Root veg kaleidoscope.

Steamed carrot slaw with roasted beets. © Ryan Schierling

The challenge: Create an unforgettable side dish from random items in your refrigerator before time runs out. Who will rise to the occasion, and who will be… CHOPPED.

(WE INTERRUPT THIS POST FOR COPYRIGHT LIABILITY REASONS. IN THIS CONTEXT, THE TERM “CHOPPED” MIGHT BE A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF TELEVISION FOOD NETWORK G.P. AND ITS AFFILIATES. CONTINUED IMPLIED USAGE AND/OR VIOLATION WILL RESULT IN TED ALLEN’S HANDLERS ASCERTAINING YOUR LOCATION IN FETCHING BLACK HELICOPTERS, DESCENDING ON YOUR KITCHEN, WHERE YOU WOULD BE… BOPPED. IF THERE ARE ANY BISCUITS AROUND, YOU MAY BE… SOPPED. REGARDLESS OF THE CONTEXT, YOU WILL BE… STOPPED. UNLESS YOU ARE ABLE TO DEFEAT MASAHARU MORIMOTO AT THE IRON CHEF AMERICA NINTENDO Wii GAME. ALLEZ-CUISINE!!*)

I'm fairly certain I would be a terrible contestant on one of those competition-based cooking shows. You know the ones where contestants have to execute something spectacular in under 20 minutes with a limited number of disparate ingredients? Not a minute to spare rethinking or redoing anything? I’d probably knock it out of the park about one in three rounds, and full-on crash and burn the rest. Pressure cooker situations are just not for a planner like me. However, that’s not to say I don't enjoy rising to a challenge when the opportunity presents itself.

Texas wildfire salad.

Texas wildfire salad. Arugula and seared zucchini with habanero herb dressing. © Ryan Schierling

We've been running a bit of a hot spell here in Central Texas, and the pepper plants are about the only thing in our garden that are tolerating the heat. Our patch consists mainly of jalapeños and habaneros this year. The jalapeños we use with frequency, but the habaneros are a little tricky because we either need a fresh harvest large enough to make hot sauce, or we have to find ways to use what ripens in a steady trickle. If you're familiar with habaneros, you know that this little orange pepper packs a wallop of heat. While it may not rank at the top of the Scoville scale, it is up there high enough to warrant wearing gloves when cutting them and taking measures to avoid any juices that may aerosolize in the chopping process.

So, I decided to make a habanero salad dressing out of a couple of them. Of course, right? For continuity of color, I chose to include orange bell pepper – well, in addition to the fact that there is nothing meaty about habanero peppers and I wanted to add some substance and body. There is a reason for the popularity of habaneros and it's not all about its spicy reputation. Habs have a wonderfully distinct, almost fruity, flavor that transcends the heat. With the addition of garlic and some fresh Texas tarragon (Mexican mint marigold) leaves from our garden, the resulting dressing is creamy in texture without being heavy and has a boldness that is both tangy and mildly herbacious.

Tuna sandwich with white beans and radish.

Tuna with white beans, radish and capers. © Ryan Schierling

There are days when I crave the tuna salad sandwich from my childhood – tinned, chunk light tuna mixed with mayonnaise and sweet relish, on thin slices of whole wheat bread. It's a simple sandwich to make, and it always tastes exactly the way I remember it. 

Julie has zero frame of reference for tuna salad, because she never had it as a kid, not even once. The first tuna sandwich she was willing to try was my tuna melt with Mexican mint marigold, and this was just in the last few years. There was no cajoling, no "just try it, just one bite, c'mon...it's just tuna, it's not like it's octopus salad..."  She tried it, liked it, and that opened the door just enough for me to wedge in a can of premium yellowfin tuna packed in olive oil. 

Now there are two tonno sandwiches we make regularly at home. This second sandwich is a flavorful, protein-packed tuna salad with cannellini beans, radishes, shallots, capers, parsley and lemon zest. No heavy mayo or sticky-sweet relish, just a refreshing, clean and crunchy tuna salad served on toasted ciabatta rolls. 

