Getting the Best Out of Summer Produce in the Kitchen

Have more zucchini from the garden than you know what to do with? Melissa Clark, New York Times food reporter and recipe columnist, gives tips on how to get the best out of the abundance of summer produce the kitchen, and listeners share their ideas and questions.

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. It's July, and if you're subscribing to a CSA, shopping at a farmers' market, or gathering veggies at your community garden, you know how it goes. One day you're so excited about making a BLT, and then you realize, you have a lot of tomatoes. The same goes for corn, and summer squash, and potatoes.

The green beans are at their peak, and PS onions are starting to come in, so how do you make the most of all this delightful summer produce? With me now to share ideas, answer your questions, and take your calls is New York Times Food Columnist Melissa Clark. She's the author of so many cookbooks, including Kids in the Kitchen, Dinner in French, and Dinner in One. We are so happy to talk to you, Melissa.

Melissa Clark: So happy to talk to you, Allison.

Alison Stewart: Listen, listeners, are you swimming in summer produce, and you want to share your best recipes, or if you'd like to ask Melissa Clark some advice on what to do with all of it, you can call us at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. You can call in and talk to us, or you can text us as well, or you can reach out via social media @allofitwnyc. Melissa, before we dive into the recipes, what do you love about cooking in the summer when there's so much produce to work with?

Melissa Clark: Well, that's exactly what I love about cooking in the summer, is that there's so much produce to work with. I love, I mean, I don't think a meal is complete unless it has a ton of vegetables. I really like to have, aside from whatever the main course is, I love the vegetable side dishes. I love my salads, and in summer, it's-- I mean, the only problem is which one am I going to make?

Am I going to make the green beans? Am I to make the tomatoes? Am I going to make all of those gorgeous greens, the kale, and the Swiss chard? I usually end up making too much, which is great because then I can eat it all week long, but it's just a pleasure to be able to have the abundance and the choice.

Alison Stewart: Is there a summer ingredient that you look forward to every year?

Melissa Clark: I think, I look forward to the progression of how, of when the ingredients are available. I mean, as soon as the farmers' market-- I mean, really in late spring, as soon as we get those asparagus, I'm like, "All right, we're off." That just sends me off. Then, we get the green garlic, and we get the really nice green onions, and then the beautiful spring greens, and then it's summer, right?

Then, all of a sudden we're like, "Okay, here come the green beans, and tomatoes and corn." Take a little bit longer. I think they're just starting to come in right now, but it's just like watching it all unfold. Oh, and the peas. Did I mention the peas? The sugar snaps, the regular English peas. Just watching it all unfold, and how it changes each time I go to the farmers' market every single week, is so satisfying and fun.

Alison Stewart: This is the big question in New York City, though, counter space is limited. When you see a counter full of tomatoes or piles of zucchini, the big question is, how do you keep big summer hauls from going to waste?

Melissa Clark: Yes, that's-- I'm so guilty of this. I have-- I buy too much. I just can't help it. I really believe I'm going to eat eight tomatoes in four days, which, don't usually do. A couple of things. First of all, I try really hard to actually think about what I want to make before I go to the farmers' market. Usually, I just lose my plan. I forget, and I'll buy too much, but I try to actually have a plan.

All right, this is the week where I am going to have a BLT for dinner, so I will need to buy extra tomatoes for that, or I really want to make a three bean salad with fresh beans and canned beans, so I'm going to buy my green beans for that, but if I do buy too much, that's fun, too. It's almost like a little personal challenge. I'm like, "Okay, how can I do to use it all up?" That's when I'll start.

The thing to do is to cook it, even if you don't know when you're going to eat it. Just cook it, and the second that it starts to look a little funny, if the tomatoes are getting a little soft, make a homemade fresh marinara sauce. Cook them down, and just stick it in the freezer. Same thing with your green beans, okay? You don't know when you're going to eat them all, but just blanch them, because if you blanch them, and put them in the fridge, they'll last a little bit longer than if they're already starting to get a little soft at the edges.

