Cold Cantaloupe Soup

Oh baby, nothing like cold soup in the summer. No stove. No oven. No heat.

Fruit soup is usually considered more of an appetizer or dessert course than the main event itself. It's up to you, really. You like fruit? Me too! Sounds like a meal!

Cold Cantaloupe Soup

(serves 4 as a side/app; 2 as the whole deal; total time about 10 minutes)

1 small cantaloupe, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks

1/3 cup orange juice

1/3 cup yogurt

1 Tbsp lime juice (lemon will do in a pinch)

1 Tbsp chopped mint

• Place everybody in food processor or blender and whiz, whiz, whiz until nice and creamy, about 1 minute (can be done in batches if you're working with a small machine). Store in refrigerator. Will keep about a week.

Cantaloupe Sorbet

If you ask me--and I'm sure you would, given the opportunity--the best thing about summer is not freedom from school or warm lazy evenings or even (gasp!) the Red Sox.

It's fruit.

Everywhere blooming, growing, weighing down bushes, sagging on vines, bursting with sweetness, ripening too quickly, then disappearing before you have the chance to get sick of it. Because David and I have been working hard at eating as locally as possible, and because we live just south of the North Pole, our fruit season is short. But don't pity us. We are extravagant (hence the bounty of cantaloupe recipes you've been/will be seeing). It is my personal goal to overindulge on every fruit in its season, so I can live without until it comes again.

I recently invested in a copy of Lindsey Shere's Chez Panisse Desserts, a brilliant but simple approach to enjoying the sweeter part of your meal in line with the seasons. Shere has a lovely way of bringing out the essence of whatever she's highlighting, not drowning it in cream cheese icing or pounds of cocoa powder. It is in this book that she includes a "sherbet" recipe for almost every fruit--and almost every recipe is identical.

Fruit + sugar = sorbet.

Cantaloupe Sorbet

(serves 3-4 but freezes nicely; start to finish 3 hours; requires food processor or blender)

1 medium cantaloupe

3/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp vodka or other liquor of your choice (optional)

1. Peel, seed, and cut cantaloupe into large chunks. Place in food processor or blender with sugar and liquor and process until smooth and sugar has dissolved. Place in ice cream maker and churn or pour into container and place in freezer, stirring every 30 minutes until frozen through.

Note: after a day or two in the freezer, this sorbet will firm up. A few days later, if it's still lingering, be sure to let it sit out for 10-ish minutes (or give it 20 seconds in the microwave) and stir well before consuming.

Cantaloupe-Chorizo Salad

It's cantaloupe season! That means icy cold, juicy melon chunks straight from the fridge--the perfect antidote to super summer heat. And since it almost hit 80º today, you know we're in need of some serious cooling. Phew! How about a no-cook meal featuring that vitamins A-, B-, C-, and potassium-packed fruit?

Meanwhile, Lynne Rossetto Kasper has been sending me emails lately, left and right. This woman cannot get enough of me or any of the other thousands of people who subscribe to her weekly newsletter but today she shot me a real winner of a recipe. With the CSA lettuce hanging out in my fridge, and the gigantor cantaloupe I just lugged home taking up precious shelf space, I decided to clean both out in one fell swoop. Oh, and make it all portable so I could meet up with David for lunch (hence, the cell phone photos).

All I needed was the sausage, no problem: spicy chorizo comes dried in most markets around here. But since that package of dried was so expensive and the individual links from the butcher were so not, I just grabbed a lone link and baked it off at home. If you can't find chorizo, linguica or andouille will sub in just fine.

Cantaloupe-Chorizo Salad

(adapted from LRK, see above; serves 1-2; potentially ready in 15 minutes or less)

Dressing:

1 small garlic clove, minced

sprinkle red pepper flakes

2 Tbsp fish sauce

2-3 Tbsp water

3 Tbsp rice wine or apple cider vinegar

1 Tbsp honey, agave, or sugar

Salad:

Lettuce for two: romaine, mesclun mix, or some nice combination thereof

1 cup 1-inch chunks of cantaloupe

6 inches chorizo, sliced thin*

1/4 white onion, sliced thin

2 Tbsp mint, chopped

2-3 Tbsp chopped peanuts or almonds

1. Throw together dressing ingredients and shake well. Set aside.
2. Make a bed of lettuce and top with fruit, sausage, onion, mint, and nuts and drizzle dressing over top. *If you are working with already cooked sausage, simply slice it into bite-size pieces. If you are like me and only wanted to buy enough for the one meal (i.e. a single link from the butcher), simply cook it in the oven at 350º for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through. Slice down the middle longways and open it out for faster cooking.