(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
Summer cooking - whether it's a quick grill or just tossing together fresh cold ingredients - is marked by ease and speed. That alone, is enough to make some folks dread the transition to more complex autumn dishes, no matter how tasty they are. During these next weeks of seasonal transition, though, it's a wonderful time to synergistically blend the best of both times of year. Just tweaking warm-weather specialties is all it takes to shift the tone of a meal and keep it a tempter. This can be done lots of easy ways, like through seasoning (such as the addition of nutmeg and cloves to a cold summer tomato soup that's made creamier and warm for fall), inclusion of key ingredients (like summer fruit salads that get spruced up by a few chunks of persimmons and quinces) or through a culinary technique (such as making your grilled summer meats the stars of the autumn stewpot).
Cooking can be delicious, yet simple, nutritious and inexpensive, too, as the following split-second sensations prove. They take just
10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare. The dishes are tasty proof that everyone has time for good home cooking and, more importantly, the healthy family togetherness (including meal preparation with your children) that goes along with it! Another benefit: You effortlessly become a better cook, since
there are no right or wrong amounts. These are virtually-can't-go-wrong combinations, so whatever you choose to use can't help but draw "wows" from both family and guests, from "kidlets" to seasoned seniors.
SPICES
Nutty for Nutmeg
A summer soup might be a puree of fresh tomatoes, seasoned and served cold.
To tweak for autumn: Puree the tomatoes and add to the puree, cooked peeled potatoes of your choice, soymilk, freshly ground black pepper, salt substitute, as well as ground cloves and nutmeg. Heat after pureeing.
Turkey Burgers that Do More than Sizzle
Perhaps you've grilled ground turkey burgers all summer.
To tweak for autumn: Season the patties with ground cinnamon and curry powder before grilling until completely cooked. Puree a bit of peeled red apple, too, to whisk well into your ketchup as a simple seasonal condiment.
INGREDIENTS
Egg Yourself on with Autumn Add-Ins
Vegetable frittatas or filled omelets may have been part of your summer breakfast repertoire.
To tweak for autumn: Make a fine dice of cooked carrots, Brussels sprouts, beets, Belgian endive and leeks to include in your egg dish.
Fruit that Becomes Even More Festive
Fruit salads are a staple of summer.
To tweak for autumn: Use the same fresh base you have throughout the warm weather, like strawberries, cantaloupe and pineapple, but toss in a few chunks of exotic fall choices when they become available, like persimmons and quinces.
TECHNIQUES
Super Stews
Bring summer to the cool-weather stewpot.
To tweak for autumn: Grill chicken and all-beef or soy hot dogs and corn-on-the-cob the same easy way you would for a summer barbecue. Place chunks of the chicken and hot dogs in a stewpot with corn you've carefully scraped off the cob, along with canned butternut squash soup, chunks of yams or sweet potatoes you've quickly cooked in the microwave oven, add cayenne pepper and Creole seasoning. Simmer until hot, stirring often.
Summer Burgers Morph into Hearty Pot Pies
Pot-style pies popular during the fall don't have to include long-cooked roasts or poultry.
To tweak for autumn: Until completely cooked, grill lean beef, turkey or chicken burgers that have been seasoned with lemon-pepper salt substitute. After carefully removing from the grill, top with a mixture of grated cooked vegetables, such as carrots, celery and turnips, and drizzle with Worcestershire sauce. Drape with thawed puff pastry dough, brush lightly with beaten egg and bake briefly according to puff pastry package directions.
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Many of us have heard the advice to go vegetarian for just one recipe a week to begin reaping health benefits. However, it can be almost as easy to commit to entire vegetarian menus and then you're even more likely to get hooked. Make it simple by devoting yourself to one ingredient and threading it through your meal's dishes, like asparagus, potatoes or barley or thickening the broth of your first-course soup to additionally turn it into a sauce for a main course. You could use fruit among greens in an appetizer salad and then feature that fruit in a dessert. Authoritative books on vegetarian cooking often feature full synergistic menus, like "Joy of Cooking All About Vegetarian Cooking," which is part of a series from the original "Joy of Cooking" classic cookbook. It features menus for everything from a Middle Eastern Cocktail Party, to an Italian Garden Lunch, to a Soup and Salad Buffet, to an Easy Weeknight Supper that includes smoked tofu burgers, Peruvian potato salad and berry salad with roasted pepper dressing.
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