Alison Stewart: We're getting texts already. This text says, "Give them to your neighbors or colleagues. You'll make friends for life." Meaning, the extra produce.

Melissa Clark: Always. Always share them. Share them out. Share the love.

Alison Stewart: This one says, "Wow. Melissa Clark in person answering our questions. That's exciting. How about, what's the best way to handle fresh corn on the cob?" That is Annie from the Upper West Side who's excited about asking you a question.

Melissa Clark: Oh, I love that. Well, corn-- Okay, so corn on the cob. I mean, the best thing to do is just to eat it right off the cob with butter. Boil it as soon as you get it home from the market, chuck it, and get it all ready. Bring that pot to a boil, and I always like to eat fresh corn as my post-farmers' market lunch with just a bunch of butter on it, or we have actually some really fun recipes at NYT Cooking for different toppings on corn on the cob, like Parmesan, or the lime juice, and Tajin, and all different types of seasonings, so that's the number one thing.

Then, take, so you're boiling all of your corn at once, right? You eat one cob for lunch, you take the rest, and you just pull the-- Just cut all of the kernels right off. Just put them in a container, and put them in your fridge, and then they are there. You can make them into corn salads. You can throw them into corn sautés, and if you don't end up using them, that frozen corn goes into a Ziploc bag in your freezer, and in October, you're going to be like, "Yes, thank you, July me." [chuckles]

Alison Stewart: This says, "What do you do with all those fresh spring green onions?"

Melissa Clark: Oh, God, I love them so much. The thing about fresh spring green onions, is that they are much milder than the regular dried onions, which have been cured, so they've been dried and cured, and that you buy in the grocery store all year long, so you're benefiting from a crisp texture. They're very crunchy and they're very mild. I really like to use them in salads.

In fact, I make-- I don't put a lot of mature onions in my salads, because they are quite strong, but in summer, I will use them, cut into thick pieces on a tomato salad. Oh, this is one of my favorites. Watermelon. We're getting watermelon right now. Cut your watermelon, cut your tomatoes and your cucumbers into chunks. Chunks are nice here. Thick pieces of spring onion, some mint, some lime juice, and a lot of olive oil and salt. I eat this salad. I've been eating this salad every night for the past two weeks. [chuckles] It just makes me so happy.

Alison Stewart: That's so interesting, because our next question says, "Do you have a recipe for including watermelon in gazpacho?"

Melissa Clark: I do have a recipe for-- [laughs] As a matter of fact, I do have a recipe for putting watermelon in gazpacho. It's really a simple substitution, and it adds a more pronounced sweetness. Tomatoes are already sweet, but they're sweet, savory. Watermelon just makes it like, "Okay, this has a touch of sweetness," which is really nice, especially when you balance it with a little sherry vinegar, as is traditional in a gazpacho.

Just take out, I would say, about a third of the amount of tomatoes, so use two-thirds tomatoes, and one-third watermelon, either yellow or red, and just blend it, and you're going to get a little bit lighter, a little bit sweeter. There is a recipe at NYT Cooking for watermelon gazpacho. If you want to follow a recipe, you can find it there, and it's super simple.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Pat, who is calling in from Montclair. Hey, Pat, thanks for making the time to call all of it. You're on with Melissa Clark.

Pat: Hi. I just read so many different reasons to salt, or not salt your eggplant before making eggplant parmesan.

Melissa Clark: Ah, that is the eternal question, right. Okay. I think it really depends on two things. First of all, what kind of eggplant you have, and how fresh is it. If you're getting really small, sweet eggplant from the farmers' market, and you know it's really just been picked in the last week or so, I wouldn't salt it. I just don't think it needs it. It's like-- You know me, I like to not do an extra step, if I don't have to.

