppers were plentiful, but good, non-tabasco-style sauces were hard to find (and generally bad). It's always a big hit, but actually really easy to make.

You can also see this recipe in a much more amusing flowchart form (PDF)