Chopped Salad Sandwich.

Chopped salad sandwich, with and without meat. © Ryan Schierling

Oh yes, I’ve heard the jokes… you know the ones, where a sandwich without meat “is just a salad sandwich.” 

Just…? Oh, no.

Admittedly, I’m rather partial to a Cheddar cheese sandwich with picnic mustard and a tall stack of lettuce, so mostly I’ve just rolled my eyes at the whole salad sandwich notion. While Ryan isn’t particularly meat-centric about his sandwiches, he doesn’t generally opt to put lettuce in them either. A cheese sandwich, for him, is historically just that – good ol' American cheese and mayonnaise between two slices of bread. 

Based on our cheese sandwich profiles, we are apparently unfit to helm a food blog of any import. Too lowbrow? So be it, get over it.

On a whim one day when making us lunch, I decided to give the lettuce a little more purpose. We didn’t have a whole lot on hand to work with, except some provolone and a hearty rustic bread. There was middle ground that needed to be found – something beyond bread and cheese, or bread and cheese and lettuce.

Seriously, we can only eat so much fried okra.

Roasted okra and tomatoes with chili garlic vinaigrette. © Ryan Schierling

My first experience with okra was decidedly unpleasant – an unfortunate "high-brow" circumstance wherein a vegetable galette included its overly-mucilaginous presence.

Then we moved to Texas. If you know anyone with a big garden in these parts, you're certain to find okra offered to you by the cubic bushel in late summer. Okra thrives in the heat and seems to defy the sun-baked earth, and it's been showing up on our doorstep for the last few weeks.

So, how do you say "no" – in good conscience – to the pound of okra that arrives with every late summer CSA delivery? We joined for the local and seasonal offerings, and it just wouldn't be right to turn it away or not make good use of it. 

What exactly are you supposed to do with this stuff? Common wisdom points immediately in the direction of pickling, making gumbo, or battering and frying. But there's only so much pickled okra that's going to get eaten at our house this year, and if I'm going to make a mess of my cooktop with a pot of boiling fat... well, I can't honestly say that okra is the first thing I'd choose to fry up.

In a flash of merciful recollection, Ryan remembered seeing a recipe for roasted okra and cauliflower salad in a cookbook we got last year – Smoke and Pickles by Chef Edward Lee. It has been our salvation over the past few weeks of CSA deliveries. (You can also find it featured in this post by CBS The Talk, where he was a guest last Fall.)

Tomatoes rock.

Tomato carpet at the now defunct Emo's on Red River - Austin, Texas. © Ryan Schierling

My mother always describes eating fresh tomatoes out of a childhood, long-ago family garden – plucked ripe from the vine, warm from the sun, juices dripping down her chin on the first bite. I imagine it is what tomatoes were always supposed to taste like... killer.

Grocery store tomatoes are a sad affair, no matter how organic or fresh. Compared to home-grown, they are typically a little mealy, a little dry, lackluster and lacking in fresh-picked, sun-ripened flavor. When we buy tomatoes outside of our Central Texas growing season – which is to say, November through March – they're usually used for making salsa or tomato jam. The little actual tomato flavor they've got is augmented by other, bolder ingredients. But when it's summertime in Austin – which is to say, April through October – we have two garden plots that are a cage-match tomato free-for-all.

The larger varieties don't usually fare so well. They split before they're ripe, they are susceptible to leaf-footed bugs, and we've found that crafty mockingbirds abscond with bits and pieces of them as soon as they're soft enough to poke a beak in. Sweet little cherry and grape tomatoes are prolific and quick to grow, the medium-sized orange ones do well, and small heirloom varietals have been very successful. We stick with the tried-and-trues, and use them to their tomato-ey fullest while we've got them.

Dan's blackened-chicken pasta salad.

