After a break of a couple of months, I am happy to be back in my kitchen. And, happy to be communicating with you again. I’ve missed my readers and fellow bloggers, I’m looking forward to catching up with you. It’s been a very busy summer, filled with what I call “non-cooking” plus a fair amount of travel for both work and pleasure.
September always marks an ocean shift for me, I sense change in the air. It’s not just the weather (it’s Indian Summer) and a new season. It is the promise of new beginnings. Do you feel that? I think it’s a hold over from school days when September meant new notebooks, pencils, teachers, and reunions with friends.
My blog has it’s first anniversary this month, hard to believe that it has been an entire year!
All the best summer food is fresh, simple, and only lightly cooked (if at all). Here’s a sample of what has been cooking in my kitchen.
Chicken marinated in lime juice and grilled with zucchini, served with a fresh green sauce thickened with avocado.
Grilled Chicken and Zucchini with Green Sauce
Grilled steak with potato hobo packs (also on the grill), served with pickled shallots and chiles.
Grilled Rib Eye Steaks the Hobo Potato Packs and Pickled Chilies
Mexican shredded vegetable salad made for a friend’s daughter’s engagement party.
Mexican Vegetable Salad
Grilled salmon from off the boats at the harbor in Fort Bragg. The season ends this month so we are enjoying it at every opportunity.
Grilled local salmon
The salmon was marinated briefly in leftover pickle juice from a jar of last year’s beets. It added the lovely pink color you can see here plus a tartness the countered the fish’s richness.
Corn and green bean salad with pickled shallots and jalapeños.
Corn and green bean salad with pickled shallots
In my kitchen there are lots of lovely farm fresh tomatoes and two Hass avocados. The tomatoes are best dressed with good olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. All that is needed to make a complete meal is some fresh local cheese and sourdough bread. I cannot eat enough fresh tomatoes as they are now at their peak. The season is too short and winter tomatoes are horrid.
In my kitchen are the last of the summer’s strawberries. There’s time to make one more batch of strawberry preserves before the season ends.
Organic Strawberries
In my kitchen I have some new tools.
I found this spatula the other day, it’s a new twist on my favorite well-worn fish spatula (the scratched one on the right). The outer edge of the new one has a silicone coating, so you can use it on non-stick pans without scratching them. It makes cooking eggs a breeze, the silicone edge will allow you to scrape the edges of the pan for scrambled eggs, and slide the thin edge under the egg for fried ones.
These measuring spoons are just the right size and shape for reaching into the jars that herbs and spices come in. Trying to tap ground spices out of the jar onto larger spoons is frequently a messy job. These fit nicely into the jar and there is even a 3/4 tsp. measure.
I’ve been looking for a spiral whisk for a long time. My mother had one (I’m not sure where it went to) and it was amazing for whisking eggs. I finally found one on-line. 
And what is this contraption? It’s a “Spiralizer” otherwise known as a spiral vegetable slicer. This one is by Paderno, there are several types available. Paderno was one of the first and gets a high rating on Amazon. You use it to make the famous zucchini noodles that have taken the internet by storm. There are lots of other uses as well and I look forward to experimenting with it. Anyone have any wonderful recipes to share?
Spiralizer
What’s happening in your kitchen and how has your summer or winter been? A change of seasons is in the air.
This post is part of the on going series “In My Kitchen” hosted by Celia of Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. Follow the link to read about September in kitchens around the world.
Wow what delicious healthy looking meals reside in your kitchen!
Thank you! It’s not difficult in the summer. In the winter my desire goes to heavier and more carb laden.
Happy first anniversary!
Thank you Laura. Your blog and the lovely photos are an inspiration.
Thank you Liz….
Your tomatoes look absolutely stunning! I’d like to have lipstick in that color.
They are a lovely color aren’t they? You must be enjoying good tomatoes in San Diego as well.
Really impressed with the egg/fish lifter, measuring spoons and the whisk. Oh I miss fresh tomatoes and those strawberries, ahhhhhh!
