Thursday, June 26, 2008

The Thursday Three

It's baaaaaaaackkkkk....


As I opened my refrigerator earlier this week, I was struck by what I call "Summer Fridge". The contents just look different than, say Thanksgiving Fridge or Dead of Winter Fridge. And this led to
the question of


Summer Fridge Staples


What's in your fridge when the weather heats up and all the fabulous stuff starts getting ripe?



Here are my big three.



#1. Lemonade and Iced Tea. One for the kids and one for me. We also do limeade and pink lemonade and even strawberries mashed up in a pitcher of lemonade. (See #3). I'm a big iced tea drinker and usually have a pitcher of it at the ready. My southern family was continually disgraced by my loathing of sweet tea, but I do love to toss a slug of lemonade on top of a nice cool glass of tea. I'd like to say that I make sun tea, but I don't. I do it the down and dirty way in the coffee brewer. Make it at night, let it cool, and voila! This is especially important now as I'm trying (for the three millionth time) to give up diet sodas. This is gonna be fun. Snarl.





#2. Salad. Two weeks ago it was a big bowl of tabbouli with garbanzo beans and sun-dried tomatoes instead of fresh, thanks to the whole tomato/salmonella thing. Last week it was a corn and black bean salad with a cilantro and cumin vinaigrette. At the moment it's an asian coleslaw with ramen noodles and sunflower seeds. I'm blessed with kids who are salad maniacs, so I try to always have something available that gets better if it sits a few days. I'm still looking for that one magic salad (other than Caesar which doesn't keep) that all three of them adore, but I have a whole repertoire of salads that two out of the three happily eat. I figure if I keep rotating them it all works out.








#3. Berries. Mostly strawberries, but blueberries as well. At the beginning of the week my bottom shelf was completely loaded with strawberries, but the supply is dwindling low by now. My kids are all junkies. A few years ago (the last time there was a crop in this area), we went blueberry picking and came home with about fifty pounds of them for the freezer. For months, every time I turned around I had a kid with blue teeth. We have a friend with a crazy productive raspberry patch. They can't give them away fast enough once they start. One of my projects this week is to try to get together all the orphan blender pieces I have laying around and put together one whole working blender. It's smoothie time at Casa RC.


Better than a diet soda any day. Right??

12 comments:

Rudee said...

I second the salads. Especially cold pasta salads with chicken, grapes and nuts. Fruit salads are wonderful too.

Nectarines, peaches and strawberries.

Ice cold beer. It's a perfect thirst quencher on a hot summer day.

Pam said...

your salads sound delicious. as of right now, our 'summer fridge' consists of NADA. i don't know what it is, but we don't keep a lot of food around when the girls are gone for the 7 wks w their dad. kind of good for me as i'm trying to go 1200 calories or less a day. now if i could just get my lazy arse to exercise again. thyroid levels are all whacked so sleep, eating, and exercise patterns are fubar.

Mya said...

Radishes, houmous, the last of the cherries, soon we will have cucumbers coming out of our ears - sounds painful! And enough tomatoes to sink a battleship. What's the tomato salmonella thing you mention? Don't tell me they're off the menu?

Mya x

la bellina mammina said...

We have summer fridge ALL YEAR long!! LOL! Full of salads, fruit, yakult, juices, ice cream and the occasional dessert I'll whip up!

softinthehead said...

Now that i've looked in there I remember it needs clearing and cleaning. Plus all this talk of salad has made me hungry and it isn't 7am yet!! :)

Kim said...

Our current favorite is an avocado salsa with lime and cilantro that's just to die for. Last night we had it with chicken fajitas, but my favorite way to eat it is with tortilla pieces baked in the oven with a little olive oil and salt. Yum.

Raspberries. My favorite and my daughter's. The boys, not so much.

Yogurt cups. Everyone but my daughter loves them and they're great with fresh fruit.

ped crossing said...

Berries, berries and berries.

I used to also have lemonade in there, but since giving up citrus it is rarely there. And then only for the boys.

Favorite salad: Spinach with strawberries and sunflower seeds with a berry vinaigrette dressing.

Akelamalu said...

I have a salad for lunch every day summer and winter and fruit salad for breakfast so my fridge usually looks the same all year round.

Marti said...

Right now our '3' in the fridge is berries, consisting of strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, veggies in a some sort of balsamic marinade and romaine lettuce for lettuce wraps. Any kind of protien, veggies, gets wrapped up in the lettcue leaf.

The young one is counting down the days!!

Cath said...

I'm a salad person in summer. I love iced tea too but England is too cool for it most of the time and I prefer to have a warm cup of tea!

laurie said...

beer. we have lots of beer. also, white wine.

Susan said...

I like berries, but we usually eat them right away. About the only thing that is different is watermelon, and maybe more ice cream.