Blackened-chicken pasta salad with honey mustard dressing. © Ryan Schierling

When you move away from things you love, you will find there are some very necessary instances where you'll attempt to recreate them as best you can. Sometimes it's trying to find a feeling, a recollection, or a solid sense of place. The intangibles are always the most onerous to rediscover. Thankfully, when it comes to reviving a food-related impression, it's not terribly difficult to do. Olfactory and taste perceptions bring back memories in powerful ways that other senses seem to clumsily mishandle with feeling and emotion. My most-cherished meals are wrapped with importance and warm remembrance – a single bite will bring forth a flood of memory and stories to retell. 

This simple blackened-chicken pasta salad with rotini, black olives, tomatoes and honey mustard dressing is not my food memory – it is the fond reminiscence of a lifelong friend who has carried it with him and shared it with his friends and family. I am thankful to be a part of that group, and it has been a part of our wee suburban cabin family collection for a while now.

Dan shared this dish with me when we were living at Ghetto Melrose in Seattle. He's been making it since he moved from North Carolina to Kansas, to Washington state and then back to Kansas. Originally a favored menu item at the now-defunct Harrison's Bar & Grill in Cary, North Carolina, not much has changed in his (and our) preparation. 

Slaw of wee little cabbages.

Brussels sprout slaw with grapefruit-fig vinaigrette. © Ryan Schierling

Where we have merely dedicated a five-day stretch to the subject, one could potentially spend a lifetime dedicated only to documenting variations of slaw. As much as we appreciate the cruciferous veg, we are not the people to make such an exploration of a specific side dish our exclusive focus. However, we would be remiss if we did not include a variation using Brussels sprouts for this "5 days 5 ways" celebration of slaw.

Brussels sprouts are oft referred to as "wee little cabbages" in our household. This is technically fitting as they are members of the same genetic family – from the Brassica genus, to be exact – and in excellent company with some other very delicious vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and, of course, cabbage. When it comes to sensitivity to the more bitter aspect of this family, Brussels sprouts are probably one of the trickier to develop a taste for, but the little bit of work it takes to complement that touch of bitter is well worth it. Where cooking serves to soften this bitterness, a raw salad requires an act of embracing and balancing it. 

Pretty in pink.

Sauerkraut slaw with red cabbage. © Ryan Schierling

Sauerkraut is, in American culture, a tough one when it comes to palatability. You either love it, or you hate it. 

I'm not ashamed to admit that my love for sauerkraut knows no bounds. I enjoy the sour taste and squeaky texture so much that I've been known to take a two-fingered pull out of the kraut jar and put that gigantic pinch between my cheek and gum, just to savor the juicy deliciousness. It's like the best cabbage chaw you can imagine. And those Frank's Sauerkraut singles? So portable. Okay, I might have a problem. 

But come on, what's not to like? Historically, sauerkraut goes back – way back – a few thousand years B.C. It's rich in vitamin C, high in fiber and low in calories. It was used to prevent scurvy. It's good for your eyeballs (uhm... taken internally, not as a topical ointment) and has been used as a treatment for stomach ulcers and canker sores. 

Whatever name you have for fermented cabbage – in all its glory – it is celebrated worldwide. The Dutch make mashed potatoes with it. The French, choucroute garnie. Russians use it in soup. Koreans have kimchi. Germans serve it with everything, from what I hear. There is always sauerkraut in our refrigerator. Always.

Ranch-style crudité slaw.

Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage slaw. ©  Ryan Schierling

For the longest time I thought I hated cole slaw. As it turned out, I just didn't like that typical picnic-style slaw with creamy and weirdly-sweet dressing. You know, the omnipresent variety you find in tubs in the supermarket deli.

The first "cole slaw" that I remember liking made a big impression on me, so much so that I wasn't really sure if it even could be considered a slaw so much as a shredded cabbage salad. Granted that was some [blah-blah-blah-redacted] years ago. The strangest thing is that this entire episode was also a defining moment in my appreciation for ranch dressing. Weird and tangential on the surface, I know, but I will explain.