I remember the middle of last winter when I was so envious of your own tomatoes and strawberries. It’s my problem with Donna Hay magazines as well, although I love the pictures.
Happy blog anniversary. I’m seriously craving fresh tomatoes. Can’t wait for the warmer weather here, so I can follow your lead and get some serious salad action happening.
Just a few more months for you. By then I will be digging into my stash (which I have yet to do) of canned and frozen ones. It’s been so dry here that I am looking forward to our winter rain. I’m debating whether to put in a fall garden.
Happy anniversary – I’ll make a toast to your first year Liz but not with a glass of fizz but with a summer tomato sliced onto my sourdough and sprinkled with a smidgen of salt and black pepper. Cheers! x
Thank you. That is my kind of meal! Tomato heaven.
Hi Liz, we have all that wonderful summer food to look forward to and you will be thinking stew and braises soon. I love all your new toys, it is so much fun buying kitchen bits and pieces.
Thank you Glenda, I still can’t get over your imaginative “tablecloth”!
It is fun looking for new things for the kitchen, now I only need to clean out the cupboards and drawers which are overflowing.
Happy first anniversary for your blog, Liz. That’s a lovely milestone. Love all your beautiful fresh produce. Happy cooking xx
Thank you. All the IMK bloggers are inspirational. Many of you have been doing this for years. It’s such a lovely community.
Happy first anniversary on the blog Liz. That fresh grilled salmon, marinated in lime juice pickle, sounds fantastic and looks so good in the photos.
Thank you Francesca, it was one of those “why not” moments that turned out well. We’d just finished the last of the pickled beets with our eggs that morning and I hated to throw out the juice.
Wow– One year! Happy Anniversary! I love all your recipes- and would like to make that Mexican slaw which looks really amazing. Did I miss the recipe? That salmon also looks incredible and I would not ever have thought to marinade it in the beet/ pickle juice. So simple and elegant!
I know, milestone, yes? You haven’t missed any recipes yet, it will be posted in the next few weeks. The slaw was delicious and made fantastic leftovers for lunches over the next few days. I even stir fried some of it with some rice and leftover rotisserie chicken. There was a lot leftover from the party!
Yum – your Grilled Rib Eye Steaks the Hobo Potato Packs and Pickled Chilies looks delicious. Do you have the recipe for it up on your blog?
Hi Shari, I just posted it. Thank you, take a look at my most recent post.
Happy first Blogoversary. What a fabulously tasty kitchen – we are looking forward to our weather warming so we can enjoy more salads.
I would love a Spiralizer – what a fun tool for the kitchen.
Have a super day.
🙂 Mandy xo
Hi Mandy, I can’t believe it’s been a year! I remember last winter sighing over your lovely tomatoes…seasons change. I’m now looking forward to warm fires and long cooked stews.
Your produce looks so good ~ bursting with healthiness! Happy anniversary 🙂
Thank you Anne. The produce is wonderful this time of year. I always buy way too much at the farmer’s market.
Happy blog anniversary! Love the tomatoes. My season here is coming to an end. The plants are slowly dying off and I’m missing the big harvest. I can’t get enough fresh tomatoes in the summer! I love those measuring spoons. I’ve been thinking about getting similar ones as mine don’t fit in all jars.
I find myself using them most of the time now, it is so much easier measuring straight from the jar.
So sad to see the season end! I hope to put some up in my freezer before that last day.
As a New Englander, I’m impressed that you still grow strawberries in August! Our season ended at the beginning of July.
We get two seasons, spring and late summer or early fall, because there are two varieties which ripen at different times. It extends the harvest.
There’s nothing like your own tomatoes and strawberries and yours look amazing Liz 🙂 Love your new spatula too – I remember my nanna had one like that. I’m going to keep my eyes open for one with the silicone coating for my non-sick pans. Good to have you back sharing with us all your goodies in your kitchen #IMK
I found the first one at Sur La Table, and purchased the second on Amazon.
It is good to be back, I won’t be posting as frequently (my goal is 2x week) but hope to be consistent. And, I love the IMK series. It’s a highlight of the month to read what everyone is doing.