I partnered with EatingWell magazine to share some tips and pointers to go along with a beautiful recipe series their editorial team created that celebrates the summer table. All of the recipes feature fun spins on warm-weather dishes and highlight the best ingredients the season has to offer. While I love coming up with my own recipes and experimenting in my kitchen, there’s something really relaxing about working my way through a new recipe that someone else created. I got the opportunity to just that, and recreated all of the dishes from the summer table series at home! I’m sharing a bit more about each summer menu item and the ingredients that made them stand out – be sure to check out July-August issue of EatingWell magazine on newsstands now for all of the recipes. 
Tomato and Burrata Slab Tart. This simple slab-style tart is such a beautiful way to use juicy, colorful fresh tomatoes and is topped with everyone’s favorite: burrata. Our garden was bursting with different tomato varieties last summer and I’ll be saving this recipe for when we hopefully get to that point again this year (and you could even swap in other thinly sliced seasonal veggies like zucchini). The crust is super versatile; it’s made with cornmeal and creamy Meyenberg Goat Milk Butter which enhances the savory flavor in the tender pastry. It was my first-time using goat butter and it was such an easy swap in the recipe that I’d love to try it in other pastry dough recipes for that added richness! 
Walnut Pesto Pasta Salad. Pesto pasta is one of my all-time favorite summer barbeque side dishes. It’s been a staple at our summer table for as long as I can remember (my mom makes a great pesto tortellini salad!). This recipe uses flavorful California walnuts in place of traditional pine nuts and the toasted nutty flavor really shines through. I love the walnut flavor so much that I added a few extra chopped walnuts on top of the dish, which adds great texture and color to the tasty basil-packed dish. 
Spanish Burgers with Smoky Aioli. I haven’t had a burger this delicious in ages. This recipe knocked it out of the park. My husband and I were both raving about the taste in between every delicious bite. The burger has cooked mushrooms, smoked paprika, and sherry vinegar in the actual beef mixture and it was bursting with flavor. All of the elements built on top of that super-juicy burger made it even more stellar, like tangy pickles, a smoky paprika aioli, and grilled peppers. A burger is only as good as it’s bun, and we used Nature’s Own Perfectly Crafted Brioche Style buns. They have created a bun-loyalist out of me! The subtlety sweet and flavorful brioche with it’s perfect texture is going to be my pick for grilled sandwiches and burgers all summer long. 
“Grilled” Grilled Cheeses. Why have I never thought to make a grilled cheese on the actual grill? I used the EatingWell magazine recipe as a guide and set out bread, spreads, and fillings like tomatoes, sliced avocados and arugula to build grilled cheeses to cook directly on our grill. We all picked different combinations — I’m an avocado-arugula gal, my husband added ham and tomato to his – but we can all agree on Kerrygold savory cheddar cheese. The cheese, made with milk from grass-fed cows raised on Irish family farms, melts perfectly over the ingredients and pairs well with the grilled flavor on the toasty bread. 
Olive Oil Chocolate Chunk Blondies. I’m currently eating the very last piece of these olive oil chocolate chunk brownies we made from EatingWell’s recipe. The depth of the olive oil flavor, the rich dark chocolate, and the sprinkle of sea salt make these absolutely mouth-watering. We used the blondies to make a special dessert for our summery weekends at home – a blondie sundae! Top a blondie square with a big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, a drizzle of flavorful Torani Dark Chocolate sauce, and some chopped nuts to finish it off. You can’t see it in these pictures, but Jane is just out of the frame, licking her lips and begging to eat one (okay, maybe two). It’s such a simple but special treat to dig into on a warm summer night.
Be sure to grab a copy of the July-August issue of EatingWell magazine for all of the recipes, they’ll be on my table all summer long!
Please note: This post was created in paid partnership with EatingWell magazine. All opinions, images and content are my own. Thank you for supporting brands that support this site.