I grew up in a household where blue cheese and Roquefort were the default, everyday salad dressings of choice. I was never one of those kids who put ketchup on everything or wanted to dip anything deep-fried in ranch dressing. In fact, I didn't really find ranch of much interest except as a suitable dunk for raw broccoli and cauliflower on the crudité platter – until that one day when someone served me shredded cabbage "cole slaw" made with ranch dressing instead of the usual fare. Suddenly a variety I could get behind! It just made sense, really. While I may not gravitate to ranch dressings for my salads, there is something to be said for the way certain vegetables are complemented by the creamy, tangy, herb and garlic flavors at its essence. This is doubly true if you make your ranch-style dressing fresh and from scratch.

Chinese cabbage slaw with carrots and daikon.

Napa cabbage slaw with ginger garlic dressing. © Ryan Schierling

I didn't eat life-changing barbecue until we moved to Austin. That was four years ago, and that means I put a lot of passable, fair-to-middlin', sometimes downright horrible smoked meat in my craw prior to immigrating to the Great Republic of Texas. In those lean years of blasé barbecue, sides were sometimes a salvation and after so many years of side-dish subsistence, I came to love them more than the main event – the meat. 

Don't hate me, but in those years I really learned to appreciate the subtleties in a coleslaw or potato salad, and I started exploring... experimenting a bit. Napa cabbage is Chinese cabbage. It's not from Napa Valley. Who thought that one up? It's typically used in China, Japan and Korea, so that's how the flavors of this slaw came to be. It's a little tangy, a little sweet, with some nice ginger and garlic background and the toasted sesame oil rounds everything out with a big, rich hug. The carrots give a little bit of natural sweetness, and the daikon radish provides a very mild heat and more crunch.

If you've never worked with Napa cabbage, the outer leaves of the football-sized beast are a little thick, and a bit astringent, but if you peel enough back you'll get to the pale yellow-green, delicate insides. I use one or two of the outer leaves for their bright green color, and I don't mind the added bit of sharpness. The overall flavor is less pronounced than normal cabbage, and it's not nearly as heavy. It makes a very nice, light summer salad with grilled meat like bulgogi or flanken-style short ribs. 

The doctor's new way of making coleslaw.

Garlic salad. © Ryan Schierling

We punish ourselves once a year or so, pushing out five posts in five days, all related to this or that. Last year it was cucumber salads. The year prior, potato salads and a good five days of grilling. 

This summer, we're all about the slaw, so we're going to give you five before the 4th of July. 

There is a gold standard for All-American picnic coleslaw, and it is Kentucky Fried Chicken. As much as I hate to say it, and as much as you might disagree, it is the truth. Name a chain restaurant that has more than 18,000 units and sells as much coleslaw as the Colonel. KFC itself calls it "The World's Best Coleslaw," says that it's "freshly prepared in store" and "sets the coleslaw standard by which all other coleslaws should be measured." My friend Gary worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken in the late 80s, and he tells me that while they made scratch biscuits back then, the chickens were disassembled and breaded on-site and the gravy was homemade – the only thing that was NOT freshly-prepared in store was the coleslaw. It came in bags. It still does, from what I hear. 

Big bags of chopped cabbage, carrots, and onions. The sauce – according to the corporate website – is a mix of sugar, soybean oil, vinegar, salt, eggs, corn starch, mustard flour, xanthan gum, the ever-popular natural and artificial flavor, paprika extractives, paprika, and caramel color. Sugar is the first ingredient, and the last time I sampled it (for research reasons, of course) it was so sweet it could have been some weird cabbage dessert.

I do appreciate it for the role it plays in KFC's menu, which is as a foil to the crunchy, salty chicken. I do have a soft spot for all coleslaw varietals, and I like that the KFC extremely-fine chop of the cabbage, carrot and onion isn't something you get with most coleslaws. If you've ever seen the term "mechanically-separated" on a chicken, pork or beef product, you can only imagine what a Robot Coupe the size of a grain silo with a few million cutting blades would do to truckloads of cabbages, carrots and onions. I'm speculating here, but only in a way that imagines there are no human hands actually involved in the preparation of this product. It's made by coleslaw robots.

I need a coleslaw robot…

Walk out to Winter salad.

