Ultimate Summer Salad and Grilled Pizza

I. Am. Not. A. Purist.  Not with this salad, anyway.  While I might be incurring some form of slight guilt, I say to hell with purity and exploit the living daylights out of your farmers' market for this super simple Greek salad.  It took less than ten minutes to prepare this bowl of crunchy, sweet and briny goodness.

Brookford Farm's deliciously earthy and bitter mesclun greens ($3 for a HUGE bag!), mildly piquant feta cheese (wait, is that an oxymoron?), and sweet green zebra and yellow peach tomatoes had a serious date tonight with a couple of my few remaining cukes and sweet n' crunchy Jimmy Nardello peppers that I picked up from the Community School's table last Saturday at the Tamworth farmers' market (kayaking around the Tamworth area has its perks!).

Add in sidekicks of heaping handfuls of mild scallion whites from Barker's Farm, briney Greek olives and Spanish capers, and a few healthy sweet cherry peppers, and you've got yourself a runaway train to s-a-t-i-s-f-a-c-t-i-o-n.  Swirls of black olive oil, good pinches of sea salt and freshly ground pepper...a few parmesan crisps...and a glass of pinot gris wine, and, well, do I really have to spell this out?  No, I think not.  I dropped a laptop from four feet onto a hardwood floor this evening.  I needed the wine.

Drink that salty tomatoe
y-olive oil elixir at the end!  You should be shot if you don't.

As for the pizza...

...there is one essential: a big, fat, juicy, picked-at-height-of-ripeness tomato.  Your next priority is fresh mozzarella, followed by a height-of-summer basil (any of the more than 5 millions (I jest) kinds of basil will do), and, lastly, the best olive oil your money can buy.

A good dough recipe is good to have on hand, too.  Find one that moves ya, and don't be afraid to grill it up.  My strategy?  Liberally oil your grill grate, and the dough once it has been stretched out into shape.  Cook on one side until light-golden brown stripes appear.  Flip, cooking this side longer.  Flip back to first side, add cheese, then tomato slices, and then more cheese.  Give it a moment (keep an eye on that grill flame!), then shut off the heat, close the grill lid, and let the whole thing meld for a few minutes.  I slide mine into a large light-weight cutting board to transport to the kitchen counter.  Season with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, lots of picked basil leaves either torn, julienned or whole if using pistou basil, and finish with a liberal swirl of extra virgin olive oil!

This baby is meant to drip down your wrist and chin....