However, if you're getting those big, heavy eggplants from the supermarket, you're not sure how long they've been around. I will salt it in that case, just because what salting does, is it condenses. It draws out the moisture, so it makes them a little bit more-- It gives them more texture. It condenses their flavor, condenses their texture, and then when you fry them for the parmesan, they have a really nice chewy meatiness.

If I have a nice, fresh eggplant that has a very sweet flavor, I really don't want to do much to it. I really want to just leave it as fresh as possible, fry it really lightly, or even just bake it or roast it, and then do in my-- Put it in my Parmesan. This said, either way will work, so there's not one answer. Is it better to salt? It's really-- It depends on what you're looking for, and what kind of eggplant you have.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Melissa Clark, New York Times food columnist and cookbook author. We're here talking about summer produce. We want to hear some of your favorite summer recipes. Do you shop at the farmers' market? Are you swimming in summer produce? Do you need a little advice? Our phone lines 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. I'm going to dive in on zucchini. We see a lot of zucchini in the summer. This here is zucchini olive bread. Is this a sweet bread, a savory bread? A little bit of both?

Melissa Clark: No, it's a sweet bread. It's just your typical zucchini bread. I always make zucchini bread in the summer. I love zucchini bread. In the winter, I make banana bread. In the summer, I make zucchini bread. I always think, like, "I love banana bread best," and then I'll say, "No, I love zucchini bread best," and then in the fall, I'll make pumpkin bread and think, "That's my favorite." I love all the sweet breads.

It is sweet. It's not overly sweet, though. The recipe, which is at NYT Cooking is very basic. Basic meaning, simple, but it has a complex flavor, because, instead of regular neutral oil like canola or sunflower, I use olive oil. Olive oil and zucchini, as you know, is a fantastic combination. It's traditional, and olive oil in loaf cakes or quick breads is really nice, because it just cuts that sweetness a little bit, and adds an extra oomph to it, but it doesn't taste-- It's not going to taste like olives, or it's not going to taste savory. It just tastes a little extra, a little more.

Alison Stewart: Do you have any tips on shredding and measuring zucchini for baking?

Melissa Clark: Yes. That's a really good question. I like to shred my zucchini using the thicker, the larger holes on the grater. I do it in the food processor, and I find the largest holes. Really, you don't want to let it sit around, so when you grate zucchini, same thing with potatoes, or really any vegetables. If you let them sit, they are going to lose a lot of their moisture. You're going to end up with a puddle on the bottom of your bowl. You don't want that.

You want to grate it, and then get it into your baked good as soon as possible. Unless a recipe calls for squeezing it, which is a whole other thing, in which case, then you really want to take the moisture out of it. In fact, my colleague Ali Slagle has a great recipe, I think for a pasta where you squeeze the zucchini, and that really helps amplify the flavor.

For a zucchini bread, you are actually relying on that moisture. You want that moisture in the bread, because it's part of the liquid, so just grate it, and use it pretty quickly, and use the coarse, the big holes on the grater.

Alison Stewart: You suggest actually serving this with cream cheese, so how does that change the flavor profile?

Melissa Clark: I mean, think about like a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

Alison Stewart: Yes, I get your point.

Melissa Clark: [chuckles] You know what I mean? It's just so good. Except that I don't bother making frosting. It's like a little more savory. Or a date nut sandwich with cream cheese in the middle. Have you ever had that? A date nut bread sandwich? Oh, I love that.

Alison Stewart: No.

Melissa Clark: A childhood thing. My grandmother would make slices of date nut bread, cream cheese in the middle.

Alison Stewart: This says, "Hi, I'm planning on making Melissa's olive oil zucchini bread this afternoon. It's the best. Can you tell us what you like to do with Swiss chard?"

Melissa Clark: Yes, I can. This is-- Swiss chard is one of my favorites, because you can really use the stems in a way that's more satisfying than-- I think, Kale stems are really not that good. I'm just going to be honest. I love kale, but the stems are a little tough going to incorporate into dishes. You might hear from listeners who might disagree with me, and that's totally fine, but that's just my personal opinion, but Swiss chard stems are so good.