Winter salad with Brussels sprouts. © Ryan Schierling

"I think I really just need a big salad for dinner." Occasionally ye olde comfort food of Fall and Winter can take an oppressive turn on an individual. One night too many involving something starchy with, quite likely, a little too much cheese involvement, and it's time to clear the deck, reboot the system, and give leafy green roughage its turn at the table.

A main-course salad can be a tricky one to pull off and still feel like you've delivered something respectably substantial. I love salads, but I don't necessarily want to present a plate that has no more appeal than a bowl of rabbit food and call it good. The terribly typical standby giving gravitas is the addition of chicken. Eggs are sometimes appropriate, but certainly less versatile. Bacon, well, that doesn't count. Chicken is all well and good, but I'm not much of a meat eater – much less a meat preparer – in this household, and when I'm in charge of dinner I try not to incorporate extra work for my beloved. 

I have long been fan of green salads incorporating fruit, berries and toasted nuts, but this Fall a distant memory surfaced in the form of a side dish I once had at Tom Douglas's restaurant Dahlia Lounge. It was a simple preparation of Brussels sprouts, tender and lightly caramelized, with golden raisins. The sweet counterpoint of the raisins was delicious, and one that gave me the idea that my little cruciferous friends might be the perfect warm and hearty addition atop a salad remplit with harvest fruits and bounty.

My coleslaw can beat up your coleslaw.

BFF on a bun. Slaw on pulled pork with mustard sauce. © Ryan Schierling

There is only one coleslaw recipe in this household. I will admit, we have prepared others on a whim, when experimenting with dishes that seemed like they'd benefit from a crunchy, slightly sweet and tangy cabbage salad on the side. As much as I love cabbage in all forms, none of them stuck.

This one, I wrote down for the first time in 2005. I don't remember how long I'd been making it before it was finally put to paper, but full of bluster and bravado on an old blog, I branded it Ryan's Bad Ass Coleslaw. Somehow the moniker stuck. If I had to rename it now, in 2012, I might be a little more humble. I'd call it... Ryan's Bad Ass Coleslaw. Hey, we're all proud of our children, right?

Alright, sorry, it is a nice slaw, and it's a perfect barbecue side. It also has no mayonaisse, which is a sticking point for some coleslaw traditionalists, but mayo weighs down a lot of picnic dressings and I wanted to keep this as light as possible to give the cabbage, carrots, green apple and jalapeños center stage. The simple dress for this salad is a mixture of cream, apple cider vinegar, honey or agave nectar, and salt. That's it. That's all it needs.

Unless you wanted a little help from Bad Ass Coleslaw's friends – pulled pork and mustard sauce. 

Zydeco salad.

Zydeco salad, a lovely mess. © Ryan Schierling

I used to think there was no excuse for the unusually sweet, faintly acidic melange of pale green beans, even paler wax beans, and kidney beans that is three-bean salad. It always seemed to be a covered-dish dinner culinary cop out – open a few cans of the stuff, dump contents into Tupperware and stick a spoon in it.

There's a curious item on the menu at B&C Seafood in Vacherie, Louisiana called Zydeco Salad that goes like this – a bed of lettuce, some chopped tomato, olive salad (the kind that goes on a muffaletta sandwich), and three bean salad. After seeing it on a famous-teevee-food-personality's-motorcycle-road-tripping-the-length-of-the-Mississippi-mini-series, I tried to work out the flavor profile in my head, repressing any childhood trauma associated with three-bean salad. The lettuce would be crisp and fresh. The tomatoes would be earthy, acidic and a little sweet. The olive salad would have a complex, rich piquancy. The three bean salad would be a little sweet, a little tart, and have a slight tooth. Somehow, it seemed to work, and the more I considered it, the more I thought that maybe there was a singular, solitary purpose for three-bean salad after all.

This is another one of those charmingly-oddball and acutely-regional Southern dishes that fascinate me so, and as it turns out, it's a great throw-together summer salad. Make your own olive salad the day before or buy a jar of it at the grocer if you've got a favorite brand.

Cucumber salad #5.

