I’m in commuter hell this week – I’ve had a succession of early or late buses in the morning, consistently late trains, and unplanned cab rides home from the train station which, in addition to being annoyingly expensive and sometimes terrifying, have put me in a big ole cranky mood in the evening, and craving exactly what we’ve been trying to get away from – comfort food.

I sat on the train in my work clothes drenched to the bone after a rain-soaked spin through the Boston Public Market on Tuesday, with tomatoes and fennel and green beans and squash globes and all sorts of other goodies in my totes, and decided a big veg-laden soup was in order. After I got home, I peeled off my damp clothes and changed into something warm and dry, and then I got to chopping: slender leeks, carrots, fresh celery, beautifully ripe plum tomatoes, sweet red peppers, globe zucchini, fresh thyme branches and green beans all went into my pot at various stages, sprinkled with salt and bathed in dribbles of olive oil and a judicious amount of red wine as they cooked down. I added a little bit of orzo to the mix, and when it was tender, added a good amount of freshly grated parm to the soup off the heat. I blitzed up a fresh parsley and fennel frond pistou in the mini chopper to spoon on top, and served up our soup with a few thick slices of Olga’s Pane Francese and some gooey, runny cheese from Farmstead.

As antidotes go, this was just about perfect.

31 dishes, 31 days – I’m cooking my way through Melissa Clark‘s “No-Sweat Cooking” from the August issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray. And to those of you who made your way over here via rachaelraymag.com, welcome!

I had such high hopes for this recipe for Spicy Summer Rolls, but my complete inability to work with the rice paper wrappers made for a rather spectacular failure. They’re an ingredient I haven’t worked with before, and there were no instructions on the package with respect to softening them, so I asked the Internet, settling on a source I trust in these matters, the MediterrAsian.com site.

The 15 seconds that site recommends ended up being far too long for my particular wrappers, as the first of them disintegrated after a far briefer dip in the water. So I kept working, soaking the papers for a shorter and shorter amount of time, and generally being frustrated at the resulting rolls I came up with. It was late and our stomachs were rumbling, so I eventually gave up, deciding instead to toss the carrots, cress, and pork with softened rice noodles, some slivered hot and sweet peppers, fresh cilantro, and a dressing of Sriracha, fresh lime juice, and a bit of toasted sesame oil. It was a good and satisfying Plan B, though I’m bound and determined to get the original dish right.

Get the Recipe: Spicy Summer Rolls

31 dishes, 31 days – I’m cooking my way through Melissa Clark‘s “No-Sweat Cooking” from the August issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray. And to those of you who made your way over here via rachaelraymag.com, welcome!

I love remixing leftovers, so when planning out my first week of No-Sweat Recipes, I decided to schedule this Vietnamese Chicken Salad to take advantage of the leftover roast chicken from Tuesday night’s Chicken Tonnato.

This is exactly the kind of recipe I love – fairly free-form, easily adaptable to individual taste, and far, far more than the sum of its parts. This salad was a real celebration of the bounty of our farmers’ markets, as everything but the lime juice and fish sauce came from either the Hope Street market at Lippitt Park, or from the Boston Public Market in Dewey Square.

I opted to skip the coleslaw mix and shred some locally grown cabbage and carrots I had on hand instead, and I added scallions and slivers of fresh chile pepper to the mix as well. This was easily the most delicious thing we’ve eaten during this project so far, the sassy dressing playing off the crunchy vegetables and bits of moist chicken. I served our salad on a bed of soft butter lettuce leaves which I ended up using to scoop up bites of the salad, and I tossed the leftovers with softened cellophane noodles for a future lunch. Mike said he’d happily eat this once a week for as long as the ingredients are in season, and I’m right there with him. Great stuff, and it couldn’t be easier to put together.

Get the recipe: Vietnamese Chicken Salad

(To those of you who have found your way over here via thekitchn, welcome!)

The mercury has dropped a bit in the last week, but I’m still stuck on big, bright, crunchy salads for dinner. I’ve accumulated a ton of gorgeous vegetables between our regular Saturday farmers’ market in Providence and the two I spin through in Boston during the week, and I really can’t think of a better way to put them to use.

I’ve made a variation of this salad for years, with planks of chicken either breaded and fried or simply grilled or roasted, tossed with my version of “wing sauce” and served with lots of crunchy vegetables and my homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing (the sauce and dressing recipes can be found here). Last night’s version had its chicken fried crisp, served on a bed of butter lettuce from Kimball’s Fruit Farm, shredded red cabbage, sliced radishes and shredded carrot (also from Kimball’s), chunks of juicy, ripe Woodstock Farm tomato, and cutting celery from our garden (via City Farm). It’s the perfect thing for when I’m craving the flavor of that classic bar snack but want a slightly lighter take on it.

Temps reached record highs in Little Rhody yesterday, and as I sat in my air-conditioned office in Boston, I knew there was no freaking way our planned Wednesday night dinner was going to happen in our not-yet-air conditioned carriage house kitchen.

I wasn’t inclined to cook at all, in fact, and began a mental inventory of fridge and pantry to try to figure out my game plan. I love a big salad for dinner on a sweltering night, and it wasn’t long before I had a few good candidates in mind.

We’ve always got the ingredients for what we call an “indoor picnic” on hand – good cheeses and cured meats, tinned fish, olives and other brined and pickled things, but our fresh vegetable options were somewhat scarce, and a special trip to the store was out of the question. I did have a big bulb of fennel in the crisper, and decided to use it as my base and go from there.