To me, it feels like you're getting a whole other vegetable. You get the greens, but then you also get these succulent stems. What I like to do, is I like to take the-- Separate the stems from the greens. I will chop up the stems, and they're beautiful. If you can get rainbow chard, it's red and yellow and white, it's really pretty, and you chop them up, and then I sauté them with onion and garlic, and sometimes I'll put a little jalapeno or chili, any kind of chili in there. Chili flakes are good.

Sometimes I'll put anchovy in there, and you sauté it for 10 minutes. You really want to get it to be nice and soft. Then, I'll add the greens into that same pan, and so you get, instead of just it being a pan of sautéed greens, you get this texture, and the succulents from the stem, so I really think we don't eat enough-- People forget that Swiss chard stems are edible. We don't eat enough chard, I think, in this country, and so I say, all of you, find some chard and try this, because it's really good and satisfying.

Alison Stewart: This is going to make you laugh, this text we got. It says, "My mom in Ohio says it's critical to lock your car time of year, especially at church. You'll find it chock full of zucchini, tomatoes, and corn when you return."

Melissa Clark: I wish I lived in Ohio. [laughs] I wish I had a car.

Alison Stewart: We'll give you some more things you can do with your zucchini, tomato and corn after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Melissa Clark. She's New York Times food columnist and a cookbook author. She is here to get us through this plethora of produce. If you have a question for Melissa Clark, our Phone number is 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We are talking produce. It's hot outside. You may not want to bake. Let's talk salad. Green salad with a tomato basil vinaigrette. Walk us through this.

Melissa Clark: Yes, this is a really good one, so I really love-- You know when you make a tomato salad, and you have that liquid on the bottom of the bowl after you've eaten all the tomatoes, and there's that just salty, vinegary tomato liquid, and you drink it. You do that, right, Alison? [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Okay, sure. Sure, I drink that.

Melissa Clark: Yes, so that's my favorite part of any tomato salad. I realized that if I could actually use that as the dressing, I can add that flavor to green salad as well, so it's a really simple, simple recipe. You just take your tomatoes, any kind, cut them up, and salt them ahead, and add a little vinegar and let them sit, and some basil and some garlic, and you just let it sit for a few minutes, so that just exudes some of its liquid, and the tomato water is so sweet, and it mixes with the vinegar and the basil and garlic.

Then, you use that as dressing, and so you add oil to that mixture, and you add all of your lettuce, or whatever else you want. I really like to add croutons to this one, because it's a very juicy salad, and the croutons are so good for just absorbing all of that flavorful tomato juice, so I will make homemade croutons, although you could buy croutons, but I highly recommend making homemade croutons, because they are so good.

Then, I will make croutons with-- If you have day old bread, that's perfect. It's dried out. You just fry it with some garlic and some olive oil, or if you have fresh bread, just toast it in your-- Just do it in a slow oven for a few minutes, just so it gets a little bit hard. You want dry bread whenever you're making croutons because the-- A drier bread is more able to absorb that garlic oil, and so you want that garlic oil, and then you put salt on it.

When I make croutons, I make a ton of them, and I put them out on the counter, and my kid eats them like potato chips. They're just so good. Then, in the salad with the tomato, and the basil, and the garlic, it's just a really nice, very substantial summer salad. I could just eat that salad for dinner with some cheese and call it a day.

Alison Stewart: This is Nick from Greenpoint. It says, "Melissa is an icon, and I would do any and every last thing she suggests. Any advice for dealing with an abundance of random CSA produce that isn't a salad, or doesn't involve firing up the oven?" Random produce. What do I do?