Cukes and onions. © Ryan Schierling

We're just going to all agree to call this a "salad." Okay? It's a side, it's a snack, it's stupid simple, and if you don't have a family recipe that is virtually identical, then you should adopt this one at once.

Cucumbers seem to have a natural inclination to be pickled, and on day five of "cucumber salad week" here at FGHD, we're accommodating them. Plus, I get to finally admit that when served raw and plain I'm mostly ambivalent about cukes. They really do have a wonderful flavor, but naked and alone they have a twinge of bland and bitter. However, pair them with vinegar (or lemon juice) and salt they are transformed – voilà! – a thing of elementary elegance.

This post isn't for pickles, but it is a about as close as you can get in 30 minutes or less with a refreshingly pleasant, puckering cucumber slice to show for it. Use the cukes and onions on a salad, or plate a few slices as a side. Around here, though, we've usually managed to pluck all of them out of their icy bath as a crunchy snack before dinner is even served. 

Cucumbers and red onions on the rocks

1 cucumber, peeled in stripes and sliced 1/4" thick
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 teaspoon salt
10 ice cubes
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup white vinegar

Put cucumber and onions in a one quart bowl Add ice cubes, then water and white vinegar and salt. Give a quick stir and stick it in the fridge, or just let it sit on the counter, and chill for about 15-30 minutes.

Cucumber salad #4.

Cucumber bruschetta. © Ryan Schierling

When I was a younger man, inexperienced in the ways of life and love and the kitchen, I thought bruschetta was kind of an Italian salsa – a tomato, onion, basil and balsamic-based topping for toasted baguette rounds. I didn't know the garlic-rubbed toasted bread was actually the bruschetta, and it was my first experience with the glory that is balsamic vinegar. There wasn't Mario or Giada or Lidia or Mary Ann on teevee telling me what to do.

Proper terminology or not, I ham-fisted a lot of toasted bread topping with tomato and red onion, garlic and basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and it bolstered my confidence in the kitchen (and in life and love).

That might be a lot to ask of a bruschetta, but I think it's handled it well over the last 20 years, because I've been making adaptations on it ever since. Julie came up with this recipe. We went back and forth a bit, tasting multiple versions and then agreed that I am the crusty, chunky, slightly acerbic, and she is the cool, crunchy sweetness.

Together, somehow, we are a delicate, fresh spoonful on grilled sourdough baguette. Bon appetit. 

Cucumber bruschetta

1 sourdough baguette, cut into 1/2" rounds, oiled and grilled until toasty

4 cucumbers, peeled, center seeds removed, diced

2 scallions, minced

6-8 large basil leaves, chiffonaded

12-15 red cherry tomatoes, cut in half

cracked black pepper

cucumber bruschetta dressing (below)

Mix cucumber, scallions, dressing and a pinch of salt together. Plate bruschetta, spoon cucumber mix on top. Put half a cherry tomato on top of each slice of bruschetta with cucumbers, top with the chiffonade of basil and freshly cracked pepper.

Cucumber bruschetta dressing

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

1/3 cup cup oil (we used equal parts vegetable and olive oil… it seems to emulsify better)

1 tablespoon honey

1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 small pinch kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon dijon mustard

Mix vinegar, honey, pepper, salt and mustard together in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk in a steady stream of oil until emulsified. 

Cucumber salad #3.

Cucumber salad... sandwich? © Ryan Schierling

This will be the only time you ever get a salad sandwich out of me. Mark my words.

I'll make tuna salad, egg salad or even a vegetarian deviled-ham salad (no, for really and seriously), but straight-up salad sandwich reminds me too much of a certain worldwide sub-sandwich chain's Veggie Delight, circa 1991. When you're a poor college student, sometimes the bread and vegetables is all you can afford. Extra lettuce, please!

But this is one of those light, refreshing summer meals that needs no meat. Nothing more than some warm, fresh flatbread, a liberal spackling of homemade hummus and a few spoonfuls of this horiatiki-inspired cucumber salad.

Fold it up like a taco, make sure you've got plenty of napkins, and tuck in.

