Best of You: Caprese Salad

Oh Summer.  It looks like the time has come for you and I to part ways.  It's always such sweet sorrow when we have to say goodbye; you stay away much too long.  I'm sorry we never had that much time together; me busy working too many weekends, so busy I never got the chance to dip my toes in a lake or go on a picnic or drive down dusty country roads.  It wasn't all bad though - remember those glorious, early summer days in Ontario, when we got lost in Detroit and I ate at Lynn Crawford's restaurant?  Yeah, that was fun, and who can forget the trip my handsome man and I took to Moose Jaw?  Yes Summer, you were fleeting, but you were savoured.  Every bit.

Tomatoes - the ones you grow yourself, are right up there on my best things of summer list.  Picked off the vine and popped into mouth is a good way to go.  Those little cherry guys are good for that.  The larger ones I've been picking when they are just blushing with pink and I let them ripen inside.  Doesn't take long and they seem sweeter this way.  A few were aside because I was dying to make this salad.  Mostly because I've been craving fresh mozzarella like no body's business and my basil plant hasn't died - for real - it never lives past Canada Day!  So we have on hand all of the key ingredients for caprese salad.  There are a million and a half variations, but this is the one I like.  Straight to the point, with the freshest, juiciest, tomatoes, the aromatics of the basil and the lovely, earthy fresh mozzarella. Finish it all off with a drizzle of good olive oil, a flourish of balsamic reduction, a sprinkle of salt and a crack of black pepper.  Arrange the key players on a pretty plate and wave goodbye to your friend.  Until next year. 

Caprese Salad

No real recipe for this...just use your freshest tomatoes and some balls of fresh mozzarella or bocconcini.  Tear some fresh basil leaves and scatter.  Pour a little good olive oil over it all, salt and pepper to taste and reduce balsamic vinegar down until it's almost syrupy.  Let it cool, then drizzle over the salad.  Easy peasy.

And now a few of my late summer pics taken on Instagram...

Mountain Ash, heavy with berries.  

Farmer's Market beets. 

From my plum tree.  

Oh the attitude!  

Orange cat on garden path. 

Flax pancakes with caramelized apples

Peaches & Cream

 

Monday afternoon at the movies - with melted honey, butter,

chipotle powder on popcorn. The best! 

Sitting on the riverside, watching Labour Day fireworks with my handsome man. 

Hand in hand, we wished, and they came true.