Melissa Clark: Random produce, no oven, go, and not a salad. Okay, so now we're talking the skillet. That's all we got left. Right? [laughs] I would take-- I would actually make-- You can sauté pretty much any summer produce, whether it's greens, zucchini. Winter produce, you get a lot of roots which are harder to sauté properly. You need a long time, and I prefer roasting them, but summer produce, random summer produce, throw it in your skillet.

The trick for cooking pretty much any produce, is you just need to add it into the pan in the order starting with the slowest cooking thing first. Take your zucchini, your random-- What other-- Let's see, what other things might you have. You might have some tender beets, actually, or some little radishes. You might have some random corn, in which case you take the kernels off the cob.

Just start it in your pan, and then you add your greens last, and so everything is cooking. You've got your things that take a longer time, and then you add your greens, which cook more quickly. No matter what you put in that pan, you want to make sure it's adequately seasoned, because you have the sweetness of all the summer produce, but you really need to add the spice, because that's what's going to get you to keep eating it.

I mean, I love chilies. If you have random chilies, throw them in there, but chili flakes works well. You know what else is really good? Chili crisp. That jar of chili crisp-

Alison Stewart: Oh, yes.

Melissa Clark: -in your fridge. That is the perfect partner, because it tastes good with all produce. It tastes good pretty much with everything, and so sauté everything, get it nice and soft. Maybe it's like a easy ratatouille. Maybe it's more of like a greens thing, and at the very end, just make a quick little sauce with your chili crisp. Maybe some olive oil, maybe some crushed garlic that's fresh, so it has that brightness. Throw it right in there, and that to me is an excellent dinner. If you have tofu, you can add it to that also, and then you have, or shrimp. Then, you have a complete dinner in a skillet.

Alison Stewart: All right, I have a confession, Melissa, I own many of your cookbooks, but the one that I spend the most time with is Kids in the Kitchen.

Melissa Clark: I love that.

Alison Stewart: Even when my kid's not in the kitchen, when it's just me. [chuckles]

Melissa Clark: [laughs] Because you're a kid at heart. I am too.

Alison Stewart: Can you give me a recipe using produce from Kids in the Kitchen, or a kid-adjacent recipe?

Melissa Clark: Yes. Well, can we do salad? Since I couldn't do salad for the last one?

Alison Stewart: Sure.

Melissa Clark: I love-- I mean, first of all, I think it's a myth that kids don't like salads. I don't know. What about-- How about your kids? I mean, my kids--[crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: No, sometimes he does. Yes, he does.

Melissa Clark: Yes, exactly. It's like, it just has to be-- I think the way to get a kid to like a salad, is to have them help make it, and they can put all their favorite things in it. One of my favorites is a baby kale, because baby kale is very cute, and it's very tender, and with avocado, because avocado is so creamy, and it's so easy to eat, so this baby kale avocado salad is a huge hit with my kid.

What I do to make it, is I like to have a creamy dressing. I always have yogurt in the fridge, but you could do buttermilk, but you want to add a little bit of mayonnaise, because mayonnaise just makes-- It's like this instant emulsification. It just, you put it in with your dairy products, either plain yogurt or buttermilk, a little bit of chopped herbs, and I personally love garlic and everything, so optional grated garlic clove, but you don't have to, or scallion, a little bit of lemon juice, and it just makes this really bright, almost like ranch-like dressing, and everybody loves ranch. Right on top of your kale with your avocado, toss it with your hands, especially, if you're with your kid, because what kid doesn't love to plunge their hands into a bowl of salad?

Alison Stewart: Or radio host who doesn't like to plunge their hands. [chuckles]

Melissa Clark: Or cooks like myself. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: This says, "I've been making mixed berry and cherry compote, no sugar needed. Just add a few tablespoons of freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, and a dash of cardamom, and cook down for about 30 minutes, so delicious." Thank you for that text. We should talk about fruit a little bit. You have a recipe here for summer berry buckle recipe.