Cucumber salad, Greek-style

2 cucumbers, peeled, center seeds removed, diced
2 medium tomatoes, cored and diced
1/2 of a small red onion, diced
1 small green bell pepper, seeded and diced
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, minced
4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
12 pitted kalamata olives, halved
a pinch of kosher salt, to taste

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the cucumber, tomato, red onion and green pepper. Add a pinch of salt, the juice of 1 lemon and give everything a good toss. Add the oregano, olives, half the feta and mix it all up. When you're ready to serve, crumble the remaining feta on top of the salad.

Our hummus

1 19-ounce can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 clove garlic
juice of 2 lemons
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons tahini
a good pinch of kosher salt

Using a food processor, chop the garlic. Add the cannellini, garbanzo beans and lemon juice. Pulse until a very thick paste begins to form. Add the tahini, cumin, red pepper flakes and salt and continue to mix. While the hummus is pureeing, add a thin, steady stream of olive oil into the food processor until everything is nice and creamy. Let the food processor run for a couple of more minutes, then spoon hummus into a bowl and refrigerate until you're ready to eat.

Cucumber salad #2.

Cucumber and cantaloupe salad with hazelnuts and chevre. © Ryan Schierling

Fresh, earthy, crunchy, creamy. This one is our twist on cucumber-cantaloupe salad.

Don't call it a fruit salad because it will surely disappoint anyone expecting to satisfy a spirited sweet tooth. It gets a good grounding from the rich chèvre, the flavorful crunch of toasted filberts and the provocative hint of rosemary.

This one is easy to prep, but unfortunately it doesn't do well all mixed together in a serving bowl. Those lovely little bits of goat cheese just dissolve away into a creamy mess. Individual portions are prettier. No stirring, just a simple presentation of cucumber and melon with an unexpectedly serious garnish.

Cucumber salad with cantaloupe and chèvre

1 English cucumber, peeled
1/4 cantaloupe
1/4 cup white wine (such as pinot grigio), or the juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup filbert (hazelnuts) pieces, lightly toasted
2 ounces chèvre
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, finely minced
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.

Slice and the cucumber and cantaloupe into approximately 1/2" pieces. Gently fold the white wine and/or lemon juice with all the diced cucumber and cantaloupe in a bowl, then let it chill in the fridge for a bit.

When you're ready to serve, stir again lightly with a pinch of salt, then portion it out into smaller serving bowls. Give each a dusting of finely minced rosemary, then top with pieces of chèvre and hazelnuts. If you're feeling it, add a crack of black pepper, too.

Serves 3-4.

Cucumber salad #1.

Cucumber, minimally adorned. © Ryan Schierling

Summer's on the way, so we've been working up a few salads, cool as a cuke.

This is close to a Turkish cucumber salad, or cacick, but not quite. Turks be damned, I added the dill and Sriracha because I can't leave well enough alone. The cucumber cool, the yogurt bright, it was just beggin' for a little slap and tickle. And the dill in our garden is going crazy.

We've done this a few weekends in a row, serving it alongside salt-and-peppered ribeye steaks, grilled over oak coals, sidled up with a mound of garlic mashed potatoes and mushrooms messed with feta. I'd like to think it's a fresh, palate-cleansing wake-up between the heavy courses. Really, it's probably just a punk-ass, back-talkin', middle finger to the rich(ness).

But, honestly, it does well with the protein and starch crowd, a song and dance number between drama bites of meat and potato. And it's easy.

Cucumber salad with yogurt and dill

3 seedless cucumbers, peeled and sliced thin
1 7-ounce container plain yogurt (Fage)
juice of 2 lemons
2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
1 tablespoon minced fresh mint
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon Sriracha hot sauce (optional)
pinch of kosher salt
2-3 tablespoons water

Mix the yogurt and lemon juice well with a whisk. Add dill, mint, garlic, salt, hot sauce (if you want… it adds a lovely subtle back-end heat). I add a few tablespoons of water to thin the sauce out a bit. Toss in the sliced cucumber and mix well. Refrigerate for an hour or so to let the flavors mingle and/or duke it out. Serve with meatses and potato.