In the end I went with something that was a little bit like an antipasto salad, with shades of giardiniera and panzanella thrown in for good measure, a crisp-crunchy-tart-tender-tangy melange of shaved fennel and red onion, lightly pickled cauliflower and carrots, roasted red peppers, capers, chunks of Crespone salami and Parmagiano Reggiano, and garlicky homemade croutons, all in a zippy red wine vinaigrette.

This salad was surprisingly hearty, but the crunchy texture and the brightness of the flavors kept it from feeling heavy. Best of all, I got it on the table without breaking a sweat.

Some may say that they’re so over, but Mike and I have been in love with banh mi since our first taste of them back in NYC. I’ve wanted to make banh mi-inspired sandwiches at home for ages, and finally did so last night. I had an idea a while back to use duck rillettes in place of the Vietnamese cold cuts I generally favor, so I had Mike whip some up from his latest batch of confit. With the rillettes made, putting together the rest of the was a breeze: I halved a baguette, sliced each half open, and slathered the insides with a Sriracha-spiked mayo. I placed them on a baking sheet and they went into a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes.

While the baguettes warmed, I whisked together a little salt and vinegar, then added some radish coins, thin slices of carrot, and slivers of green chile pepper, tossing them until they were all well coated. I sliced up a cucumber and some pickled red onions as well, and set aside several sprigs of fresh cilantro to top our sandwiches. When the baguettes were just cool enough to handle, I assembled everything, spreading a layer of rillettes inside of the bread, then topping them with the cut and pickled veggies and cilantro. This was a meal that really did come together in minutes, and it was delicious. I’m eyeing the last of Mike’s pate de campagne for a future variation of this sandwich.

I’m a big fan of soup any time of year, but there’s nothing like a light, brothy bowl of springtime veggies to take the chill off an early May evening. I tossed this together mostly from odds and ends: first, a lone leek which had been lingering in the crisper drawer, then some thinly sliced fennel stalks, both cooked with a sprinkling of salt and a knob of butter until soft. Next I added some cooked flageolet beans and their cooking liquid, plus a few additional cups of water, some sweet young carrots, and a half cup or so of carnaroli rice. While the broth bubbled and the rice plumped, I thawed some leftover cooked asparagus and peas from the freezer, adding them to the pot to just warm through. I tasted the soup for seasoning and added a few finishing touches, in the form of fresh spinach, chopped fresh tarragon, and shards of Pecorino Romano. A little toasted bread on the side (with more of that Pecorino), and we were good to go.

A creamy carrot soup has been on my short list of things to make before the weather warms up, and I finally got to it last night. I was inspired by Terry B’s gorgeous Potage Crécy, but I pared my version down even more, to just butter, leeks, carrots, homemade chicken stock, salt, savory, and a healthy dollop of dijon mustard. I sauteed the leeks in butter until soft, crumbled the leaves from a sprig of savory we had dried at home over the leeks, added about three cups of roughly chopped carrots, a quart or so of stock and the mustard, seasoned everything with salt, and let the soup come to a boil. I covered the pot and let it simmer until the carrots were soft, then pureed the whole thing with a stick blender. I adjusted the seasoning, and though it would have been fine without, I did add just a drizzle of heavy cream at the end, as well as a garnish of fresh chives. This soup was dead easy and really delicious, and I loved how the sharp dijon played against the sweetness of the carrots – it’s definitely a recipe I’ll return to to brighten the dark days of next Winter.

As weary as I am of the cold weather, it’s not going away just yet, so wintry dishes are still in play. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve amassed quite a selection of root vegetables, and on Monday night, I decided to combine them in a gratin. I was inspired by a recipe in the March issue of Food and Wine for a lightened version, though I used what I had on hand for my own.

Thin slices of peeled butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, turnips and sweet potato all went into a buttered baking dish, each layer sprinkled with salt and a little Herbes de Provence, and every other layer got a dusting of finely grated aged Patty Parker cheese from Narragansett Creamery. I poured in a half cup of white vermouth, and a half cup of heavy cream to which I had added a healthy amount of Colman’s mustard. I covered the baking dish with foil and placed it into a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, then removed the foil, added a layer of fresh breadcrumbs (a couple of slices of Seven Stars multigrain, pulsed in the food processor), another sprinkle of cheese and a few dots of butter on top, and returned the baking dish to the oven until the veggies were soft and the top crisp and browned (another 20 minutes or so).

The herbs, mustard, and flavorful cheese contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the vegetables, and despite the addition of the cheese and cream, this was not a heavy dish, just a richly flavored, satisfying one dish meal.

Heavenly carrots from the Copley farmers’ market – I wish I could remember the name of the farm. I’ll be back for more and will make a note of it.

This is totally Amy‘s fault. I know it’s not the most sustainable option, and it’s definitely not local, but this snapper caught my eye at Whole Foods and I couldn’t leave without it. The filets are simply pan-seared and served on top of peas, favas, carrots and shallot, sauteed ever-so-briefly in butter and finished with a little white vermouth and fresh dill.

To go with the fish, a lip-smacker from our most recent mixed case. Yum.

There will come a time when I’m sick of summer squash. But that time is a long way off.

There will never come a time when I’m sick of pasta. This one’s tossed with the aforementioned summer squash, the rest of our first summer tomato, soft goat cheese, lemon juice and zest, and a sprinkling of opal basil. Simple and delicious.

This really is the most exciting time of year to cook, isn’t it?