Melissa Clark: Yes. [chuckles] It's so good, so a buckle. Isn't it a great word to say a "summer berry buckle"? It's an old American dessert. It's been in cookbooks since the 19th century, and it changes definition. A buckle is like one of those things, like a crisp or a cobbler, or there's another recipe called a grunt. These are all fruity desserts with a batter that just have fun names, or a Betty is another one of them.

Alison Stewart: I've heard of Betty.

Melissa Clark: Yep, a Betty. They're all interchangeable. The way that I interpreted buckle, is I make a very fruity coffee cake. It's almost as much fruit as batter, so you have all of your favorite berries, your cherries. Cherries are amazing right now. If you're in New York, go to the farmers' market and buy cherries, because they are just so good. Put all your fruit into the pan, and it's a very easy, very light batter.

What's so great about it, is that you can season it any way you want. If you love nutmeg or lemon zest, you can put it in. If you love vanilla, or a dash of bourbon, you can put it in, and it's a light brown sugar based recipe, this one has a caramel-y flavor. It's super easy. You just mix everything up. You've got your butter, simple batter, pour it over the fruit, and you'll see that there is as much fruit as batter. Bake it, and it's just this lovely, light, fruity coffee cake. I actually like it for breakfast. To me, slice of buckle is a perfect breakfast.

Alison Stewart: That does sound like a perfect breakfast. Another recipe you have for someone who's feeling a little fancy, is from your Dinner in French cookbook, roasted tomatoes with anchovy crumbs.

Melissa Clark: Am I talking too much about anchovies on your program, Alison? I apologize.

Alison Stewart: Never, never, never.

Melissa Clark: I love it. [crosstalk] I'm so happy that we're kindred spirits, and peaches too. I know we both love peaches. This recipe is, so you've got your tomatoes. This is a great thing to do with tomatoes. When you bought too many tomatoes, and they're on your counter, and you're like, "Hmm", you don't want to make marinara sauce, make roasted tomatoes, because they can be a little soft, and they're going to roast up just fine, and they really get concentrated, and they just get so sweet.

You take your tomatoes, cut them into chunks, put them in a pan with some olive oil, and the flavor comes from the garlicky anchovy breadcrumbs, and it's so easy to make. You just mince some garlic, you mince some anchovies, you've got your-- I love panko breadcrumbs, because they're very light and fluffy, and a little bit you can-- I love parmesan cheese in that and some olive oil, and you just sprinkle it on top.

Pop it into the oven, some lemon zest is good in that too, if you like. It's such an easy recipe. You do have to turn your oven on, but I also will make a small-- I'll do a little small version of it for just myself and my husband, and we'll, I'll just put in the toaster oven, and it just works really well, and it won't heat up your kitchen, so this is a great side dish. Again, this is the thing if you have that, and you have a loaf of really good bread, and some cheese, it's such a nice summer dinner.

Alison Stewart: I forgot to mention cucumbers. One cucumber recipe that someone can do in five minutes.

Melissa Clark: Okay. I love smashed cucumbers. We're going to go back to that chili crisp. Take your cucumber, smash them up. This is really fun too, because you get to smash your cucumbers, instead of cutting them, just whole cucumbers, trim them, smash them with a rolling pin until they crack open. Super fun, right? Throw them in a bowl, salt, break them up with your hands. Sesame oil, chili crisp, a little bit of soy sauce, and a little touch of oil, and then you just let them sit for a few minutes, and they are so good. They are impossible to stop eating.

Alison Stewart: Melissa Clark is a New York Times food columnist, and a cookbook author, and a friend of this show. Thank you so much for helping us walk through summer produce.

Melissa Clark: Thanks for having me.

Alison Stewart: Coming up, you know what borough has some great farmers' markets? Staten Island. We'll head there on tomorrow's show to talk about the things to do in the southernmost borough. It's part of our Summer in the City series. Call in and share your favorite things about Staten Island. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here tomorrow.